This past fall, I taught EEPS 0050: Earth, Moon, and Mars, an undergraduate course exploring the origins and evolution of rocky worlds. The class was lively, curious, and filled with students who genuinely loved space. They talked about alien civilizations, colonizing Mars, the Apollo and Artemis missions—eyes lit up when discussing the mysteries of the universe.
But something surprised me.
When we started talking about government investment in space science—planetary research, exploration missions, even public funding for telescopes—many students expressed doubt. They admired space exploration, sure, but didn’t believe it was worth the cost.
The students were some of the most engaged I’ve ever taught—curious, thoughtful, and eager to explore the unknown. In fact, student reviews for the course were the highest the class had received in years. But even with all that enthusiasm, many didn’t believe that public funding for space science was worthwhile. That tension—between passion for space and skepticism about investing in it—felt telling.
“Why Not Solve Problems Here First?”
This wasn’t apathy or ignorance. Many students raised an important and heartfelt question: Why are we investing in space when there’s so much to fix on Earth—poverty, hunger, climate change, housing?
That instinct is honorable. But it also reflects a false trade-off.
Investing in space science doesn’t mean abandoning Earth. In fact, many of the tools we now use to address climate change, monitor agriculture, and respond to disasters—satellite data, geophysical models, water mapping techniques—were born from planetary science and Earth observation missions.
Some of the most significant technologies we depend on today came from questions that seemed abstract at the time. When we fund exploration, we don’t just learn about other planets—we learn how to better care for our own.
The Myth of Direct Outcomes
Many students, like much of the public, assumed that science funding should work like a vending machine: put money in, get a defined product out. And some questioned the premise entirely: Why fund space at all, when there’s so much need here on Earth?
But science doesn’t operate on direct outcomes. The most transformative discoveries are rarely obvious ahead of time.
We didn’t build telescopes like Hubble just to take pretty pictures either. We were pursuing basic questions in astrophysics, and ended up rewriting our understanding of dark matter, galactic evolution, and even time itself.
The return on science isn’t always immediate—but it is exponential.
Why the Disconnect Matters
This disconnect—between loving space and devaluing the science behind it—signals a larger cultural issue. We’ve become so accustomed to applied results that we forget how foundational knowledge gets made.
By the time a mission launches or a new technology hits the headlines, it’s sitting atop decades of quiet, often publicly funded research: trial, error, theory, revision. That process isn’t flashy. But it’s what makes breakthroughs possible.
And when we cut support for space science, we don’t just stall missions. We shrink the pipeline of discovery itself. We lose the chance to ask better questions about where we come from, what our planet is becoming, and what’s possible beyond Earth.
A Case for Curiosity
We need to restore trust in science as a process—not a product.
We need to teach, not just facts about space, but the infrastructure of discovery: how missions are selected, how theories are tested, and why questions without immediate answers are sometimes the most valuable ones.
My students were smart, engaged, and deeply curious. But even they had absorbed a message we hear too often: that public spending on space should be justified by short-term gain. That message is costing us.
Consider satellite navigation. The idea that you could determine your position on Earth by analyzing the Doppler shift of signals from satellites began as a fundamental scientific insight. It took decades of research in orbital dynamics, atomic clocks, and relativity to build the global navigation systems we now rely on every day—for transportation, communication, agriculture, disaster response, and more.
So how do we change that?
How do we build broader public understanding that science isn’t just about outcomes—it’s about exploration, patience, and the long arc of discovery? What can we as scientists, educators, and communicators do to make the case for curiosity-driven research—especially when the benefits won’t show up in the next election cycle or fiscal year?
These are the questions we need to wrestle with—because the future of science, and the future of exploration, depends on how well we answer them.
Further Reading:
Bridging Exploration and Real-World Applications
How Practical Public Engagement Makes Your Science Spectacular
UCS Science & Democracy Program
AAAS Center for Public Engagement
Communicating Science Effectively – NASEM
