The government is spending a lot of money to discover life on other planets. Some people think that government is wasting money and should spend more money addressing the problems of the public. To what extent do you agree? v.1

Vast amounts of money are invested by governments in attempts to discover extraterrestrial life. However, a number of people consider it useless and believe that more funding should be provided in order to tackle more vital issues instead. I am inclined to disagree with such an opinion, because space exploration may soon become not just useful, but critical. First and foremost, finding other forms of life in the universe can facilitate the humanity’s understanding of itself. It can shed light upon, for instance, the origin of species, thus letting man alleviate many intercultural conflicts. More than that, discovery of living organisms outside the Earth can give insights into biological phenomena necessary to cure illnesses now deemed terminal. Secondly, if researchers happened to discover another race of sentient beings, this would probably bring about a revolution on our planet with dramatic changes in numerous fields. We could, for example, learn other methods of food and energy production and construction of dwellings. This would help the humankind to conquer such problems as famine, land degradation and fossil fuels depletion. Another idea which is undoubtedly connected with the investigation of extraterrestrial life is colonization of other planets. It may sound unrealistic, but according to many influential scientists and engineers, this could become inevitable due to excessive contamination and exploitation of the environment. As a social scientist Mayer Hillman said in an interview for “The Guardian”, even if the emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere were stopped today, we would not save the planet. Thus, the only solution is to evacuate. All things considered, the exploration of space and, possibly, life in it is a wise and crucial activity. Even though it may be unclear to general public why they should sponsor something so expensive that does not produce immediate results, it seems to turn out the most important issue soon.