Space Exploration Persuasive Essay

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” On July 20, 1969, at precisely 02:56 UTC, Neil Armstrong became the first person in history to land on the Moon. Even after Apollo 11’s unexpected success, people still believed the project’s cost outweighed its long-term effect; “‘If they can put a man on the moon, why can’t they [fill in the blank]?’ The blank ranged from curing cancer to solving the problems of the inner cities.” (Chaikin, 2007, p. 5). But Apollo 11 altered our assumptions regarding humanity’s limitations. NASA, an authentic source for space news, states in the article Spinoff 2016 Highlights Space Technologies Used in Daily Life on Earth that space exploration provides greater benefits than imaginable. Space

Between 1.75 and 3.25 billion years from now, as drastic temperatures render Earth uninhabitable, the only way for mankind to continue living is by planetary migration. Organizations like Mars One have already committed to projects that entail colonizing the red planet. NASA has discovered planets that could sustain life, such as Kepler-452b, which is located in a habitable zone. “The area around a star where liquid water could pool on the surface of an orbiting planet -- of a G2-type star, like our sun” (NASA, 2015). Even if we do migrate to Mars, it is stagnant in life. Resources will eventually deplete, no matter where we take them. Mankind will cease. Prepared for this case, we have sent out fragments of our existence through pieces like the Golden Record. “(It contained) 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind and thunder, birds, whales, and other animals. To this they added [...] greetings from Earth-people in fifty-five languages” (“What is the Golden Record?” n.d.). Mankind has a finite existence. However, the funding devoted to this field has allowed us to control of how we will be remembered billions of years from now to extraterrestrials that may come across our fragments, proving that funding for space research is inclusive to humanity as a