Might As Well Do It Right

When deciding if the public’s opinion regarding the spending of tax payer dollars on sexual reproduction research is warranted, you must take into consideration the first video in The Universe series about life in space. The space program has spent several years and a sizable amount of money to research what human life would be like on Mars. They have been doing studies with contained living environments since the early nineties. Is life on Mars what the general population thinks our future entails and can agree to spend tax dollars on? I was not of voting age in the early nineties, but I don’t remember there ever being a pole of the taxpayers asking what we wanted NASA to be spending our tax dollars to research. I am sure you would get some people who would agree that life on Mars seems like a viable option. I am also sure that if they agree with that line of thinking, they never saw this series of videos. Mars is a dusty, barren environment. Those that would expect to live there would have to rely on resources from the Earth to survive. I understand the concept that we currently have “all of our eggs in one basket” as the video states. If something happened to the Earth, the human race would be extinct. For some people this concept is enough to motivate them to discover other options to ensure our survival. NASA researchers seem to be of this mindset or they would not have spent the amount of time they have on living environments and modes of transportation. Even if we are able to build these new colonies on Mars, sexual reproduction will be essential to the survival of new colonies. In my opinion the research is being conducted backwards. Instead of spending all of this money developing living environments, we should find out how we are going to maintain the species. This can only be done through reproduction. If humans cannot reproduce on Mars, all of the research will essentially be useless. If tax payers understood that the development of Mars was what their tax dollars were being spent on, they would logically want to ensure it was worthwhile by making sure reproduction was possible. Communication is sometimes the key to good research.