There is no need to compromise. We can go to Mars and save Earth.

In honor of the Apollo 11 anniversary, our new space exploration ambitions, as well as recent headlines that claim the irresponsibility of space travel (for example, Grist’s ‘Stop building a spaceship to Mars and just place some damn trees’), this topic seemed fitting. While I agree entirely that we should use our resources and time to fix the immediate mess we’ve made on this planet, I’m also a space nerd. Exploration is a natural and important part of the human experience - adjusting our perspective of the universe accordingly. I am always reminded of the ‘Overview Effect’, or the cognitive shift in perspective that astronauts experience after witnessing the earth from space. Of course, very few or perhaps none of us will get that view, but these photos, videos, and events bring people together in moments of awe and wonder. In fact, bringing our species together in this way is exactly what we need to solve this climate crisis. I’m not saying we should be using resources to inhabit Mars - it’s a ridiculous notion to try and make an uninhabitable planet ‘more habitable’ when we developed to live and breathe comfortably on this planet (sorry Elon!). However, exploration and thinking beyond ourselves is critical in order to have empathy and truly contemplate one’s place in the world. The question shouldn’t be between spending on space exploration or saving our planet. While I do recognize the waste/resource intensity of space travel, we need to start questioning the spending and resource use that is truly destructive to our planet - we spend an ungodly amount of money on war and our military, while corporations aren’t paying their share for the money they make and the destruction they cause. To me, this isn’t the conversation we should be having - we can plant trees AND travel to the moon, Mars, and beyond if we start calling out and voting against corporate and government greed.