This question is being raised today and it was being raised 40 years back during the Apollo era. Dr. Neil Tyson answers that question beautifully in his various popular stage lectures and in a testimony to the U.S. Congress. In 1970, Dr. Enrst Stuhlinger answered this very same question in a powerful way. "How do you justfiy spending billions on research about sending missions to Mars when there are children starving here on Earth," asked a nun from Zambia. Dr. Stuhlinger, then the Associate Director of Science at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center wrote back: May 6, 1970 Dear Sister Mary Jucunda: Your letter was one of many which are reaching me every day, but it has touched me more deeply than all the others because it came so much from the depths of a searching mind and a compassionate heart. I will try to answer your question as best as I possibly can. First, however, I would like to express my great admiration for you, and for all your many brave sisters,...
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