Pets or space exploration: which represent the more egregious waste of resources?

I was overjoyed to learn that people were returning to the Moon after more than fifty years, and I'm looking forward to a new age of space exploration.

We're going back to the fuckin' Moooooooon!

Not everybody is thrilled, however. After all, the extraordinary cost of space exploration rankles, in a world where many lack for food, healthcare, and education. Rockets are, some reasonably suggest, wasteful and decadent.

I don't know whether space exploration will turn out in the end to be good value for money, or not. But I know what definitely _isn't_ good value:

Keeping pets.

I've never understood pets. I've got nothing against wildlife in general, and I understand that some people need working animals. Seeing-eye dogs for blind people are a marvellous innovation, and I can understand why you'd rather have cats in your granary than rats. But I've never felt the inclination to share my living space with non-humans.

I'm in a minority, though, at least in the UK. Almost every household has at least one pet animal, and many have more. My local supermarket stocks almost as much stuff for dogs as it does for people; it certainly stocks more pet food than human baby food.

Last week, I was out walking in the local hills, as I do most days, when I was irritated to find a small dog nipping at my feet. It's owner explained:

He gets a bit anxious when he sees a human without a dog. Where's you dog, then?

The implication that it's aberrant to walk our green and pleasant land _without_ a dog is one that I find profoundly disturbing.

When my next-door neighbour, who's always kept dogs, learned that I didn't, and had no plans to, he said:

Ah, so you're a cat person, then?

Well, no. I have no more affection for furry, stalking murderers than I have for furry, slobbering dimwits. Keeping pets is an affectation, and an expensive one at that. In this respect, and definitely in no other, I find myself in agreement with Kim Jong Un of North Korea.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reportedly condemns pet ownership as a 'decadence'

And don't even get me started on the people who let their dogs shit in public places and don't clean up.

How does this relate to space exploration? Well...

According to Statista, the UK spent £11.3 _billion_ on pet-related expenses in 2023. I've heard this amount might be as high as £20 billion today.

Statista

What are we, collectively, getting for our billions and billions of pounds? Not very much of tangible benefit, that's for sure. We no longer need dogs to keep the wolves from our cooking fires, and the majority of us don't need cats to protect our larders from mice. We don't often travel on horseback and, when we do, it's a hobby, not a necessity.

In a world where many people can't afford to care for themselves and their families, how can we possibly justify spending billions of pounds every year on an affectation that serves no useful purpose? It's not as if we eat our pets when they die, so they're not even a source of food.

My point is simply this: we humans have a willingness to disburse our resources on things that don't provide an immediate tangible benefit. Many of us will find some of this expenditure regrettable. For my part, I'd far rather spend my money on a space program than a pet, but I'm aware that some people feel differently.

Also, I'm not allergic to space rockets.

Published 2026-04-18, updated 2026-04-18

Pets or space exploration: which represent the more egregious waste of resources?

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