Is it right to invest in space exploration when there is an unsolved climate crisis on earth?

For more than 50 years, humans have explored space, providing a flow of benefits to society. However, space exploration comes at a cost and with the rise of ample problems here on earth, some may be lead to believe whether or not it's even worth the large funding. Nevertheless, the success has been impressive and continues the advancement of science and technology for mining, healthcare, and environmental and energy industries.

Asteroids contain a plethora of metals and raw materials ranging from iron and nickel to very valuable metals such as gold, silver and platinum. Building mines in space would not only significantly boom the economy, it helps relieve humanity's destruction of our planets environment by removing mining on earth.

In addition, mining these raw materials in space could help create the tools we needed to alleviate the current environmental crisis. "Solar panels, electric cars and energy- saving light bulbs all rely on elements that are increasingly rare on Earth, such as platinum." (Pearson, 2018).

Exploring in space has helped the medical field a great deal. More specifically, NASA's image processing technology that was "first developed to allow computer enhancement of images of the moon" (Scherman, 2016), enabled a number of advances in medical imaging technology such as CTs and CAT scans.

"Another medical breakthrough that resulted from NASA's image processing technology is chromosome analysis. This process involved the use of "mounting tiny cameras on microscopes, providing methods of photographing human chromosomes in ways scientists never could" (Scherman, 2016).

Lastly, the environmental and energy sectors greatly benefit from space exploration. Light emitting diode chips (LED) were first developed as a light source to grow plants in space. They provide high energy efficiency and virtually no heat all while releasing waves of heat 10 times brighter than the sun. Consequently, this resulted in more energy efficient light sources in homes and facilities.

In addition, it has been discovered that "LEDs can activate light-sensitive drugs used to treat tumors that, when injected intravenously, can completely destroy cancer cells without causing extensive damage to surrounding tissue" (Scherman, 2016).

Another case where space exploration greatly impacted the environment was NASA's water purification technology. Their water purification technology was developed a method to filter water for manned space missions.

After putting it worldwide, "at risk areas at-risk areas can gain access to advanced water filtration and purification systems, which has resulted in life-saving strides toward human survival on a planetary level" (Kiger, 2017).

While these advancements in technology are significant, they fail to address the immediate need for climate action; both through policy changes and investment changes right now (IPCC, 2018).

NASA's budget for 2019 is 21.5 billion USD (Grush, 2019) but the funding for environmental groups in the US is 2 billion dollars; none of that going to international climate efforts like the Green Climate Fund (GRF) or the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC (Thwaites, 2019). Canada's Space Agency has an annual budget from the government of $260 million [3], while Canada's climate budget is $575 million [4].

The IPCC states with high certainty that by 2025, there will be irreversible effects from climate change, with increased levels of public unrest, political instability, and poverty unless immediate action is taken towards net-zero carbon emissions.

They also state that if priorities shift quickly enough, we may not reach the 1.5C global temperature increase that we will not be able to come back from (IPCC, 2018). Is it ethical to spend billions on space exploration, especially missions to colonize Mars, if we are not willing to do what is necessary on our current planet to ensure our survival here?

As per Locke's rights ethics (Gehr, 2019), climate change already infringes on people's rights as it disproportionately affects poor people and only in certain geographical regions (IPCC, 2018). As such, consciously allowing this to continue without action is unethical.

If no action on climate is taken now, the number of people affected negatively by climate change will only continue to increase (IPCC, 2018). As such, an increasingly large number of people will benefit from investment in climate action which would be the most ethical choice by Mills' Utilitarianism principle (Gehr, 2019). Space exploration has potential to benefit all of humanity, however there is no guarantee when and how it will and as such is a risky benefit to rely on.

Lastly, by Aristotle's virtue ethics (Gehr, 2019), it is selfish to believe that we as a species deserve to survive a problem we condemned the Earth to. It could be argued that it is unethical to only try to preserve our own species when we could make changes and help other species on Earth as well.

In conclusion, space exploration has many benefits to humanity and does still deserve financial and intellectual investment, however the current lack of at least equal investment in climate action, is an unethical prioritization.

References:
Boucher, M., 2018-02-14. The Canadian Space Agency has Underspent its Budget for the Last 17 Years. Accessed online 2019-03-24

Environment and Climate Change Canada, 2018. Departmental Plan 2018 to 2019 report, Environment and Climate Change Canada, chapter 4. Accessed online 2019-03-24, at

Gehr, R., Lecture 1: Ethics and Responsibility. Lecture given in January, 2019. Grush, L., 2019-02-15. Newly signed funding bill gives NASA's budget a significant boost. Accessed online 2019-03-24.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2018. Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5C. Accessed online 2019-03-24, at https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/ ISECG, 2013. Benefits Stemming from Space Exploration. Accessed online 2019-03-23

Kiger, P., 2017. 10 Reasons Why Space Exploration Matters to You. Accessed online 2019-03-23, at https://science.howstuffworks.com/10-reasons-space-exploration-matters.htm Pearson, E., 2017. Space Mining: The new goldrush. Accessed online 2019-03-24.

Scherman, J., 2016. 10 Ways Space Exploration Has Helped Launch Modern Technology. Accessed online 2019-03-23.

Thwaites, J., 2019-02-20. US Climate Finance Improves with 2019 Budget, but There is Still a Long Way to Go. Accessed online 2019-03-24.

Related Links
McGill University Faculty of Engineering
Climate Science News - Modeling, Mitigation Adaptation

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