Are the space missions indispensable?

Satellites are necessary. But these missions to other planets seem to be very much extravagant. When many millions of people cannot meet the necessities like food and shelter, do we need to find other habitat outside our planet? Couldn鈥檛 we raise the standard of living of common people with that much enormous money?
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no planet in our solar system can accomodate humans. mercury and venus are too hot, saturn and jupiters gravity will crush you into a pulp, and the planets beyond them are too cold. mars is the only reasonable solution to a "new home". although i dont think most humans would appreciate -140 degrees C in winter and 20 degrees C in summer. and mars' atmopshere is 95% carbon dioxide, which is exactly the opposite of what we need on earth

There are compelling scientific reasons to explore the solar system, although the necessity of sending a human to Mars as opposed to more advanced robots seems to be more about politics and the new "space race" than about actual science.

As far as helping to raise the world standard of living, space is not the only thing we can live without (and should, but that's not the reality we live in).

You've made a good point. However, no matter how much money we spend on curing the ills here on Earth, the day *will* come when we're going to have to either move off of Earth and find a new home, or come up with other resources required to maintain our civilization. No matter how much more kindly we treat our planet, its resources are not infinite and space offers at least a chance to compensate.

We could feed every man, woman and child on this Earth for more than two years with one year's worth of our defense budget. What's more important?

Now, of course I know that it isn't a good idea to get rid of our military but, the point is made.

Money spent on the military in 2007: more than 600 billion dollars (and increasing each year)
Money spent on NASA in 2007: less than 16 billion dollars (and decreasing each year)

:o) I'll rant a little more...
Who's wasting money? Who's more efficient?

If we divided the 2007 defense budget among everyone on Earth, it would equal about 85 U. S. dollars per person. Do you know what we could do with that much money? Not only feed people, but give them shelter, water, health care, et cetera...

Like I said, it isn't plausable to rid the U.S. of its millitary, especially now, but there must be a way. In 2008, it is estimated that the U.S. will take it about 2.5 TRILLION dollars. That's a lot of money. Even if we spent just one tenth of that money on helping the rest of the world, the world would be a very different place within just a decade or two. We could train people and fix the land to end hunger. We could...well...you get the idea.

So, don't go off about NASA trying to further the knowledge and progress of the human race...16 billion dollars is almost nothing in these United States.

There are no science reasons to send people. Never were, never will be.

But since Lockheed Martin and Boeing "need" government pork, we will send people anyway.

In some ways this is more a social sciences question. It is all about the priorities that people set on things, whether those people be individuals or groups of some kind with a common belief.
I am a scientist, an astrophysicist, and I am full of wonder at the things we can discover in space. Yet I also give thousands of dollars every year to missions and aid projects in Asia. I know my priorities, but I do not begrudge money spend on space exploration. It is like someone you know becomes a millionaire (yes, I have known such people): When others find out about it, many start trying to monitor that person, to make sure they have the right priorities, and that they are giving enough to science, animal welfare, church missions or whatever. It is easy to look at my priorities and disagree with me, but I might well do the same to you and that would only cause resentment. Organisations, such as NASA are the same: they have a raison detre, a reason for existence, that mainly revolves around space exploration.

Besides, when have you heard of a government that look after its people first, and the financial demands of agencies, departments and institutions second? This is but one reason why socialism and communism will alway fail: people always come second except when it comes time to 'tighten our belts' or when extra taxes are needed. Then we are cash cows.

Sorry, I cannot comment on US military spending, as I have no useful knowledge in that area, just opinions.