NASA Mars Missions

“The United States is justified in spending billions of dollars on NASA space missions to Mars.”

Throughout the course of history, man has dreamed of stepping foot on another planet. The advances in technology in the 20th century have allowed man to do what at one time was considered unthinkable for millenniums before. With the advent of the modern space program in the early 1950’s, NASA has performed many inconceivable feats. They have sent and returned men to space. They’ve set up space stations orbiting the earth. They have allowed men to land on the moon, collect samples, and then return to the earth. They have sent spacecraft to explore comets and other planets. They have even sent space probes outside the known walls of this solar system. Recently, NASA has been spending billions of dollars in researching our second nearest planet, Mars. In understanding the scientific importance that such research can mean, the United States is justified in spending this money on NASA space missions to Mars.

President John F. Kennedy said in 1961 that he believed that the United States could put a man on the moon before the end of the decade. Unfortunately, he never lived to see th

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All of these missions were greatly successful, and resulted in much increased knowledge of the planet. Many believed our effort to send a man to the moon was just an attempt to display the philosophical superiority of capitalism over communism during the height of the Cold War. This little error was overlooked by hundreds of engineers and physicists. Man developed machine, and now we must learn to live with one another allowing these new technologies to serve man as much as possible. And these advances are developed through steps. While signing the authorization bill of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1961, Kennedy stated that the purpose of the space travel was “…for the advancement of all mankind. Mars is just the second “giant leap” in our knowledge of the universe.

The science fiction of yesterday always seems to become the science of today.

Many critics have pointed to recent failures from NASA space missions to the planet Mars as reasons to abandon attempts to further send space probes. In the 1970’s, we must remember that NASA sent two Viking Landers that also took soil samples and photographs of the surface.

We must understand that man and machine are prone to error. What better ways to use these great advances than to take much of what is developed and use it to discover new worlds. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man. We must continue to reach out to other planets to find knowledge that may make our life on this planet more meaningful and better.

Approximate Word count = 1598
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

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