Well… short term no it’s not necessary (although as other folks have said on the thread it does give some technology advancements, and gives humanity a warm fuzzy sense of achievement)

Long term, it depends on the eval criteria

1. If we want the human race to live as long as possible, then I would say yes - to diversify, distribute and minimise the risk of planetary (Earth) failure
2. If we don’t give a toss about the human race then no, the Universe will be just fine without us

Only if music is.

Yes, but I think the efforts right now should go into solving the climate crisis rather than going to the moon.

The cheapest way to maintain control over the globe via military force is to establish a moon operation that runs at only a slight deficit and hold the specter of lunar regolith asteroid strikes over every person on the planet earth.

Idk about physically but psychologically it’s very important

yes. there’s two branching discussions here:

• Space as a scientific topic, it needs to be understood. Our observation of reality is very local, and although we can prove that some of our assumptions about physics, life and civilization work on our neighborhood, it doesn’t mean that they’re the same everywhere. That alone is sufficient reason for me, to explore.
• Space as the new frontier. Many if not all exploration done on planet Earth has been, in some shape or form, resource-motivated. Lands, food, medicine, minerals, routes, are all found through exploration and normally through people spending money looking for a return over investment. Space is no different.

I think the interesting part is where this two branches touch: If we ever plan on capturing an asteroid for mining, the technology needs to be there to do it, and hopefully the technology is about the benefit of all humankind. This kind of development is showing us the way to move forward and solve problems. Imagine a world when we don’t need to destroy ecosystems in order to get iron because all iron comes from off-world.

All attempts to discover how the universe works benefits us. Even a lot of really esoteric stuff has proven useful in fields like medicine and civil engineering.

Honestly if we can pivot our high tech innovation efforts from being mainly driven by military needs to being driven by basic research (basic in this case meaning researching the natural world directly without any particular goal other than learning), we’d be a lot better off.

Space exploration is not the only thing that generates spin off effects. It’s not the only interesting science. Directly funding research into solving real problems actually works. So yes, I think it should be funded, but at this point, unmanned missions are a much better way to spend the resources: for the same money you get more science, more spin off, more everything. Just less spectacle. Space will not be profitable, or habitable in this century and that’s fine.

Ultimately, space exploration is outside the realm of production and will stay there at least for a long time. Therefore, what we spend on it is part of our societal surplus: the value we collectively create, that is left over after reproducing society. What happens to that value should be decided democratically. But in capitalism, it isn’t. Corporations control almost all the surplus and spend it on what’s profitable for them. All of space funding in the US is just crumbs falling off the table of the military industrial complex mixed with the potential for propaganda.

For example, all those year, when Hubble was the best telescope, the imperial oppression apparatus had multiple of Hubble sized telescopes whose potential was wasted on intelligence gathering for wars. Then they got even better ones and offered a few of the left overs to NASA, but NASA couldn’t even afford to make use of several free Hubble sized telescopes.

Yes.

Absolutely and unequivocally yes. Nothing should constrain the boundaries of scientific study in space, especially now that our years are numbered due to climate change and dumbass fascists and dictators with launch codes. Whities on the moon, while a noble and valuable sentiment, should be altered to whities on patrol or something.

I’m so sick and tired of seeing Americans bitch about space exploration colonialism and remain silent on the colonialism that continues to kill and exploit Innocent people across the world.

Yes, we need better social infrastructure desperately, but that should come at the cost of terrestrial imperialism, not space exploration.

The impact to society from space exploration is immense if not immeasurable.

• Weather forecasting
• GPS navigation
• Earth sciences
• Robotics
• Medical imaging

NASA has a website dedicated to the topic, as do other agencies around the world.

• https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/benefits-to-humanity/
• https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/about/everyday-benefits-of-space-exploration/
• https://www.space.gov.au/why-space-matters
• https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Benefits_of_space_science

There’s also a Wikipedia page on the topic:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefits_of_space_exploration

Necessary, yes. Furthering our knowledge of the cosmos is a worthwhile pursuit for its own sake. That being said, the sudden focus on NASA is pure political distraction, a clumsy attempt to foment nationalism that isn’t going to be as effective as its architects were hoping.

Looking at the list of government expenditures, I don’t see space exploration as problematic as other things we are spending money on.

Necessary? No. Not much except eating, drinking and breathing is. Even reproduction is optional from the view of a single individual.

A good idea? Absolutely:

1. Exploring space tells us a lot about earth. We currently assume that the moon formed when something big collided with earth and threw lots of material into a stable orbit. This means moon is probably made of the same materials as earth and because there is no erosion nor tectonic activity on the moon, it lets us study what earth may have looked like billions of years ago.
2. Lots and lots of things that were originally developed for space are very useful on earth: teflon coating, memory foam matresses, efficient solar panels and many more. Sure, they could have been developed without space exploration but the pressure to get something exactly right helped a lot. And of course we directly use satellites for a lot of earth stuff, too. Think tv, weather prediction, monitoring of climate change, communication, GPS, accurate maps and many more.
3. It gives humanity something to unite behind. Even during the cold war, the USA and the Soviet Union ignored their feud for a bit to make Apollo-Soyuz happen. These days, the ISS is one of the biggest multinational projects and I dread the day it gets decommissioned because Russia will have one less reason to talk to the rest of the world.

From a risk assessment standpoint, space exploration is a VERY good investment. We need to be on multiple planets, preferably in multiple solar systems or even multiple galaxies.

BUT. It absolutely must be paired with NOT destroying the planet we have! This is the only planet we’ve got right now and the only one we’ve got a guarantee on habitability - if we don’t fuck it up.

So yes, space is vital. But so it protecting this place.