Why? I get exploring our immediate space, the space that theoretically we could travel to one day, close enough to build a McDonalds on. It could be important to future generations to know what's out there once you punch through that ozone layer. Don't want some fun loving man-child to pop through there on a dare from his smarter, but devilish older brother with some futuristic fighter jet and be like "What IS this!?! Why didn't anyone ever tell me THIS was here?? And why am I now floating? I thought 'Gravity' was science fiction? Mommy???"
But deep space? Light years away space? What's the deal? Sure, it's cool. And I am sure space people like having bragging rights...like dogs like peeing on their territory. "Haha Moscow, planet 62 in solar system 588773 in the 87th galaxy? All. Mine. Find your own planet....oh....you have planet 63? Oh...well....fine then. Just stay away from 62- THAT one is mine. Finders keepers, ya know. Astronaut Code.". And then they hang up and chest thump and hurt themselves and then self medicate with space food cotton candy.
The truly mind bending thing about deep space exploration is the amount of money that we spend on it. I read that it costs something like 430 MILLION to launch a space shuttle. 430 MILLION DOLLARS. Does NASA know we are a country in debt? Or that there are millions of kids on the planet that do not get enough food in a day? Why do I see commercials telling me I can feed a kid for a day with a dollars, and we have 430 billion of them to play with and we think no, not children's lives...space toys. We have children starving but it's ok, because we got some great space pictures for them to hang on the wall of their hut. How do we justify not taking care of our own planet and its inhabitants to go check out other planets we will never go to and never be sure are what we think they are anyway? What do they think they are going to find?
Do we think that five galaxies down, take a left at the second black hole and just past the asteroid belt, we are going to find God? Chilling out on some random planet, maybe in a lawn chair with a margarita next to some alien river? Sandals off, toes in the sand? He sees us coming and jumps up all guilty looking- "What? I know it's only Tuesday and 'rest on Sunday' and all that, but you humans are really pushing the envelope this week, seriously, Russia can NOT grow the hell up and don't make me flood the Gaza strip...why can't you all just get along for one day? One freaking day? .. and how'd you find me again exactly? Why aren't you home feeding Africa? This is supposed to be off limits, oh why do I even bother. You people always want your paws on things you aren't supposed to touch. Yeah, that does have alcohol in it, why did you guys even bother making non alcoholic drinks anyway? I gave you vodka for a reason. It is only ten o'clock in the morning, don't judge me...its five o'clock somewhere, right?"
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