Essay About Space Exploration

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Next, Manned space exploration tends to be more beneficial than unmanned exploration. Even though these missions are more expensive than a typical mission, the a significantly larger amount of data is returned. For example, A mission to Mars would be somewhere between 5 to 10 times as expensive than the Apollo missions, but the amount of knowledge gained from these missions would far outweigh the costs. A more diverse and larger collection of rocks would be returned, plus more ground to cover, as Mars is a larger body than the moon (Keller). This situation is similar to the Apollo moon missions in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. While the project did cost a staggering $25.4 billion, the knowledge gained far outweighed the cost of the mission.…show more content…
For example, Several long term projects have given several jobs, like testing equipment for exploration. Spokesman Guy Webster from NASA said that the Mars Rover Curiosity is currently supporting 700 people, but has had 7,000 people work on the project at different times over the past decade (Smith). This article reveals that large and involved projects, like the curiosity rover, required several different teams over the years working on different systems. Also, projects like this can help businesses generate a larger workforce. The Curiosity project’s $2.5 billion budget has created jobs not just for NASA but for business from Lockheed Martin to bicycle companies in Chattanooga, Tennessee (Smith). This is proof that space exploration can actually shrink the amount of people who are unemployed in the United States. But like any issue, there are some people who say that missions in orbit are a waste of money and a government agency should be doing more than just staying in orbit. Fortunately, private industries could benefit from freeing up Earth orbit. Space exploration continues because of the public’s interest in the achievement of the knowledge returned. However, there are several ways to take advantage of space that could provide money for private companies like SpaceX, but would be unnecessary for governments (Atkinson). Basically, the article is stating that letting the private sector to launch satellites into earth

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