Is it a luxury or a necessity?

“Oh, Daniel, space travel is so expensive and pointless!” These are the words my friend Max said during a Christmas party where I was discussing my thesis project. The idea is to study places on Earth where living conditions are so extreme that they may provide lessons for future space missions.

This dismissive attitude towards space research is actually quite common.

Space exploration is currently booming. Think of the Artemis mission, SpaceX’s ambitious plans for Mars, the deployment of the James Webb telescope, or the recent “Race to the Moon.”

Currently, a number of large-scale projects, primarily from NASA, have been given the green light, including the Artemis II mission that will take four astronauts to the moon. Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen will be on board. This has been the case since 1972. It’s hard to believe that 50 years have passed since the last human mission to Earth’s natural satellite.

While many people find space exploration exciting, others are skeptical or even angry, seeing it as an unwarranted waste of resources and money on an activity that only spreads pollution elsewhere. This sums up my friend Max’s feelings.

In this article I will try to prove him wrong.

humans are explorers first

My strong curiosity led me to travel to study extreme places.. But I’m not alone in this inquisitive spirit.

In a ninth-grade history class, the teacher stood over her desk and, in a grave, serious tone, continued to act out Jacques Cartier’s arrival in North America in her own colorful style. A few years ago, I learned about how the first humans left caves and climbed mountains. 130 years ago, humans continued sailing further south until they caught their first glimpse of the glacial landscape of Antarctica.. At the same time, humans sought to control the skies and aimed beyond with planes and rockets, which was how they reached the moon.

What do we have in common in our history? Exploration, of course.

Human nature is characterized by a tendency to travel, to see and discover further afield. We are all curious by nature. When we no longer want to explore, we cease to be human.

the earth has a ring

So, my friend Max, let’s invite you out. It’s a moonless night with a beautiful starry sky. It’s a bit colder, but at least the atmosphere isn’t too humid and the sky is clearer. I see the stars flickering. Some are blue, some are red. And the more our eyes adjust, the more the sky reveals its secrets.

Suddenly, something else stands out. This is also a light, but it is not blinking and is moving fairly quickly. shooting star? No, the atmosphere will burn it out in a few seconds..

It’s one of the thousands of satellites orbiting Earth Like a ring. These satellites are a direct result of space exploration. Without them, we would be living in a completely different world.

In fact, there is hardly an hour in our lives when we are not using satellites..

On the other hand, Max, you may have gotten lost on your way here. There was no GPS to show me the exit. And secondly, without Wi-Fi, I wouldn’t have been able to help you find your way. We can push our ideas further. Agriculture, environmental monitoring, communications, weather, and even banking all rely on satellites.

But how does this work? You need to understand that these satellites move very fast and actually orbit the Earth several times a day. Combined with so many employees, you get a complete picture of the entire planet. We look everywhere, from the middle of the ocean to the highest mountains to the almost inaccessible polar regions. By utilizing this huge amount of observation results, We enable global communications and credit card transactions while capturing data on changes in the Earth’s surface, the spread of forest fires, wind movement, ice melting, and more..

The opportunity to develop and operate these technologies was space exploration. And that’s not all.