COMMENTARY: Why Space? The Top 10 Reasons

Space.com has a piece by Joseph N. Pelton about why we need a space program. With so many people asking the question, I'm glad to see someone come up with a good answer.

NASA as well as national space programs around the world are today isolated from the man-in-the-street. This gap needs serious and urgent attention by Congress, the president and the leadership of NASA. Actually the lack of a space program could get us all killed. I don’t mean you or me or my wife or children. I mean that Homo sapiens as a species are actually endangered. Surprising to some, a well conceived space program may well be our only hope for long-term survival. The right or wrong decisions about space research and exploration may be key to the futures of our grandchildren or great-grandchildren or those that follow. Arthur C. Clarke, the author and screenplay writer for 2001: A Space Odyssey, put the issue rather starkly some years back when he said: “The dinosaurs are not around today because they did not have a space program.” He was, of course, referring to the fact that we now know a quite largish meteor crashed into the earth, released poisonous Iridium chemicals into our atmosphere and created a killer cloud above the Earth that blocked out the sun for a prolonged period of time.