The Final Frontier Is Humanities Future.

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The debate about space exploration has been raging on for decades, people on both sides of the issue vehemently arguing their point of view. However despite the possible risk space exploration has the potential to change humanity for the better, and doing so is well worth the risk. This essay will elaborate some of the plethora of ways that space exploration could benefit mankind. Overpopulation is fast becoming a serious problem on earth, the exponential growth rate of the human race could have a disastrous effect on earth and it's recourses. (overpopulation citation) The growing population size has drained many of the worlds natural resources, and caused the depletion of many species. Earth will not be able to support humanities continued growth. Populations can only grow to their environments maximum threshold to support life, human beings are the first species on earth that has the ability to go beyond this barrier and colonize another environment for continued population growth. Not taking advantage of this opportunity would be throwing away humanities future. The ethical implications of space exploration and colonization are a widely debated topic, many people have begun to question what ethical right we have to colonize another planet given the way humans have polluted and destroyed our own planet. This assertion is somewhat logically flawed in that rapidly increasing population and urbanization are largely responsible for the damage being done to the natural environment, and colonation of other planets would drastically reduce these problems by giving humans more environments to inhabit and draw resources from. Colonizing other planets would alleviate the earth's overpopulation problem, leading to the continued prospe... ... middle of paper ... ...ithout doing so may lead to the end of humanity as we know it. Works Cited Citation Page Livingston, David. "Is Space Exploration Worth the Cost?" 21 Jan. 2008. The Space eview: Essays and Commentary About the Final Frontier. 4 March 2008 http://www.thespacereveiw.com/article/1040/1> Chamberlain, Andrew. "Pennies of Each Federal Spending Dollar." 7 Apr. 2006. The Tax oundation. 1 March 2008 McLean, Margeret R. "To Boldly Go: Ethical Considerations for Space Exploration." Feb. 006. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. 29 Feb. 2008 Greenberg, Richard, and B. Randall Tufts. "Infecting Other Worlds." American Scientis Jul-Aug.2001. 24 Feb. 2008

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