Space travel has come a long way from when humans first set foot on the moon to the landing of NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars in Feb. Although space exploration may be exciting, many people believe there are multiple disadvantages to it.

Space travel missions and research cost billions of dollars. While money is spent on outer space, hundreds of millions of people on Earth suffer from hunger and healthcare needs. The large amounts of money spent on space travel can therefore be seen as unethical.

“We should focus on our own problems, focus on our people first because we are the ones who are currently living here,” Eduardo Torres (10) said. “I feel like the money we are putting to NASA … it’s not ethical and it’s not the wisest decision.”

The landing of the Perseverance rover on Mars showed how far technology has come, but the mission cost about 2.9 billion dollars in total.

“I feel like the billions of dollars that went to the Perseverance to Mars mission was not necessarily a waste because they are gaining useful information … but [there are] still thousands of charities out there, thousands of people who are in need of help throughout the world,” Torres said. “The question is, how helpful would [the rover’s goals]be? How beneficial would it be to the people?”

One reason space travel is done is to search for possible ways to adapt to other planets, such as Mars, for the possibility of humans living there in the future. This can be controversial because this takes focus away from Earth, which should be the primary focus.

“Scientists and researchers put so much time and money towards moving humans to another planet and trying to build up that planet, when we have a lot of issues that we still haven’t solved on our own [planet],” Jason Tang (10) said. “I feel like, if they’re willing to devote so much technological research to a different planet … they should be able to do it well enough to fix our own planet.”

The exploration of space is both an exciting and dangerous concept that has thrilled mankind since the beginning of time. While it is done to gain more knowledge, the negative effects outweigh the positive. 

“I think that we’re just trying to find the unknown,” Elaina Chen (10) said. “We’re spending all this effort and money and resources trying to find something that we don’t know about, and it could have major negative consequences.”