Hey there, Welcome to Life Noggin.Space travel has given us a lot more thanjust some pretty pictures of Mars and a fewfootprints on the moon.It’s taught us so much about the universe,shifted our perspective and changed how welive here on Earth.But what if we never traveled to space?You may not realize it but there’s a lotof things we use in our day to day lives thatmight not be around if we hadn’t venturedout into the unknown.There’s one set of pretty basic space techthat we definitely take for granted here onEarth.Satellites.The area surrounding Earth is full of satellitesfrom various space agencies like NASA, JAXAand the ESA.These under-appreciated heroes give us GPSnavigation, more detailed storm warnings andcosmic weather forecasts.GPS relies on real-time satellite data thatstreams down to GPS receivers.No satellites, no GPS.Imagine having to use maps to get around!Maps, real maps!No thank you.In a world without satellites, a lot of extremestorms like hurricanes and tornadoes wouldn’tbe forecast at all!They’d just come out of nowhere, takingunsuspecting lives and causing more damageto unprepared areas.Without satellites, we wouldn’t be readyfor geomagnetic storms either.These are when radiation from the sun hurdlestowards Earth threatening our global electricalpower systems.Satellites send storm warnings to Earth, allowingthe electric power industry to prepare andavoid massive outages.In just 3 years, these warnings are estimatedto have saved about $450 million.If we never sent those satellites up there,you’d be in for a lot of candlelit, no-wifinights.Without advances made in the space industry,air travel would be more time-consuming andmore expensive too.NASA created the backbone of modern air trafficcontrol, and without it, you’d better believeit’d take us even longer to get up intothe sky.Plus, NASA engineers figured out that turningthe tips of the plane wings upward reducesdrag, saving airlines billions in fuel costsWithout these advances, saving billions in fuel costs.We can also thank space travel for countlessbreakthroughs in the field of medicine.JPL, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, playeda lead role in developing the digital imagingtechnology that’s now used for CAT scansand radiography!So many illnesses and broken bones would goundiagnosed without this tech!You know that memory foam mattress you sleepon?You got that thanks to NASA’s advances inspace travel!Wireless headphones?NASA.Tech to ensure clean drinking water?ESA.Safe land mine removal?ESA & NASA.Futuristic self-driving tractors?NASA.Space travel obviously hasn’t just givenus these life-changing inventions.It’s taught us so much about space, likethat the universe is expanding, that it’s14 billion years old, and about what it lookedlike 10 billion years ago.It’s taught us so much about our planettoo, like the long-term implications of globalwarming, changing ocean and weather patterns,and our atmosphere.Space travel has done even more than all that.It’s changed our perspective of our planet,our universe and for many of us, our perspectiveon life itself.Space travel feeds the curiosity of so manyof us stuck here on Earth.Making us question what else is out there,are we alone and if not, when will we meetthem?Space travel is crazy expensive and whetheror not it’s worth the money is heavily debated.Do you think it’s worth it?Let us know in the comments.