When I was a kid, I used to go to my terrace at night and stare at the stars. There was something comforting about looking up at a sky that never really changed, even when everything else around me did. Even now, that curiosity hasn’t gone away. But when I see another rocket launch trending online, I start to question what we’re actually chasing — understanding or just attention.
Lately, the idea of space exploration feels different. It doesn’t feel like discovery anymore. It feels like competition. Every few weeks, there’s a new company sending something into orbit. What used to represent human unity now feels like a contest between corporate giants who can afford to dream in billions. Space has always been ambitious, but now it seems driven by profit as much as progress.
Don’t get me wrong, I think exploring space is incredible. It’s one of the few things that still reminds us of what human potential looks like. But at the same time, I can’t help noticing how much we’re spending to reach farther when we’re still struggling to take care of what’s right here. The world is facing record levels of hunger. Millions of people still don’t have access to clean water or basic healthcare; climate change is impacting lives every day. Yet somehow, we can always find hundreds of billions of dollars to build rockets, satellites and luxury space flights.
It’s not that space research shouldn’t exist; the technology it creates often helps us in ways we don’t immediately see — in communication, medicine and disaster relief. But I keep wondering how much good that same intelligence and funding could do if we treated problems on Earth with the same urgency. What would it look like if the drive to reach Mars were matched by a drive to feed every child on this planet?
Maybe part of the issue is that space feels cleaner than reality. It’s easier to look up at the stars than to face the mess around us. Rockets are symbols of progress, and we love progress, as long as it looks shiny. But real progress, the kind that changes how people live, often looks ordinary. It’s building schools, fixing systems and making food affordable. Those things don’t trend on social media, but who doesn’t want to watch a rocket launch?
There’s also a strange irony in how we talk about space as the “next frontier,” as if leaving Earth will somehow free us from the problems we’ve created here. But if we can’t solve inequality, greed and exploitation on our own planet, what makes us think we won’t repeat them somewhere else? We could end up carrying the same problems into the stars, just with better equipment.
Still, I don’t think the answer is to stop spending on exploring. Curiosity is one of the best things about being human. But maybe curiosity should come with perspective. Maybe we should learn how to balance our excitement for what’s out there with our responsibility for what’s here. The way I see it, space should be a reminder of how small and fragile life is, not an excuse to escape it.
Whenever I look at the sky now, it is still as interesting as it was when I was a kid. However, the stars don’t just make me wonder what’s beyond us; they make me think about what we’re leaving behind. The universe will always be there. What won’t wait are the people who need help, the forests burning, the oceans rising.
If space exploration really is about understanding, maybe that understanding has to start at home. Before we prove we can live somewhere else, we should prove we deserve the place we already have.
Nishanth Aduma, GSB ’27, is a finance major from Hyderabad, India.
