An article published by Lori Garver in 2019 proposed to “forget new crewed missions in space” and “NASA to focus on saving Earth.”

I thought such an extreme position was worth to be discussed, and strongly refuted.

No Lori. I strongly disagree with you.

I am not a US citizen, but NASA is a Planet Earth’s primary space agency, therefore i am speaking as a Planet Earth’s citizen.

I am not against taking care of planetary issues, that basically would mean to follow the UN 2030 17 SDGs. All initiatives that NASA and other major space agencies could undertake, to mitigate global issues, such as climate extreme phenomena, pollution, plastic in the sea, fighting against pandemics, are more than welcome, and should be pursued.

I am 100% in favor of active initiatives (opposite to passive de-growthist “solutions”), e.g. to build dams to protect coastal towns, and eventually use the water surplus (coming from ice melting) to claim deserts. Proper space technologies can be used to support such kind of active initiatives.

But we must be aware that none of the planetary global issues can be solved, none of the 17 SDGs can be achieved, without adding the 18th SDG: to kick-off civilian space development.

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