Saturday 27 December 2014

Essay 59 (Life on Other Planets)

Some people think that government should invest money to study life on other planets, while others say that it is waste spending money on such things when earth itself has lot of problems.  To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Space agencies in many countries are now taking great efforts to find signs of life on other planets.  However, certain people think that it is unreasonable to waste money and efforts on such futile projects, when there are more serious issues left unsolved on our own planet.  I support the latter view.
To begin with, it is improbable/unlikely that there is any life on other planets and spending for this purpose would be a very unwise use of taxpayers valuable money, which would be better spent on human welfare.   For instance, NASA has been investing billions of dollars over the last couple of decades in space shuttles and telescopes to spot traces of extraterrestial life, with hardly any positive results, whereas the social security system in the US has been severely affected due to such unreasonable spending.
Moreover, looking for evidence of life on other planets would be of little use to human beings, except for experimental purposes.  Money used for expensive space expeditions should be deviated/diverted towards human welfare schemes such as education, healthcare, housing and social security.  For example, the government of India spent many billions of rupees on the recent Mars project, whereas a major proportion of Indian population is still below poverty line.  The success of this mission did enhance the prestige of India, but hardly benefitted the nation in any other ways.  Countries like India should not waste money in discovering life on Mars, but spend it for alleviating poverty or improving the basic infrastructure of the nation.
In conclusion, spending on expensive space programmes to search for extraterrestrial life is not worthwhile, while many problems on earth are left unattended.

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