Should money spent on space exploration be spent on Earth instead?

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The argument that space budgets should be redirected to hunger, housing and health has obvious moral force. I agree with it only in part, because it rests on an assumption about money that does not survive inspection. The assumption is that space spending is a pile of cash sitting beside an empty bowl. In reality space agencies receive a fraction of a percent of most national budgets, far less than fuel subsidies or debt servicing, and cancelling them tomorrow would fund the world's problems for a matter of days. Poverty persists because of distribution and politics, not because engineers are pointing telescopes at the sky. There is also a return that critics undercount. Satellites forecast the storms that kill farmers, map illegal deforestation, carry the signal to a village clinic and warn of failing harvests. Weather data alone repays the investment for agricultural economies every year. That said, the critics are right about proportion. Missions driven by prestige, or by billionaires buying a view, deserve the scepticism they attract, and a poor country choosing between a launch programme and clean water should choose water without hesitation. In conclusion, I disagree that space spending is the reason Earth's problems remain unsolved, while accepting that space ambitions must be judged, like any spending, by what they return to the people who fund them.