IELTS Essay # 109 - Some people want the government to spend money on researching life on other planets. Others, however, think it is a waste of public funds and there are too many problems on our own planet to be fixed first. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.

Essay # 109

Some people want the government to spend money on researching life on other planets. Others, however, think it is a waste of public funds and there are too many problems on our own planet to be fixed first. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.

Many countries are spending money to find out if there are living conditions in space. While this may be useful to us in the future, some people believe that this is not a priority. They believe that there are more pressing problems on Earth that need the governments’ attention. Although I support the second argument, this essay shall throw light on both.

The main reason for finding life on other planets is to find natural resources that are useful for us to survive, like water. This is being done because the natural resources on Earth are depleting, and the remaining ones are being polluted by humankind. Another motive behind searching for life on other planets is that if the population rises to an uncontrollable extent in the future, we would have the facility to accommodate people on other planets as well. For example, if we are able to successfully build a colony in space where humans can live with similar natural resources like on Earth, we won’t have to worry about the resources being less as compared to the population. Nevertheless, it is important to mention that the problems of natural resources being scarce and population rise are man-made. Therefore, they can be solved.

 The amount of money already spent on space research is in billions. However, it has achieved considerably little when we compare the amount of money on space exploration spent and the results that we’ve got. To be specific, we have still not been able to find any other planet in our Solar System that houses the same conditions as Earth does. All the succeeding space projects would require more money, and it would result in increasing the burden on taxpayers. It would be better if this same money can be allocated to solving immediate problems like global warming, world hunger, poverty, illiteracy, or finding cures for deadly diseases. Working towards these problems would at least have a direct effect on the population.

To conclude, while finding life on other planets would be a huge achievement for humankind, the Earth still has problems that first need to be solved. I support the opinion that right now the governments’ main priority should be to find an answer to the current problems that people are facing.

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