• Question: Why is space so important to mankind ?

    Asked by gummy bear to Aisling, Colin, Laurence, Ned, Niamh on 7 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Ned Dwyer

      Ned Dwyer answered on 7 Mar 2016:


      Well, we are part of space and we can use it for putting satellites up there that do useful things like relay internet information, telephone conversations, help with sat navs using GPS satellites, take pictures of the Earth which can be used for weather forecasting, seeing pollution, forest fires etc. But humans are very curious about space beyond our Earth. we always want to know more about the universe around us, as it can help us to understand where we came from and by doing experiments in the INternational Space Staion, we can learn a lot that will be useful to us down here on Earth.

    • Photo: Niamh Shaw

      Niamh Shaw answered on 8 Mar 2016:


      Well, I think its very important to know about the world around us and our place in it. And how lucky we are to live on our beautiful planet and that we need to protect it and take care of it. And as technology has developed over the years, we have always tried to understand our place in the Universe- it began with the the Chinese naming stars and then in 1608 when the telescope was invented we realised that we orbited the sun, not vice versa. and since then, as we developed technology and our ability to look further out in to the Universe we understood more and more about Earth and our place in the bigger picture. We are very lucky to have Earth and need to take very good care of it. By researching other planets and understanding what happened planets like Mars, we can prevent our planet from dying. The more we know about Space the better equipped we are to preserve our planet, which is our only home in this huge Universe.

    • Photo: Laurence O'Rourke

      Laurence O'Rourke answered on 8 Mar 2016:


      Hi gummy bear, it’s very hard to believe that we are standing on rock which has an atmosphere that is travelling around the sun every 365 days, and that sun is also moving within the solar system and the solar system is moving within the galaxy and the galaxy is moving through the universe. And everything beyond that atmosphere of the rock we call Earth is space – so should we understand it more? Absolutely. Can we take advantage of space ? Well we are, we drive around with our GPS, we receive our sky TV from satellites, we see the weather every day. All of these are using satellites in space. So is it important to mankind, I think so. Certainly our life is better because of it.

    • Photo: Colin Shirran

      Colin Shirran answered on 9 Mar 2016:


      I think the other guys covered this answer pretty well so let’s reverse the question for the fun of it and ask why is mankind so important to space? I mean, there is an incredibly huge amount of space compared to the size of the earth! Think of all those planets that we know are in our solar system. Now think of all the stars that we can see in the night sky. All of them are within our galaxy. We can’t even see all the stars in our galaxy because of our atmosphere. Now each one of those stars could have just as many planets as are in our solar system. That is LITERALLY too many possible planets to count (for me at least). Now get ready for this… Think of everything I just said. That is only within our galaxy. According to current estimates there are at least one hundred billion galaxies in the universe, each with just as many stars and each star with just as many planets. There is so much more in space then there is here on earth. We need to at least attempt to see what’s out there. Imagine if we were the only life to exist in the universe? What a waste it would be to never explore it. It’s my personal belief that everything we do in the space industry now is eventually going to lead us down this road. And I love it!

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