Should Civilians Space Travel exist?

Pro

“The biggest problem with civilian space travel is that it would be extremely expensive.”

That point, in and of itself, is not a good reason to not do anything. It’s very arguable what “extremely expensive” is, and is lacking balance with tangible gains from the endeavor. I will come back to this point below.

“Everyone would have to own space suits”

Why would you think this? Everyone? Everyone is not going to want to go into space, everyone is going to be capable of going into space, and most certainly everyone won’t be doing it simultaneously.

“…and lots of fuel would be wasted, and we have already a small amount left.”

Rocket fuel is made of Liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. There are arguments to be made about the input costs of producing these fuels, but not on availability.

“..Plus, we use approximately $9.928 billion dollars a year, and space travel will make the number higher.”

The $9.928 billion dollars is the entire NASA budget average over the last 10 years. The current NASA budget is almost double that at $18.724 billion. That number sounds high, but as a percentage of the budget, only amounts to 0.5%. At the height of NASA spending as a percentage of the total budget, it ran close to 4.5% of the overall budget. In adjusted dollars, NASA received $43.5 billion dollars in 1966[1]. Basically, we are spending very little on space exploration, and the benefits could fill an entire debate.

“Another problem is safety.”

Depending on how you want to look at it, I can make an argument that space travel is a very safe form of travel. At distance/death, it is near the top of the list. However, out of the small number of total astronauts (650) to use the shuttle, 14 have died. That is… well, not a great as a percentage, but if you told me it was 7% I would still be chomping at the bit to go.

“We don't know much about space as we think. We also can't control space. What if a black hole appears, or an asteroid flies near us?”

Well… ok. Let’s break this apart just a bit. A black hole forms when any stars die [2]. There is a lot more to this, but for sake of the discussion, that’s a reasonable description. Just traveling around solar system, we are not going to run into a sudden random black hole. Even if that were true, or using the “asteroid” case, if you are in space you are just as vulnerable as if you are on the earth! Perhaps more vulnerable on earth.

“We can't risk lives.”

Why? Why can’t we? We risk lives over so much less. War, even just driving around town, we risk life for the sake of going out for a cheeseburger. Why not space exploration?

“We also have to worry about oxygen. If I Oxygen tank stops working, the person is dead. If we make oxygen domes, what happens if

it cracks? We need to be careful about even part of this.”
The list of things we need to be careful about fill books. The solutions fill storage servers at NASA. That we need to “be careful” is well understood, and addressed by some of the most careful, thoughtful, and intelligent people on earth. They want to be the most careful, thoughtful, and intelligent people OFF earth.

While this is a debate, I am happy to address it more as a conversation. I am attempting to keep the answers short, but would be happy to elaborate any point you wish. Ask away.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org...

[2] http://blackholes.stardate.org...