As harsh as this headline may sound, it’s unarguably true. Our planet has its own problems. Should an ethical government be shooting for the stars when 805 million people don’t have enough to eat and over 1.2 billion try to scratch out a living on earnings of less than $1.25 a day? Will a manned Mars landing matter to the many people around the world who don’t have access to basic necessities like clean drinking water and proper medical care?

A massive drain on resources

Of course, NASA has the biggest budget to play with, and according to ‘Space Daily’ funding just three exploration programs will cost more than $21 billion in taxpayers money. These projects include missions of questionable benefit to mankind. The Space Launch System might sound exciting, but with a price tag of more than 9.7 billion dollars it will have to produce more benefits than a bit of excitement. The rest of the proposed projects include Ground System Development and operations and the Orion Multi-purpose Crew Vehicle.

All these initiatives are aimed at a Mars landing, but does the Red Planet have anything of benefit to offer the human race? At present, all we have is questions. Even supposing that rare minerals and elements that don’t occur on earth are discovered, will they be useful to us? Will mining them be cost effective? And returning to the burning issue at hand: how does it help the needy and solve earth’s multitude of environmental problems?

The US is not alone in squandering fortunes on space programs of questionable benefit. Many developing countries such as India, Malaysia and Thailand have joined the space race – even though their populations are in greater need of food security, medical care and environmental improvements than they are in need of some interesting pictures from outer space and perhaps a handful of space dust.

What’s the solution?

No matter how great our thirst for adventure and knowledge, allowing millions, even billions of people to live in dehumanising circumstances while fortunes are squandered on space exploration defies all logic. According to the United Nations, world hunger could be ended with a budget of $30 billion a year. That sounds like a huge amount of money, but if NASA ditches some of its more ambitious projects, and governments around the world followed suit, it would be an achievable target.

Governments could be pardoned if they prioritized local needs such as housing, medical care and social security issues. After all, they represent the people of their nations and should be caring for their need first. However, it would seem that ethical governments who spend tax money wisely in caring for the needs of their electorates  will remain as mythical as the ‘little green men’ that were once believed to inhabit Mars.

It would be easy to close the argument here, but we have to admit some personal responsibility: after all, we voted these governments into power, and we’re cheering them on in their logic-defying race to Mars and the stars, chasing ‘the future’ in order to avoid confronting the grim realities of the present.