It would be even better if we could spend this amount of money to fix the problems we already have on this planet, like global warming, pollution and hunger and stuff.
I'm personally baffled by the desire to focus all our resources on the short-term. The questions of the long-term future of humankind and our place in the universe, make the immediate issues like pollution and disease look petty and irrelevant by comparison.
Also, from the practical angle, we're already spending a huge amount of money on solving our local, short-term problems here on Earth. Adding ~$2 trillion would be an increase, but not a game-changer. OTOH, humanity spends under $50 billion/year on space [1]. Adding $2 trillion would constitute 4000% increase! This might be enough to transform humanity from a precarious single-planet species into an interplanetary civilization in a few generations.
Another important point is that a lot of our problems here on Earth are entirely self-inflicted (e.g. inequality, pollution, global warming) and so they can't simply be fixed by throwing money at them: they need political transformation.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_government_space_agenci...
Yes, but so long as global warming is a threat then the notion of humanity expanding to the stars is a pipe-dream. If the planet becomes incapable of supporting advanced social structures -- or, worse, complex lifeforms whatsoever -- then no one is going to be going anywhere: there will be no one left to travel.
Really? What about all the inventions discovered during the space race...The biggest impact inventions being integrated circuits, satellite communications and GPS, but there were so many others like Corningware[1], Tempur foam [2], LEDs, Freeze Drying Technology, etc [3] that one could argue provided many short term benefits and enabled discoveries of countless others.
[1] http://www.corning.com/about_us/inside_corning/did_you_know/...
The only reliable way to argue for space exploration is by explaining how important the long-term benefits are.
It is a gamble. Gambling is nice as long we have the resources. Global warming can eat those easily.
I am afraid that if we invest in space exploration and colonization, we would shift priorities from saving this world to escaping it. Only a few would be able to escape it - those who have the resources.
(It is kind of what the movie Interstellar is about.)
We need to save this world first, before we can allow ourself to "infect" other worlds. If we cannot sustain on this planet, e.g. stop global warming in the next years, we are doomed and it becomes impossible to even think about shooting a single human into space again. If we need to test things in space for that, I'm fine with that. But lets not lose track of our short term problems.
Queenie: "Sorry. We've got poverty and people who are hungry here, you'll have to wait."
(400 years later)
Descendant of that Explorer: "Can we go now?"
Queenie: "Sorry, still haven't solved that poverty stuff. Go do some farming or something."
----
A lot of the "poverty and hunger stuff" is caused by corruption and unworkable politics and ideologies. Another big factor is simple human nature. "The poor will be with us always." It's a wicked problem that will probably never go away. We shouldn't use it as an excuse. (I would be quite happy trading military and secret-police spending, which is basically out of control).
Oh, we can try to address poverty. But putting everything else on hold doesn't make sense. A rising tide floats all boats; more resources and better technology will help everyone, at least a little.
[I'm actually not a big fan of manned exploration any more; it's expensive, and robots can do way better than we can, for the foreseeable future. Oh, putting men on other planets has undeniable poetry and significance, but if you want to do science or mining or whatever, you're better off with metal than monkeys].
Populations will always grow, even if there aren't enough resources for the next generation. As a result, some catastrophe must happen to keep the population in check: war, disease or famine.
These days we like to think that we've escaped the malthusian limit, as first world nations tend to have a naturally shrinking population.
Of course, we haven't solved any other of our philosophical vices, I'm inclined to think this isn't any different.
Ugh, that's not how we escaped Malthus' predictions. We escaped precisely thanks to scientific discoveries and technological advancements.
We die not only because we can't seem to solve our immediate problems (I bet global temperatures will cross the +6 Celsius in this century) but we die the next big space rock hits Earth or the next time Yellowstone erupts, or the next time some weird highly energetic phenomenon we are absolutely clueless about roasts our high atmosphere just enough it starts letting the sun's UV through.
It's stupid to colonize other worlds and ignore our current problems because they'll kill us before we get there, but it's equally stupid to ignore the long-term problems of putting all our eggs on a single planetary basket around a single star. While I'm quite sure the Sun will not blow up on the next quarter or before the next couple elections, I'm quite sure it'll not last forever and really think it'll eventually misbehave in some deadly fashion. There are several mass extinctions in fossil record and I'd much prefer our species would not end up as a museum curiosity for the following civilisation.
Earth is unsustainable in the long run. No one is willing to accept euthanasia, birth limits, basically efforts to maintain population caps. People might say its a good idea others should implement, not them personally :)
These nations (good health care, slow population growth) [1] tend to be highly developed countries [2], with relatively high average education of its citizens [3] and high life expectancy [4]. Many of them also have high social equality and high cost of living because of higher taxation (e.g. the cost of social programs and universal healthcare) [5].
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population...
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Deve...
[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index
[4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expec...
[5]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality...
http://www.gapminder.org/videos/dont-panic-the-facts-about-p...
I seem to remember some funny back of envelope calculations that put energy needs of earth in 100 years (assuming current growth) at _full output_ of our sun.
Pedantry aside, factors that contribute to Terra's apparent lack of long term sustainability are easy to spot, and there are plenty of options to try before having to resort to birth limits, euthanasia etc.
Insufficient reproductive education, lack of birth control, local scarcity through international inequality (i.e. exploitation), patterns of use and consumption, low food production efficiency, pollution from energy usage (non-alternative forms) and population density/distribution are all things that can be altered, upon which the constraints of viability rests.
Of course, none of these would be particularly easy to change, but I suspect many of us would find attempting to do so preferable to the alternatives.