Space, to this day, remains a mystery to us. We, the omnipotent beasts on Earth, have managed to send just a few of our species to poison our planet with waste, to despoil the lands of others - assuming that others exist - in the same way that we have stripped ours, to reach out to others. and make them our slaves, our animals, to, as we like to call it, “explore” – and we want that number to increase. We mask this greed with the notion of advancement to prevent the more conscious of our species from interfering with us or to persuade them to tout space exploration as a symbol of success. Blinded by our thirst to rise above all creatures and our calling to fulfill Manifest Destiny, we ignore the detrimental effect we will have on the space environment or how devastating these expeditions will be on our already wallets. empty. The Earth was beautiful: green fields stretched for endless miles, daisies, roses and lilies bloomed everywhere and thousands of animals roamed the earth. Today, factories, industrial machines and piles of waste inhabit every corner of this once beautiful planet – all because of us. We have succeeded in polluting the Earth, stripping it of its natural beauty and leaving behind barren acres of... nothing (Source B). Our homes inhibit the growth of all life – other than us, of course; our space shuttles and rockets greedily usurp the homes of all animals, and we reside above it all, controlling every aspect of our master plan like a child controls the characters in his video games. But we still remain unsatisfied, and that will be the case. in this way until we extend our presence to every square centimeter of the solar system (Source E). We strive to take over space and use it for the benefit of our species, but we are not responsible for this middle of paper...... billions in taxes, of which 126 billion will be spent on the space category. explorations begin there (Chantrill). This money belonged to taxpayers, so it should be used for something that will benefit everyone, like health care. Instead, taxpayers are forced to give their hard-earned money to make the dreams of these greedy beasts come true (Source H) while they, between their hospital bills and college tuition, struggle to put together a meal on the table. a selfish luxury that we cannot afford until we alleviate our problems on Earth; we need to prioritize. We cannot invade other planets and destroy them the same way we destroyed ours. We must tame the beasts within us before it is too late. Works Cited Chantrill, Christopher. “Estimated government revenues for fiscal year 2014.” US Government Revenue. 2014. usgovernmentrevenue.com. Internet. March 25, 2014. Support: Web.