Exploring space instead of feeding africans or poor people in general is more preferable!

Taking care of people living in the third world is more important explore the universe and organise space travels because you're essentially letting people die due to issues we helped create through exploitation of these countries in the past. It is both unfair and immoral to let this happen. While space exploration is important, there are areas of research which I think need more time, money and resources invested in such as renewable energy and agriculture “mining minerals on the moon and planets” It’s not even financially viable to mine some resources on earth or the moon, let alone in other planets. Even if find resources on other plant due to space exploration mining these resources would be near impossible and financially enviable, for example NASA says that the average cost to launch a Space Shuttle is about $450 million per mission. Rocket fuel is $4000 per gram (. http://www.chemicool.com...) and will most likley get more expensive in future since it is a dwindelling resource. Think of the time and costs involved in locating these resources, mining them and transporting them back to earth. Doesn’t make sense to attempt. “learning more about the universe and its creation. .Broading our horizons and understanding the universe” Important, but not more important than the standards of life of people living in Africa and other LEDC’s. Can increase our understanding more of the universe and its creation without space exploration. Why does matter how earth was created when could be dealing with issues. “reaching finally a conclusion on whether we are alone in the universe” This is not on star trek. If there is life on other plants it is likely that we would be able to discover it due to current technology. Our closest neighbouring galaxy, the Canis Major Dwarf, is 25,000 light years away. At Voyager's speed, it would take approximately 749,000,000 years to travel the distance of 25,000 light years, even if we could travel at the speed of light, it would still take 25,000 years to reach the galaxy with no guarantee of finding life, even if we did we may have become extinct by then. “Colonization-very important as we have to fid a solution to” We currently can’t even afford a base on the moon, let alone a colony. Thinking about this logically there would need to be thousands upon thousands moved to the colony to make any effect on overpopulation. Extreme amounts of support and resources would be required from earth to sustain life on colonies. This is unrealistic and It would be far easier, cheaper and safer to create villages on the bottom of the ocean than on the moon. Besides population will fall 2050, far before a colony could be built. By then they’ll be far less of an issue with overpopulation well before colonises could ever be set up. (. http://www.theguardian.com... #) “Technology Advancements” History has shown that when societies gain more money, education levels increase leading to more technological advances. Giving Africans aid would actually advance technology by giving more students the chance to become educated. More specifically to this topic, families would have to spend less on food meaning they’d have more money for other things like improving their standard of life and education levels. “Protect ourselves ad our planet (NASA"s Earth Science division, NASA-funded research that scans the skies for dangerous asteroids and and missions to asteroids that teach us how we might be able to divert them from a collision course, should the need arise) . ” Not sure how this links to space exploration if it’s to protect the planet. Difference between NASA researching asteroids and space exploration. “one of the largest ways we benefit from space research is the inventions which we enjoy on a day to day basis which stem directly from NASA research or other space research” Granted, space research has benifited our lives today due to inventions created, but in the same way as have wars which have also lead to greater technological and medical advances which we enjoy on a day to day basis. The production of penicillin was first funded by the UK government during WWII to create better antibiotics for soldiers. The first computers were also first developed due to WWII , as did the internet itself as a military project in a way. This doesn’t mean we should be investing in wars. “But the problem of famine can't be solved for other reasons, too. ” Earth is facing many problems, pollution, fuel, famine, dwindling resources etc… money would be far better spent here to solve these problems and the problems surrounding poverty. Famine is a threat to all counties worldwide in the near future due to the effects of global warming and climate change if these threats aren’t (best) confronted by space exploration. Just observe the Colorado 'dust bowl' due to a drowth cause by climate change. “And you prefer to toss all these benefits in the trash because of some poor children that don't have food. Haven't you ever thought that giving them food might not solve the problem of famine? Haven't you ever thought that the only thing we'll eventually do is a hole in the water? ” Yes, giving them food doesn’t prevent famine but it prevents their deaths. This shows a very inhuman lack of empathy if you think that making the lives of people in the first world better is more important that preventing needless deaths in LEDCs. Space exploration would further the gap between MEDC which can afford space travel and LEDC’s which can’t afford to become space faring, even if they did they would do this in neglect of the needs of their civilians. “And how much did we lift the poor? Instead of each of the 3 billion poor having on average $2.50 per day, each now has $5.50. ” Personally I think this argument Is slightly off topic because it refers to financial aid and not food aid but if you want to start talking about aid in general I don't really mind. Anyway, to us in MEDCs and extra $3 per day seems like a very small about of money, however this increase in profit can be very significant for people in LEDCs, and what you can by for three dolars more in an LEDC is far more than you could with $3 in America. For example $5 in America buys 7lbs of rice, in Afgnistan it buys twice as much. In Ethiopia $5 buys 31lbs potatoes, in the US this is just 7.5lbs(. http://www.therichest.com...) The website . http://www.poverty.com... gives an insight into why this money would help “…there is plenty of food in the world for everyone. The problem is that hungry people are trapped in severe poverty. They lack the money to buy enough food to nourish themselves. Being constantly malnourished, they become weaker and often sick. This makes them increasingly less able to work, which then makes them even poorer and hungrier. This downward spiral often continues until death for them and their families. ” “If history has shown us anything, it"s that the poor will always be with us” History shown us many thing that are unfair, there always being poor people doesn’t justify there being countries where all most everyone is rich and countries where almost everyone is incredibly poor by comparison, so poor they can find it difficult to feed their own children as shown by WFP which reported that poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five (3.1 million children each year). Corruption and aid leads to poverty arguments The motion refers to what is more preferable not how possible. that it is possible to feed the poor and asks what would be theoretically preferable not what is possible. Besides, corruption is both caused by poverty and wealth, for example underpaid Mexican police working for drug dealers to earn more money. Aid could therefore help get rid of this type of corruption by reducing poverty but would need management. Finally, some counties such Indonesia which are on the same level in terms of corruption (on the corruption map you linked) as many African countries however Aid has allowed Indonesia to reduce poverty from 58% to 17% in less than a generation thus proving that aid can work dispute corruption. . http://www.wfp.org... . http://curiosity.discovery.com... . https://www.census.gov... . http://www.research.ufl.edu... . http://mysteriousuniverse.org... . http://www.planetary.org... . http://www.rtcc.org... . http://fas.org...