I watched "The Martian" a few weeks ago and it really got me thinking: Is this what our space program is going to look like in 15 years? I mean, the Hermes spacecraft looked spacious and comfortable, totally unlike the International Space Station (more-or-less the best spacecraft that currently exists), and NASA director Teddy Sanders (richly played by Jeff Daniels) had the ability to throw billions of dollars around with an ostensibly limitless 2030s NASA budget. But all movie references aside, what does the future hold for human space exploration? Why do we bother landing on comets? Why are so many people trying to get to Mars? And even more importantly, why is it even important that we explore space at all? I'll hold back as much science-zealotry as I can while we explore some of these questions with a bit more thought.

The Space Age kicked off in October of 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into low Earth orbit, prompting many countries to develop their own space programs in order to keep up. Since then, we humans have set foot on the Moon, taken pictures of Venus' surface, driven rovers almost 50 miles across Mars, landed spacecrafts on comets and asteroids, and have left the Solar System entirely (Voyager 1 will still send us messages until 2025). All of this progress has cost the lives of many and an unspeakable amount of money, and most of these spacecraft can't be reused; they're destined to float away forever or die on whichever rock they land on. So why bother with any of this? There are a handful of answers that get thrown around: We need to seek out new resources; expansion into space will prevent Earth's overpopulation; exploration for its own sake is fundamental to a developed, creative society. I'm a fan of all of these, but not everyone is convinced.

According to a YouGov/Huffington Post poll from 2013, only 71 percent of adults in the US think that space exploration is important. Heck, according to a Pew poll from January of this year, only 79 percent of adults in the US think that science in general has made life easier. While these numbers are pretty good, it really should be much higher. The operations of smart phones and computers we surely all take for granted are ultimately products of the technologies developed for space exploration. At the end of the day, space exploration is an impetus to develop new technologies for our men and women to survive in the coldest, darkest regions of the Universe. From energy generation and material engineering, to radiation protection and space food: What keeps us alive up there makes everything better for us down here.