Some people argue that researching psychedelic drugs is a waste of time and money. It is not.

Some others argue that researching other planets is a waste of time and money. It is not.


We are exploring nature. Trying to find new things.

Hopefully useful things.


Exploration is not a waste of time. Trying to discover is not a waste of money.

This is a good topic.



What you say does ring with common sense, but makes me wonder about actual studies and reports about the cost-effectiveness of the space race. I have read none, and in any case, the question should not be whether space exploration and astronautics has been profitable so far, or might be profitable for the human race in the future. The relevant question is whether now it is cost-effective or not.

I mean... during the cold war, the power struggle pretty much marked the agenda. Technological advances were there, but since they often might have been a simple side effect of a political maneuver inside of the space race, since the scientific factor was often collateral in the aspect of funding, I'm pretty sure there was over-spending. Even if only due to poor logistics and rushed deadlines, maybe in one side more than the other.

The NASA budget reached 4,41% of US federal budget in 1966, with project Apollo in full development. But the resulting boost in foreign prestige for the US seemed to justify the cost. In year 2000, it was a 0,75%, and it's been decreasing since then.

Does that mean we have less needs now for science progress? Does that mean that the need for (with your permission, clouds) Scientific progress, inspiration, solid evidence, world peace and appreciation of truth are devaluated? Obviously not. So the political game has changed, and after the moon, the next visible step for cosmos exploration involved a huge leap. And that prestige factor, or the weight of foreign politics and public opinion, have become too expensive to feed.

Of course that the Voyager missions, the Hubble telescope or the SETI program have been able to reach and involve common people. I mean, disregarding achievements like miniaturization or satellite technology. But the sociopolitical impact is much lower than it was. And the world has changed a lot in the last 30 years.

My point (and my current feeling about this) is that the inspirational and cohesive elements of space exploration are not strong enough now. Yes, they are there. But they are not enough to fuel the machinery able to trigger a global difference in the mentality of people through space exploration. So for those reasons, the Ernst Stuhlinger letter is probably outdated.

And about Scientific progress and solid evidence, we can basically agree that any crucial achievements to be made with space programs are in the long run, or in the middle run at the most. I think right now we are in a state of emergency that requires short term investment and reaction. So I mostly concur with endlessness when he says that money would probably be more useful placed in other budgets.

But I would never sign a petition to remove NASA funds in order to allocate them somewhere else, for a different reason. It would be profoundly IMMORAL to punish a productive, hopeful, exciting department while the US keep a billionary budget in war occupation, or invested in the black hole of financial bailouts, or <fill space here with anything else you can think of>.

I think it's a legit, deep controversy, but slightly off-time. I wish the world was reasonable enough to address it soundly. Now it feels a little like worrying because your family might be overspending a little in travelling, but overlooking the fact that dad is burning one third of his salary in booze.

How are we to learn without first treading steps?
The moon...hyperspace...LIFE.

These may be costly baby-steps. But they are steps none the less. Hopefully in the right direction....and if that direction is up? Then yes, I support it.

I think this is quite some judgement call and an appeal to ridicule.

Anyway, there are many parallel tracks that are being followed with research at the same time. We life in a complex world where we have to think about all aspects of life. Just putting all resources into a smaller band of research means that we have to take resources away from other (research) fields. In certain fields there is only so much that can be researched at one time with the use of reasonable resources. And then there is only a certain amount of people who are actually capable of doing certain areas of research, of that relatively small group only an even smaller group goes into actual science in the end. If you exclude certain areas from research then this group will probably get even smaller, they might become lawyers instead of scientist for example.

So to me it sounds not practical to put all resources into a smaller array of scientific directions. By doing this you simply don't make the most effective use of the resources available (money/time/material/humans/logistics/etc). As stated before you might simply not find enough people who are capable and/or willing to do the work needed. And then there are many examples of ideas brought forth in one discipline of science that benefited other disciplines, in fact you might call this parallel research maximizing the use of the resources available.

To put this into some sort of ridicule too: One day we might know how to deal with ourselves and nature, only to find out a big asteroid is heading for earth and we don't know how to deal with it.



What about being an inspiration to millions? If you are talking about cost effectiveness then this project has quite a large impact. This is the kind of research that inspires young kids in school to become a scientist. And it might attract other people to stop wasting for a moment and think about the cosmos, Earth and everything that is involved in life. I think it would be interesting to research the long term social impact of projects like this.



That would be an interesting experiment, but who is to judge what the 'best' ideas are? The generic population or maybe a science/politics panel?

For a population panel this practically means that you will get a popularity contest and I'm afraid that this would bring forth a scientific version of X-Factor or Idols; Many people don't know what they are voting for and/or don't have the time/capability to fully understand the subject at matter.

