Whenever you praise human spaceflight or space tourism a bit too loudly around the wrong people, you’re bound to get assailed by seemingly morally unassailable criticisms of space exploration being a luxury we can ill afford when we have so many pressing problems right here on Earth. But what if we were to tell you that not only does sending humans into space barely makes a microscopic dent in global budgets, it’s also good for us long term and may hold one of the keys to getting our civilization out of its current consumerism-obsessed, self-destructive, soul-crushing rut?