Over $2 trillion spent annually on defence, compared to $4B on space programs, says Umut Yildiz, astrophysicist at NASA

Axar.az reports citing AA that humanity would have much to gain if countries across the globe were to allocate their annual military budgets to research on space, our species' final frontier, even for only one year, according to a NASA expert.

Speaking on the sidelines of the National Sky Observation Festival in the Mediterranean Turkish province of Antalya, Umut Yildiz, an astrophysicist at NASA/JPL, said money spent on space studies were usually less than officially reported, especially compared to spending in other areas including wars, defense, and military-related technologies.

Underlining that more than $2 trillion were spent annually on defense worldwide, Yildiz said only an estimated $40 billion were allocated to space programs.

"It would be possible to make many more discoveries," he said, if only one year's worth of defense expenditure was transferred to space research, citing prompt advancement in technology to establish a Mars colony among the possibilities.

Yildiz is an astrophysicist and telecommunications engineer who works on deep space telecommunications in NASA/JPL’s deep space missions.