Big Think, Ethan Siegel, 28 Nov 2025: Ask Ethan: What’s the point of exploring the Universe?, subtitled “There are so many problems, all across planet Earth, that harm and threaten humanity. Why invest in researching the Universe?”
(My first comment, something of an aside: The photo shows the so-called “Pillars of Creation” nebula first photographed in 1995, and more recently by the James Webb Space Telescope in mid-infrared and in near-infrared, left and right, shown here. I’ve always been slightly annoyed by the nomenclature “pillars” because they only way the term can apply is because the photo has been turned to make those nebular extensions seem to go upward. It’s an example of humans imposing our own biases on the universe at large. Even the ‘north’ indicator is arbitrary, since the way we view maps and the globe could just as well been the other way around.)
Key Takeaways
• With so many problems in the world, from war to poverty to hunger to disease and much more, investing in exploring the Universe can sometimes feel frivolous. • And yet, the value we get from engaging in pursuits that take us beyond our Earthly concerns can sometimes far outstrip anything we’d gain from diverting resources away from those endeavors. • It’s a question that’s been asked repeatedly over the course of many centuries, but the answer is always the same: human civilization is a long game. We mustn’t shortchange the future.
The article begins with the familiar litany of problems in the world that people (conservatives) say need to be addressed before spending money on frivolous (to them) enterprise like space exploration and billion dollar space telescopes. But it has always been so. (And, of course, conservatives do not actually want to spend any money solving homelessness or hunger.)
“People keep asking me… what is the importance of studying and making extensive research about the Universe? Why should we spend billions of dollars on it while we have a lot of problems to solve here on Earth?”
It’s a question that’s been asked, in various incarnations throughout history, for many centuries. Here’s what I wish everyone would know.
He discusses basic research, which invariably produces benefits that were not expected or planned for. Building CERN, for example, triggered the invention of the World Wide Web. Apollo, and the list of spinoff technologies it generated. And other historical examples.
There’s never a guarantee that what we’re going to find will be useful down the road, and it’s often impossible to predict what sort of practical applications will arise anytime we look at the Universe in ways we never have before. But oftentimes, that’s where the greatest advances of all are awaiting.
And
And yet, there’s another reason — completely unrelated to whatever downstream technological benefits may arise from investing in science — that we should pursue such ends: all of society benefits when we are collectively inspired. We cannot spend all of our time and resources thinking solely about mundane, terrestrial concerns, as events on Earth frequently divide us from one another. But one look toward the depths of space always reminds us of the same grand truth: there’s a remarkable and vast Universe out there, and in all of it, Earth is the only place we’ve ever found that’s friendly to life forms like us.
It’s about thinking big instead of thinking small. The same old divide.
Then there’s the greatest reason, as the article ends.
And still, the greatest reason to continue exploring the Universe isn’t because it’s profitable, nor because it’s beneficial, nor even because it’s inspirational, although it truly is all three of those things. The reason we explore the Universe is because it’s there and because we can, and our quest for knowledge beyond the present frontiers is what compels us to push the collective endeavor of human civilization forward. In some senses, we’re nothing more than specialized apes: capable of altering the world in profound ways, but not yet wise enough to cease from plundering the very resources we need in order to ensure a future where humanity can sustainably thrive.
It’s far beyond the scope of this article to prescribe cures for all the problems facing our species and our planet, but one thing is certain: we have to work together toward the global, long-term common good. If we stop investing in the basic research that takes us beyond the known frontiers, we’ll never achieve the lofty goals that represent the common dreams of our ancestors, contemporaries, and descendants.
We explore because we hope that human civilization is a long game. Not a short one ending in apocalypse as some of the faith-addled among us seem to genuinely hope for. “We have to work together toward the global, long-term common good.”
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It’s worth pondering for a moment if similar questions weren’t asked about the European explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries. Well, they were searching for India and spices and wealth, might have been the response. And perhaps that accounts for most of them. But surely not all. Humans have always had an itch to explore, an itch perhaps born of how the species settled down from a nomadic one, as lived for 100,000 years or more, to a sedentary one, just 10 or 12 thousand years ago. Some of us, at least, always want to see what’s beyond the next horizon.
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And some of us don’t. Some of us are concerned with selfish endeavors and partisan infighting — tribal wars. Briefly noted:
- JMG, 30 Nov 2025 (from Yahoo News/Daily Beast): Mace Takes Credit For $195M Project She Voted Against — — We’ve seen this sort of thing many times before.
- Robert Reich, 30 Nov 2025: Sunday thought: The Bigot in the Oval Office, subtitled “Like dictators before him, Trump’s road to tyranny is paved with hate” — — And we’ve seen this many times before.
- JMG, 27 Nov 2025, from NOTUS: CDC Disables Vaccine Search By Zip Code Function — — Tearing down what others have built. Because they don’t “believe” in vaccines. Intuitive superstition as evidence of cognitive limitations.
