Is it necessary to explore outer space? Is the cost and risk taken by organizations like NASA and ESA justified by the pursuit of knowledge and curiosity?

We should send people into space, to other planets, and when we're capable, beyond... because, Earth won't last forever. Someday, Earth's ability to sustain human life will end, either from some natural cataclysm, or by our own hand - and, if we're not able to go to space, to explore, to live there independently from Earth, then, we're doomed to die as a species when that day arrives.

We can learn about other places by sending unmanned robotic probes, but I hope they're only reconnaissance, alerting us to conditions when *we* go. Part of the reason we exist is to explore, and to go further than we ever have, eventually learning to survive there. In the long run, our survival as a species may depend on it.

Otherwise... all we're really doing is trying to keep ourselves comfortable, waiting for 'The End' to arrive... What a sad state of existence that is.

I would hate to think Mankind went extinct because it was too damn cheap to survive.