Space: A Magical World

Anza Tahir -- October 8th

Space: a magical world full of your greatest fantasies. A place which big organizations, NASA, spend millions to explore. Each step is crucial and decides someone's fate. Will they make it back alive? Where will something go wrong? Who made the mistake that cost someone's life? Why would we spend so much time and money to just investigate a place that does us no good?

For one, we’re in a bad situation right now with climate change. In 20 years, the Earth that we are slowly demolishing is going to be inhabitable for all animals, including ourselves. In my opinion, humans have been the worst thing ever for this planet. Everything was fine when we weren’t here. Although, as we progressed, our “advancements” slowly became worse and worse for the Earth. Not too long ago, our president decided it would be another great advancement to approve Willow. Willow is an oil drilling project in Alaska. Now that you’ve heard about climate change and Willow, are you wondering why I told you this? As we explore space, we might encounter a planet where we can live safely. It will be a lot of work to reverse climate change because as you are reading this, I'm sure over a hundred people are doing something that worsens climate change like littering and cutting down trees. I’ve heard people tell me how they’ve started showering as quickly as they can in hopes of helping save us all. I'm glad to know they care, but it doesn’t do much to help. Big companies are the problem. They are exerting so many horrible things on the Earth each day. Our Earth brings us a cozy planet to live on. In return we slowly kill it. Are we all not guilty of worsening the Earth? Something as simple as driving is bad because it uses gas. 

Aside from climate change, space actually helps us understand our home, Earth, better. For example, when we search the boundaries outside of Earth, we see life that can help us understand our planet better. It also helps us realize how much of a precious gift Earth is since we have not discovered any other habitable planets yet. Humans are nosy. They always want to know what’s happening in the world. Naturally, many of us are curious about space and what goes on where there is no oxygen. To prove this, NASA was actually worried they would have no volunteers to risk themselves to go on a spaceship. Luckily for them, there were a bunch of volunteers! This is great because we have people ready to help us go to space, so that we can explore and understand why Earth is the way it is. 

Overall, what you should take from this article is that space exploration is crucial in our lives. Something as simple as driving to work might decide our fate in climate change. If we didn’t have any knowledge of our planet, it would be odd. You know your home, the one with your bed in it and where you reside, very well, so shouldn’t we know all of our home, Earth, just as well? We take simple advances in technology—such as GPS and accurate weather predictions, which came from exploring outside of our borders—for granted. They help us not freeze when we're outside, pick a suitable outfit, and make changes to our day if necessary. All of these things are inexplicably important, and how do we further our knowledge on them, or how did we get them? Space.