Space exploration

The exploration of space is only going to get more important as time goes by. And because of the amount of money it costs, it has become quite a controversial subject. So what's your opinion on it?

Should humans be exploring space at all?

Yes

What are the best reasons for space exploration?

To increase our understanding of the Universe

To induce the development of useful technologies

To get more resources

To protect our civilization against natural disasters

To find extraterrestrial intelligence

To put weapons in space in case of war

To increase our civilization's population limit

To let human beings set foot outside the Earth

If you chose 'no' to the first question, what are the best reasons why we shouldn't explore space?

It costs too much money that should be used here on Earth

People will put weapons up there, making wars more destructive

People will think we're going to put weapons up there and get a bad impression.

It's biased towards large corporations and against small ones

We shouldn't damage the environment of other planets until we can fix our own up

All technology is evil because it destroys the environment

We shouldn't try to set ourselves up to rival God like with the Tower of Babel

It makes the Earth smaller by blasting material off into space

We don't want to run into intelligent aliens, just in case they're hostile

How should we go about exploring space? What should we be trying to do next?

Send people to Mars

Build a permanent base on the Moon

Send out lots of robots to the other planets in the Solar System

Build more, better space stations

Set up a system for deflecting threatening asteroids

Put weapons in space

Build a space elevator

Develop a better launch vehicle

Listen for radio signals from aliens

What do you think is currently the most interesting object as a target for spaceships?

Where in the Solar System do you think we would be most likely to discover extraterrestrial life?

How common do you think intelligent life is in the Universe?

Very common, as we can see from the fact that they've already landed on Earth

Relatively common (above 1000000 in our galaxy)

Not so common (20000 to 1000000 in our galaxy)

Somewhat rare (300 to 20000 in our galaxy)

Very rare (2 to 300 in our galaxy)

We are alone in the galaxy

We are alone in the Universe

There are no intelligent civilizations at all

This poll was created on 2006-08-21 19:05:25 by green_meklar