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Exploring places far, far away to benefit the world close by
You’ve probably heard of many cool stories about space exploration, whether it is astronauts taking off into space, or unmanned spacecrafts flying by planets at extremely fast speeds. Well, as it turns out, space exploration not only has the purpose of being cool, or simply discovering data for the sake of science. You might not realize it, but space exploration has extremely practical purposes, even in improving our day-to-day lives!
Some examples of benefits
According to the Canadian Space Agency, space exploration can help improve health care, combat climate change, create jobs, and improve our day-to-day lives from the most basic forms.
Talking about our health, did you know that space exploration helps us broaden our understanding of our very own physiology? This is especially true, as astronauts have already conducted research on board the ISS that is conducive to trying to figure out solutions to various health diseases, such as Type 2 diabetes and osteoporosis. In fact, many astronauts opted themselves to participate in experiments, using their own bodies in order to gain knowledge previously unknown to humanity.
Additionally, the technology that is used to power the Canadarm is also being utilized to create surgical robots, such as the sophisticated neuroArm, to perform brain surgeries through high degrees of decision. Â
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Combating Climate Change
It is only through space technology that humanity can discover and photograph some of the rapid changes that are happening to our natural world. For example, the Aral Sea is shrinking significantly, and there is a sharp decline in the ice extent of the Arctic Sea. Satellites also help monitor air, and even soil, pollution. The ozone layer depletion was discovered in part due to the satellites, sparking international attention to address this serious problem. Satellites are also used to monitor the extent to which natural habitats are preserved, helping to protect fragile (yet indispensable) ecosystems on our planet.
Improving our day-to-day lives
It may be difficult to imagine, but one commonality among air purifiers, enriched baby formula, memory foam, and cordless vacuum cleaners is that they are all “spin-offs” from space technology! For example, memory foam was actually originally developed to help the astronauts stay cushioned during the flights. Even cell phone cameras were initially developed for the purpose of minimizing the size of cameras for various spacecraft.
Image by Dariusz Sankowski from Pixabay
Other important impacts space exploration has on our day-to-day life include weather forecasting, providing important information for farmers to grow crops, and more. Truly, space exploration impacts all of our lives greatly and deeply, whether we realize it or not. You can find more information on this topic on the Canadian Space Agency website. So, let’s appreciate the last century of innovation, which enables us to have access to such important services that are provided by satellites and other spacecraft!