Whenever billions are launched into orbit, critics ask why the money was not spent feeding people instead. Some see space budgets as waste; others see essential investment. My view is that space research earns its keep, and I side with its defenders.
The case against is easy to sympathise with. Millions of people still lack clean water, basic healthcare and schooling, and it can seem indefensible to fund rockets while such needs remain. Money used on a single mission, critics argue, could vaccinate entire regions or house thousands of families; problems here on Earth should always have first claim on public funds.
Nevertheless, this argument mistakes both the scale and the purpose of space spending. Space agencies typically receive well under one per cent of national budgets — cancelling them would barely dent poverty, which persists because of politics and distribution rather than a shortage of rocket money. More importantly, space research is one of our most practical tools for solving earthly problems. Weather and observation satellites give early warning of typhoons and track deforestation and rising seas; GPS quietly underpins farming, shipping and emergency services; and technologies developed for spaceflight — water purification, medical imaging, solar panels — have filtered into daily life. Understanding Earth’s climate at all depends on looking at it from above. Far from ignoring our planet, space programmes keep watch over it.
In conclusion, although the moral instinct behind the criticism deserves respect, cutting space budgets would solve little on Earth while blinding us to floods, storms and climate change. Space exploration serves this world as much as it explores others, so I believe the money — a tiny fraction of public budgets — is well spent.