• Question: What benefits has the space program already produced?

    Asked by Anakin to Eimear, James, Jonathan, Lána, Willi on 27 Feb 2018.
    • Photo: James Geary

      James Geary answered on 27 Feb 2018:

      Safety: weather predictions and storm early warning “beast from the east” is being monitored by satellite
      Agriculture: Crop health monitored by satellite
      Entertainment: television
      Communications: Mobile phones, shipping coms
      Navigation: Satellite navigation
      Military: Spy satellite monitoring hostile territories

      If the current suite of satellite orbiting earth were switched off there would be a lot of difficulty to continue our day to day lives, many terrestrial systems are now replaced for many years by satellite systems.

    • Photo: William O'Connor

      William O'Connor answered on 27 Feb 2018:

      The space programme has produced many practical benefits: weather satellites, global positioning systems, communications, …
      But it has also produced lots of scientific information we didn’t have before, which is interesting and may be useful later.

    • Photo: Lána Salmon

      Lána Salmon answered on 27 Feb 2018:

      So many benefits! Firstly, we got a glimpse of what earth looks like from space, and how fragile we are, which helps us be more environmentally friendly. It helps us understand where we came from and where we’re going. And there is a natural curiosity in all of us to explore and find out more about whats out there.

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