Persuasive Essay On Space Exploration

The interest surrounding travel to Mars started in the 1950s with gaining sight of the new planet. Today, people continue to argue over whether the United States and NASA should continue its expansion by exploring Mars and the solar system. Looking at past experiences with going into space, there have been advances, such as going to the moon, as well as problems like space shuttle mishaps. American society continues to look towards the future for new information including space exploration; however people also do not feel it is necessary to have human space exploration, but people are still intrigued by competition over space exploration. For example, the ‘Space Race’ between the United States and Russia when trying to gather as much information

An article from the Christian Science Monitor, “NASA and Obama's budget: the politics and ideals of human space exploration”, discusses how lawmakers in the United States government do not agree with sending anymore people into space. They feel, “Too many Americans and lawmakers reacted negatively to the initial White House plan for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration”. That plan has a goal to invest in America’s global leadership and competitiveness and to maximize the use of taxpayer dollars. The article continues to say that lawmakers still see human exploration to specific destinations in space as a “compelling frontier - not just for the nation but humanity, too”. They feel that it is too dangerous in the way that it would look bad for the country, and for humanity in general. Obama said that he would also like to see people be able to learn and function outside of Earth’s boundaries. But, the American society must find a ‘political middle’ in order to support NASA’s wishes and the American people. Likewise, from the Pew Research Center, writer Brian Kennedy helped to conduct a 2014 poll on how “Americans and scientists agree on the value of space exploration, but disagree on the importance of human astronauts”. He writes, “A majority of Americans (59%) considered the use of human astronauts in the future to be essential, while 39% viewed astronauts as not essential. AAAS members were closely divided, with 47% saying that human astronauts are essential and 52% saying they are not”. AAAS members are involved in the American Association for the Advancement of Science. These experts feel that human space exploration is not needed in society because machines can do the same research avoiding less risk for