Coming back to ourmain question, “should we take a break?”. In my opinion answer is obviously no!”Why?”, this must be a question that might be hovering around your mind. Theanswer to this doubt of yours is quite simple. In order to find that simplesolution, you must answer this question, “Is it possible for us to defy thegreatest power?”. No, it is impossible. Similarly, we cannot counter mankind’sgreatest power, which is “curiosity”. This curiosity makes us research more andmore, to find the secrets of an infinite beauty, that is our “cosmos”.Now, let’s gothrough some of the technologies developed as a result of spin-offs: Breastcancer detection, Space blankets, satellite television, memory foam, invisiblebraces, scratch resistant lenses, cordless tools, water filters, adjustablesmoke detectors, and last but not the least, CAT scanners; these are alldeveloped in cooperation with NASA.
As a matter of fact, there are manyadvantages of these technologies to our society.Wecannot possibly tell that all this space exploration is useless. If you thinkthat there is no advantage of these exploration, then you must learn about”spin-offs” first. NASA spin-off technologies are all the products (for public)and services or facilities developed by NASA, in co-operation with otherprivate researching or commercial company. NASA is constantly trying to develop technologies with any assistancepossible, which as a result is, for the betterment of us mankind.
This”spin-offs” also helps scientists (who may be working in private aerospacecompanies) to come up with innovative ideas; while NASA turns those ideas intoreality. Appoint to be noted, it is not only NASA benefitting from spaceexploration, but other major space agencies like: CNSA (the Chinese NationalSpace Agency), ESA (the European Space Agency), ISRO ( the Indian Space Research Organization), JAXA (the Japanese space agency),Roscosmos (the Russian space agency) too.Then what aboutthe money we spend on space? Is it all a waste? Is there even an advantage ofspending money on space?To be honest, wecan take a break at this point. But how is that possible? That is because, ifwe through an enormous amount of statistics we an answer to this question; “howmuch money is needed to totally end poverty?” As per the result of thecalculation, we, approximately, need $175 billion for twenty years to diminishpoverty; according to Jeffrey Sachs book, “The End of Poverty”. So, if wedivert all the money being spent on space towards fighting for hunger, then itwill only be a matter of some year for the hunger to perish its existence. Whatare we waiting for, now? We can save all those innocent lives if we do so.
Let’s take a lookat the cause of hunger in our world. First, one of the major cause of hunger, worldwide,is “poverty”. Most of the people who are hungry live in extreme poverty, withan income of $1.25 per day or less, as specified by “bread.
org”. For which, jobinstability and unstable market is to be blame. In simple terms, a country’seconomy needs to develop to see a declining line on the graph, labelled:”deaths caused by hunger”. We have progresseda lot into this world of space and science; yet we continue to do more, byspending billions of dollars on it every year. However, it’s not only the rateof developing technologies we have progressed in, but also the rate of peopledying of hunger each day too. According to “World hunger and poverty”, about21,000 people starves to death every day. If this is the situation of our worldthen, “Why do we need to spend billions and billions of dollars on space, when peopleare dying of hunger on earth?”.
This arises a question in mind, “Is thisdevelopment is really important? or we should simply take a break?”