宇宙開発関連事業に価値はあるのか？
Recently, there are a lot of news about the outer space.
Personally, the second article about Starlink's new business is quite interesting. Even though its price may not be ideal for all the users in Japan, it is a significant advancement that we have good access to the Internet wherever we are, including around the mountain areas.
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The first time human beings landed on the moon was in 1969, which is 53 years ago.
Since then, human begins have invested much recourse into the research about the outer space. Clearly, we do benefit from it; a weather forecast will be barely possible without artificial satellites. BS broadcasting is also impossible without satellites. In fact, "BS" stands for "Broadcasting Satellite".More details can be found here as well.
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It should be clear by now that we have done quite a lot of investigation of the outer space. Now, I want to ask you: Is it worth exploring the outer space today for Japan?
Take a look at one of the articles that I had shared. NASA succeeded in changing the path of a comet by crashing a small satellite into it. I do not doubt that it must be a significant success, but how exactly do we benefit from it?
Just for your information, Japan has secured the research budget for 500 billion Japanese yen. This is, 500,000,000,000 yen. This is a small portion compared to the whole national budget. However, is it really worth spending this much fund for the space research? The core elements of this topic is that we are never sure about whether we will benefit from this kind of research. If you are in charge of finance in Japan, would you spend this money for the space search, or other social issues? I want you to critically think about if it is worth exploring space "from now on".
If you have any questions, please let me know!