The Place of Space Travel in the 21st Century

 by Isobel Firth

In recent months Space Travel has been in the news quite frequently, hitting headlines for a Number of reasons from private companies launching Rockets into Space to the THIRD postponement of the Artemis 1 Moon Mission. But is all this Space Travel really necessary in 2022?

Yes

Many believe that Money invested in Space Travel is money well spent. That exploring space helps us to understand the world that we live in. Space and Space Exploration have led to many groundbreaking discoveries. The Space industry is also worth around $469 Billion dollars. As well as this Space Travel is an inspiring prospect for millions of people around the world.

No

On the other hand lots of people believe that Space Travel is not required in the 21st century. In the Financial Year of 2022 NASA received $30.2 Billion dollars. At the moment they are currently trying to send a rocket into space for a fourth attempt after three failed attempts, the Artemis 1 mission which was supposed to launch on 29th August 2022 has been postponed three times to 12-27 November 2022, almost three months after it was first supposed to launch. Another reason many think space travel is bad is the fact that many big companies now want to do Space travel commercially, sending the extremely rich into space, turning Space Travel from the best trained people who have been preparing for years to travel to space into the person who is willing to pay the most money.  As well as this commercial space travel, at the level that these companies wish to do it at, will cause disaster for the O-Zone layer, placing the Earth in an even greater Climate Crisis then it already is.