Outer space exploration should be pursued.

Observation 1: My opponent has already agreed with my case. In his last round he states that my resolution dictates future tense therefor telescope exploration does not count. This is not true, let us examine an example. Example: Joey trains to become an athlete. At some point he becomes an athlete of mediocre ability. One night Joey asks himself, "should I continue to pursue becoming an athlete?" Thus Joey has effectively began something an now has the choice of whether he should continue to pursue. The same is true of our resolution today. Space exploration via telescope is currently being pursued. Thus the question is, "should it be pursued?", the fact that my opponent has stated that telescope exploration is good means, "Yes, space exploration should continue to be pursued." Thus my opponent has effectively conceded this round to me. Furthermore he goes on to state that we have already reached the final steps of telescope exploration. This is not true, if it were we not continue to develop newer and more high powered telescopes all the time. In fact, here are some examples of new telescopes this very year that are leading to ground breaking discoveries: http://www.sciencedaily.com... http://web.mit.edu... Contention 2: My opponent argues telescopes are *too expensive*. This means absolutely nothing to me. Currently our nation is trillions of dollars in debt and we are spending billions on a war on the other side of this earth. If we are going to see any negative consequences from spending to much money then we are going to see them because we are blowing billions on a war. Spending 10,000 to buy a new telescope or even millions to create telescopes like the Hubble is at best unsubstantial. Contention 3: There are over 17,000 potential habitable stellar systems out there. My opponent accuses me of not telling him where they are, I have to apologize, as much as I would love to go into colossal detail on where each one is unfortunately the 17,000 specific places will not fit into a debate with only 10,000 characters. My opponent is simply going to have to trust that the fact that we have located 17,000 potential habitable stellar systems with our telescopes means that they actually exist. They are all within 300 parsecs of us. My opponent then makes 4 other attacks on this contention that all actually fall under the contentions under it, thus I will address them then. Contention 4: We need to ensure the safety of humanity. First off my opponent claims that we cannot justify the means with the possible ends. What he doesn't realize is that the ends are not possible, they are in fact rather probable. It is increasingly probable as Stephen Hawking has stated that either we will end our earth or that a stellar collision will do so. Thus the only way to ensure our long term survival is to colonize other parts of space. Secondly against the argument that this is unresolutional, "Unresolutional: The places that we would live would be in places already explored" I must state that this is my plan, I am planning on exploring at least some of the 17,000 nearby habitable stellar bodies. That way we would be able to live on them because we had already explored them. Contention 5: 1). According to physicists such as Stephen Hawking and massive companies such as CERN, Yes, matter-antimatter annihilation is possible. 2). While it is true that nuclear fusion is already being worked on this will just mean that it is being worked on more. In other words perhaps in the status quo we have 100 amazing scientists working on nuclear fusion, now that it is also attempting to be developed for space travel we have an additional 20 amazing scientists also working on developing it. Furthermore my opponent makes no claim that we are currently working on matter-antimatter to any great amount. Considering matter-antimatter annihilation is of a greater energy output than that of fusion is is a greater endeavor. My plan helps develop it. 3). Good, lets let the astronomers aid us in developing it. Contention 6: I concede this point as it does not matter. Contention 7: The 17,000 nearby habitable stellar bodies are called habstars. "A class of stars, "habstars," is defined as stellar systems that are potentially habitable to Earth-like complex life." Thus it is possible that these habstars do have complex life that could trade with us. And once again, as I stated above. We are currently spending massive amounts of money elsewhere. 19 billion is negligible.