space exploration is waste of money and time...

I will respond to his final points, then review my own case. Since my opponent has grouped his points into numbered paragraphs, I will respond to each point in the same format. 1. My opponents still has a penchant for over exaggeration, it seems. He isn't seriously trying to say that the number of humans would get to the point where the earth couldn't HOLD them, is he? Disease and famine would reduce the planet's population long before that. He also expresses his belief that we are not going to kill people in order to reduce the population- however, he has provided no valid reason not to. Furthermore, if you refer back to my second round, I offered two alternatives which he has not addressed. 2. My opponent provides some sources, perhaps having read through the voting categories. However, his first source does not support his position and his second doesn't address the main point I made. One need look not further than the subtitle of his first source to find out that it supports MY point, which was that it has not been PROVED that there is water on mars. It says 'Mars Has Liquid Water, New Photos SUGGEST'. There is evidence, but not irrefutable proof. Furthermore, even if there were water on Mars, it is very unlikely to be enough to support life. My opponent's second source does indeed meet stricter standards of evidence, BUT THIS DOES NOT MATTER. I made the point in my last round that planets would need a range of characteristics to support life, and provided a source with details. Besides, look at what my opponents source says: 'Even hot Jupiter's, gaseous planets that orbit closer to their stars than Mercury to our Sun, are thought to have water'. My opponent seems to think that only water is required to support life, but if even hot gas giants have water, clearly this is not the case. 3. My opponent brings up a new argument here- he says that we can improve out planet by looking at other planets and use them to improve our own, and brings up the analogy of a poor country observing a rich one. However, as far as we know earth is the best planet in our galaxy (possibly the UNIVERSE) for supporting life, so, again, this is mere speculation. 4. So what? We'd do better learning about our own planet. We know less about the oceans than the surface of the moon, for instance- . http://www.nhm.ac.uk... 5. My opponent makes more unsupported claims here. All these may have benefited from putting technology into earth's orbit, but that hardly counts as space exploration- no more than walking into your own back yards counts as exploring the world. 6. So what if we spend money on stupid things? That just means we shouldn't pointlessly spend money on one more thing. Plus, this debate is specifically on whether the space exploration is a waste. Whether other things are or are not has no bearing on the resolution. My opponent asks whether we want to become extinct in a hundred or thousand years. However he has provided no evidence that this will happen. -- In conclusion -- My opponent has provided no compelling reason for us to explore space. He has not been able to solve the enormous logistical and economic problems in his suggestion to move the earth's population.