The military industry is unnecessary, not space exploration. If saving money is the goal, look elsewhere first. There's so much unnecessary spending and hoarding of wealth for and by dumb shits respectively.

I think so.

How high the priority should be is a debate worth having, but space has many ways to wipe out a planet. Having two planets, having a permanent space station, could go a long way to increasing survivability.

Not only that, building in a vacuum, building in zero G, even building things under great pressure, all can allow us to build new materials with brand new properties.

Also, being able to sustain a small group of people somewhere completely contained an inhospitable can be utilized on earth to feed people at home, or recycle water at home.

It's good to keep in mind that the cost of space exploration vastly pales in comparison to most social programs which also vastly pale in comparison to the military budget.

We should absolutely focus on helping people on Earth, but we don't need to cut space exploration to do that, just war.

Is making pointy sticks necessary? Is flint knapping necessary? Is agriculture necessary? I'm pretty sure there were people asking these questions at each of those milestones of human development.

We have plenty of problems on the surface as it is! Why should we go underground? The surface has enough resources to sustain us right now. We don't even need mining, if we pick up enough surface rocks.

Space exploration is relatively cheap compared to our murder machines, and unlike the murder machines has practical benefits for a wide swath of people.

There's new innovations that come around in order to get into space, new innovations from discoveries made in space, and new innovations made because we've gone to space.

Some of these innovations even help address problems on our own planet. GPS helps keep planes from hitting each other (which was the catalyst for making high resolution GPS publicly available in the first place), satellite imagery aids in weather prediction and disaster response, even global communication is in part because of space travel.

I care less about finding backup worlds, but even that search gives us information about the needs of life and can hint at how life came to be--answers which may be helpful in some types of medical work.

Tardigrade can survive for a shockingly long time exposed to the harsh environments of space. We wouldn't have known that if we hadn't gone ourselves, and understanding why they can survive so long can help us look for ways to prolong resilience in other complex life forms and environments.

The knowledge gained about keeping people safe in space will be critical to keeping people safe in other extreme environments like through the ongoing climate catastrophe.

So for the sake of progress, yes, it's necessary. It's another frontier for humanity to explore, and the more we explore the more we find out about ourselves and how to help people.

We came from the stars, we should learn about our origins.

Yes, absolutely, science in general is necessary for any kind of desirable civilization. Space exploration contributes a massive amount of knowledge to scientific research and betters the human race.

But it shouldn't be a playground for billionaires to plan space hotels for ultra-wealthy clientele. Public works for the public good, for the betterment of our human race as a whole, not just for the super rich.

Space exploration falls into the category of "luxury spending" for me. Only when every human on Earth is fed, clothed and housed should we be looking out to the heavens.

One important feature is the psychological unification. Space becomes a "common enemy" to humanity. And humans work well under a common enemy.

Why not. Not like that money would be put to better use elsewhere.

I thought this was about factorio. :(

Yes

Of course not, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. We go to space because it’s cool and we can, and that’s a beautifully human thing to do. As for the money, it’s a baseline fact of this world that enormous sums will be spent on things that don’t fix our problems, and space is as good a use as any for that wasted cash. If it were space or solving hunger, solving hunger is the obvious priority, but practically speaking it’s “don’t solve hunger and go to space” or “don’t solve hunger.”

Another commentee has already said that Artemis is a political stunt. I believe it's worked magnificently. Space travel is being used to whitewash USA's reputation and at the same time display the US' continued military and technological dominance. It's another message to all other countries in the world that they are going to stay slaves to US imperialism and dictatorship.

As shown by the comments here, the USians have no problem with their government if they get to see shiny new nerd pictures.

Strictly, no. The human spirit yearns for it though, and I think it shoukd be given a treat from time to time.

Yes

In grand scale of things is it really that much money?

Many people find hope in exploration, discovery, and pushing physical frontiers. These were necessarily parts of human history that shaped our intuitions and desires and I think without new frontiers people get cynical or bored that can lead to some awful behaviors and outcomes. It's the same with scientific research it doesn't need to take the majority of the public funds but there is a minimum especially for some planetary scale science efforts.

We have so many problems to fix isn't a good reason not to explore and inspire, I'm sure there were ancient people who thought investing in roads was a waste of public funds why do we need to connect to other cities or lands if we have problems already, but some of those problems were resolved with trade or treaties or pluralistic cultures the roads allowed.

Space tech can be dual use, as military tech to destroy usa. This way we can explore space, and solve the problem at home as well.

Spaceflight creates jobs.

Humanity has already outgrown the cradle called earth, the longer it takes us to leave it behind the greater the risk that will destroy it and ourselves.

Do you rather propose we stop producing movies, adult content and series and use that $$$ to space exploration?

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/etimes/trending/chandrayaan-3-lands-successfully-isros-moon-mission-budget-less-than-christopher-nolans-interstellar-elon-musk-responds/articleshow/102988184.cms

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=E6c4IjUO0HY

If it will eventually be possible to travel to a new planet or mine other planets and asteroids for materials instead of destroying our own planet, than absolutely it's worth it.

If that's all a pipe dream than space exploration is really just a waste of money.

We should explore space with semiautonomous robots. We can do space exploration at maybe a quarter of the cost of sending humans to do it.

Flood Mars with exploratory rovers for years. Then mining robots. Then manufacturing robots. Have them build facilities that build more robots to expand the process exponentially .

Then, if we decide it’s even worth it at that point, have them build a city and send people.

The cheapest way to maintain control over the globe via military force is to establish a moon operation that runs at only a slight deficit and hold the specter of lunar regolith asteroid strikes over every person on the planet earth.