Space for a better space race!

The scramble for space...

On March 26, US Vice President Mike Pence announced Washington's determination to pursue space exploration. He was speaking to a gathering at the National Space Council. Referring to China and Russia, Pence insisted that the US was now in a space race:

Make no mistake about it, we're in a space race today, just as we were in the 1960s, and the stakes are even higher...

Bases on the moon and manned missions to Mars no longer seem to be far off and the US wants to be ahead of the game. Indeed, so do the Russians and Chinese. China landed a probe on the far side of the moon in January. This was a new milestone in space exploration. Putin, too, has also made his ambitions clear and suggests that Russia will overtake the US. This is all very exciting. Space exploration is not just pie in the sky. Whether you believe in the veracity of the moon landing claims or not, the technology is certainly up to the challenge now. Also, as well as the wealth of information  we can glean form such missions, colonising other planets could one day prove a lifeline to humanity. But...

Getting our priorities right

Is space really a priority? Should the billions of dollars that this would cost not be spent on more urgent issues? Climate Change, the Sixth Mass Extinction (Holocene Extinction) and the current Refugee Crisis are examples of issues that are considerably more immediate and pressing. Our ship is sinking, should we not be bailing water out and fixing the leaks, rather than bird-watching from the decks? 

NASA's current budget is in excess of $20 billion. Figures for Russia and China are harder to gauge, but they certainly cannot be spending much less. Furthermore, the EU, various countries, such as India, and private companies, such as Tesla, are spending heavily on space programmes. The total expenditure would certainly be astronomical!

A win-win solution

The tragedy is the fact that we could have our cake and eat it. Billions of dollars could be saved for urgent issues, while space exploration could continue even more effectively. All that would be needed is for us to abandon our competitive drive when it came to space, and to work cooperatively. Pooling resources together could easily double the amount spent by the highest spender and still leave billions for urgent issues on earth. This would have the added benefit of bringing nations together in joint challenges and spare space our petty parochialism.