What Is The Point Of Exploring Space by Gerry O.
Today, I am going to get away from discussing Hollywood, movies and entertainment in general. I want to take a look at something that movies like to talk about, something that lately has been occupying everyone’s attention – space exploration. In the mid 1900s we had a space race with Russia and other countries to get out of the atmosphere. The U.S. got to the moon first, but Russia got to space first. I guess that might be called a tie. Now, what if I told you it is happening again?
NASA has made plans to go to Mars, which is almost a four-year mission. And, they aren’t the only ones interested. In United States, quite a few independent parties are keen on getting people to space as well. Other countries are also trying to get some of their people onto the big red ball. It makes you think, why explore space? I mean, we have so many problems on our cozy little blue ball called Earth. Why not just focus on fixing global warming, starvation and the education issues of future generations? Well, eventually our cozy little blue ball will become a bit too little. Our population right now is 7 billion. In 2023 we will hit 8 billion. In 2041, we will hit 9 billion. In 2062, we will hit 10 BILLION people on planet Earth. This may seem like some random number. “Yeah, 10 billion humans are alive, wahoo!” is what you are probably thinking. But that is not the case. At the moment millions of people here on Earth are starving. If we hit 10 billion as a worldwide population, the Earth’s resources will not be able to support all of us. It won’t just be people in Africa, or China or the United States, all of us will be hungry. Not only that, but land will get tighter, water supply will go down and there will be fewer and fewer forests. Earth will be like a sponge that we have squished out all the water out of.
This is why it is so important to study space, not only to look upon our own planet better, but to explore potential a new place to live. Because eventually, whether we’re looking at land, or food, or water, or power or wood, we will run out. Soon, we will need some of the population to go somewhere else. The best option in our Solar System, at this point, is Mars – the red, attractive planet that seems so desolate and pointless, with just a reddish rock here and there. Its surface resembles the desserts of Nevada, only they cover a whole planet. Now we know that Mars not only has water, it used to have quite a bit of it. All those crusts and channels you see in pictures of Mars? That used to be water. Hopefully by 2062, when we do hit 10,000,000,000 people, we will have already converted a large part of Mars into a “New Earth.” Now imagine that?
