The importance of investing in astronomy and space researchIt is a widespread opinion that space research and astronomy are trivial issues, oftenregarded as useless, and that the money invested in them would be better used elsewhere. In theU.S alone —the country with the largest space program, conducted by the famous agency know asNASA—, the percentage of citizens who believe that the space program should be cancelledincreased from 4% to 8% between 1998 and 2009 (acoording to a Gallup poll from 2009 carried bythe NBC)[1]. Another study conducted by the CNN and the ORC in 2010 showed that 50% of theAmericans felt that the money destined to the space shuttle program —which had concluded theyear before— would have been better spent somewhere else [2].The main goal of this essay is to prove those missconceptions wrong through argumentsand evidence.
