Outer space exploration should be pursued.

Observation 1 and Contention 2 (the money argument is also covered): 1) My opponent seems to be priding himself with the best possible for space exploration. He has gone all out toward the idea that telescopes can be accomplished, but you must examine all aspects of the resolution. He has not spent a single character on space exploration that deals with launches. Not to mention that these telescopes have to be launched into space anyway. In other words, has basically showed how good one aspect is but has failed to mention the other aspects. You have to realize that when you go into launches, you have to add in the deaths from astronauts (Columbia), pollution, and an increased cost. ALL of these things are not necessary. 2) 19 BILLION dollars is an unnecessary cost. My opponent has seemed to get away with since there is a debt already that we shouldn't try to fix it. That is a ridiculous claim. How are we ever going to get better if we just say there is just too much of it? --> Because of this substantial waste of money, you must also look to the present. I truly believe that you should not get ready for the (possible) future until the present day and age is under control. You have no room to say that 19 billion dollars a year isn't that much when you are in extreme debt AND you have thousands if not millions of people starving every day. Jobless and homeless people need to be taken care of before any money is ever spent on space exploration. How can you say that we need a place to live in the future if not everyone has a place to live now. Money just shouldn't be wasted like that. 3) As far as wasting money in the war. Sure, but that is a different debate entirely. Not to mention that the amount of money that we are spending on the war is about 80 billion to 100 billion per year which is only 4 times as much as the NASA program. When you compare the amount of jobs in the NASA field compared to the war in Iraq, the math doesn't make sense. Especially when you see how essential each one is (even if you don't consider the war in Iraq essential which I really don't see it as essential, it is still helping more people (per dollar) than what the NASA program is. The only thing my opponent can claim is that we MIGHT be able to live at these places when we MIGHT blow up our own planet.) Contention 3 and 4 (they are essentially the same argument): This argument of the "17,000" inhabitable places is ridiculous to say the least. He says that they are all within 3 parsecs of us but what he fails to tell us is that ONE parsec is equal to 19,172,420,439,632.5 miles. This is actually LONGER of a distance than a light year. Perhaps he doesn't remember but we are not even close to even being able to conceive the technology of being able to transfer ANYTHING that amount of distance let alone 6 billion people (and increasing). He has yet to prove that by pursuing space exploration will EVER lead to this idea OR even that these scientists are after this idea. After this is ever capable of being achieved, the costs of year after year of money will certainly surpass the War in Iraq/Afghanistan multiple times. There are simply too many uncertainties. Contention 5: 1) Cross apply contention 6 because he dropped it… :) It really doesn't accomplish anything but besides it being useless, it is important… 2) But onto the energy argument. If space exploration were to stop being pursued, then the scientists will STILL be able to research and discover alternative energy resources. In the status quo, there is an energy crisis, but you can't solve that by having most of your scientists in the field of space exploration. I guess if I were to offer a counter plan it would be to move the scientists to research fusion energy specifically :)… But seriously, more scientists would be available if space exploration was NOT pursued. 3) It is still possible to discover alternative energy without space exploration. 4) The anti-matter argument has little to no analysis or evidence. I don't even know what exactly it is and it offers NO reason to why space exploration should be pursued. Contention 6: YES… flow this through and cross-apply it to EVERY argument in favor of CON! Contention 7: I've already explained why these "habitable places" are unable of even being reached. It doesn't matter if you can live somewhere if you can't even get to it. Summary of the round: In the end of this round, you have to see that there is no overwhelming reason to do space exploration. The amount of money spent could easily be spent on more important things such as feeding and housing people NOW in the STATUS QUO. I don't know if the world will ever end and I don't know if it is possible to ever transfer the world's population to another location. I DO know that it cost 19.2 billion dollars a year (2008 budget). Why think about future living conditions when the conditions now are not sufficient enough for everyone? The energy is already under billions upon billions of dollars (in Europe) in research and if you were to cancel space exploration the amount of scientists would be increased even more. In the end, there is simply no overwhelming reason to pursue space exploration. It costs too much for not enough benefits. The costs substantially outweigh the benefits. Thanks for this great debate and I hope to debate you in the future…