Nov 14, 2022 2 min read

Non-Obvious Benefits of Space Exploration

Space Exploration's many non-obvious benefits

Space exploration has many critics who ask why the Billions spent on this endeavour are not used instead to fix the many problems Earth faces. While at a surface level, Space exploration would take us to other planets and beyond and hopefully make us an interplanetary species in the future while also helping preserve the Human race in case of any extinction type event - there are countless other not so obvious benefits of space exploration which are little known to the non-space community.

Here are some of the obvious benefits of space exploration

Become a multi-planetary species
Continuation of the Human species in the event of a life extinction level event such as asteroid impacts, ice age, climate change and atmospheric loss
Learn to protect Earth against threats such as solar flares, radiation, greenhouse effects and magnetic pole changes

It has a ton of other not-so-obvious benefits for mankind which have, in fact helped progress our civilization on planet earth. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Competition has always brought the best out of the Human race. Some of the periods of significant technological advancements have been during great calamities. It is said that the 2 world wars produced the 2 best periods of technological advancement. The 3rd best period of technological advancement is widely believed to be during the space race between the USA and USSR (Soviet Union).

Some of the technologies that were developed during the space race are

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 The Lenses used in Action Cameras
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 Rechargeable Hearing Aids
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 Autonomous Drone Navigation
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 Vaccum Sealed Food
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 Shock-absorbing Sneaker Soles
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 Fireproof materials used in Firefighter Uniforms

 Quake-proofing technology used in Bridges and Buildings to resist Earthquakes

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 Water Purification Technology
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 Modern Vacuum Cleaners
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The Satellites we use today, which help us with navigation, communications and weather monitoring, were developed as a direct result of space exploration.

The International Space Station (ISS) which was built as a result of space exploration, is used to perform scientific research in physics, astronomy, astrobiology, meteorology and many other fields.

There is a ton of bio-medical research facilitated via space exploration as well. Apart from conducting biological experiments on plant and animal life, research is conducted on the cardiovascular system of astronauts and how the astronauts’ blood vessels change before, during and after the space missions are studied. Heart pumps which help keep people alive until a heart transplant donor is found was discovered with the assistance of space engineers.

Now let's address the argument of how it’d be better to use the money spent on space exploration to fix earth's problems! Here are the numbers on US expenditure on Tobacco vs Space Exploration.

Look at how much we're spending on a non-productive, disease making industry such as Tobacco compared to space exploration! We’re only talking about 1 such industry in 1 country. If we count all the non-productive sectors in the world, then the total expenditure on space exploration is a tiny fraction. However, space exploration brings in disproportionate amounts of obvious and non-obvious benefits.

Abbad Fowzan