And if you have a panel of politicians and scientists who would judge what is feasible or not you would probably get a Mars mission included too.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

Yeah I guess you're right its a judgement call but I cant help to notice this as a real trend. See, mostly any place on earth that has over a certain amount of inhabitants has a mcdonalds. Most places that have a certain amount of people will also have a significant amount of garbage. There are exceptions but in general this is how it seems to be working out, so Im supposing this can happen just the same if we start colonizing other places instead of thinking how to live well regardless where we are.



My point wasnt to take away the money from science, but maybe reconsider how we can spend this money for scientific research that can show more benefits that arent just hypothesis of potential inspiration or potential hidden uses. I mean, if we use this same argument, we can justify just about anything, no? Like, why not giving them some money to build a time machine? Maybe it inspires people and even if they dont succeed maybe we learn something scientific. Or whatever other example.




Maybe instead the money should be going to asteroid-protection program? Or maybe we are able to protect against asteroids but we kill all the natural resources on earth and die? This is one of those things that we can use the arguments for any side, so its complicated to find a conclusion.




As mentioned before, personally I dont think it really inspires that many people (and maybe it dis-inspires many others), and that there could be other more direct ways to inspire people scientifically.. But in any case a research of the social impact would be interesting indeed.




Yep thats a good point. I think it would have to be a mixture of both. Maybe scientists could have a stronger vote, and general people have a vote that is worth somewhat less per person? Or maybe at least a certain % of people could be enough for veto of a project? Or maybe people could at least decide part of their taxes and to what area they prefer (so for example you can chose if 10% of yur taxes goes to space program or to energy efficiency development, health research, communications research, etc etc). Or many other ideas. One thing is sure for me, at least its important to question, and not take things for granted. And when I question myself regarding these kind of projects, I find something "itchy" about it and I'd rather see a bit more effort elsewhere. Just my opinion

I think this discussion touches an element that is more to the core of human existence: What will be the best long term approach? And with that I mean what do we want to reach? What are our goals?

I think that we, as the human race, have an ever present ambition and urge to expand humanity as far and wide as possible with as many people as we can handle.

If we take this as a goal (not saying it is but if) then to me it seems that it is important to reach a balance with our environment that is as good as possible without being wiped out. So we have to find a balance between us, the environment (that can be extremely hostile) and our expansion drift.

If you have a human race that expands to other planets like locust and consuming anything in their way then something is wrong, those planets cannot be well populated anymore and the goal to expand gets lost. Thus it seems that if we want to expand to other worlds it is important that we as the human race are to a level where we have to accept that we have to life in harmony to reach the maximum potential.

On the other hand we have to prevent that we will be wiped out. Our current planet can be hit by many global disasters, both man made and from nature. If the human race expands to another world that is hospitable then that will increase our chances of survival significantly. It can be that it is worthwhile to expand to other worlds even if we do not have a well balanced harmony with our environment yet, purely for increasing our chances of survival by excluding worldwide disasters.

What I want to say with this is that parallel tracks of development might be a good choice for the moment, even if they are not the best ultimate long term solution. I also want to say with this that we should be careful with making certain things mandatory before we move to a next phase (a balance with nature before we expand to the stars for example), with new developments we might learn new ways to life in harmony with nature while laying on a purple beach at a distant star.

p.s. can someone ring Gino's for me? I like to order a pizza...


Kind regards,

The Traveler

money wasted.

this is the same NASA that spent $9 mil. to crash a rocket into the moon. asteroids do it for free.

IMO the money could be better spent researching our oceans.

I think it is better spend on researching your brain, so come here with those slices.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

Benzyme

Perfectly said... I couldnt agree with you more.... Even though I do find our universe to be incredibly intriguing.


Much Peace and Kindness

it really is.

I just wish more funds were devoted to studying the hydrologic cycle on earth, and development of more practical means of deriving energy from hydrodynamic/geothermic sources..
\
a little off-topic but it seems like a lot of products that hit the market that came from NASA experiments are ones of convenience and amusement

"...oh by the way, here's a neat springy thing that can "walk" down stairs, and some hairy polyester strips with a complementary strip with little hooks"

you know the ol' saying: we know more about the universe than our oceans.

Benzyme

Indeed... brilliantly said...


Much Peace and Respect

Much Peace and Understanding

Fortunately for all of us, NASA is full of intelligent people that don't give a f*** about what some losers want the money spent on.

In my opinion, they are doing an excellent job. It is their job to explore the universe. Deal with it.

I wish they would AND explore the universe more AND explore Earth more, how about that? Also, by using satellites we already know a lot more about Earth than before, hence why I stated that inventions from one field of science can help other fields as well.

The money spend on the Mars mission is relatively small compared to things like the defense industry. I think that we are making the wrong judgement here by thinking that taking money away from exploring space will be enough to even research a small amount of Earth. It's like taking away a kids toy car to save for a real life truck, it just makes no sense, you still can't buy the truck and you have a kid wondering why people took away his toy for nothing.


btw. When summing up things that were important with this mission I missed a very important one: the search for life outside earth. It's a very old question and it is one that might be answered by this new Mars mission. Answering this question will also be a piece in the puzzle to that other old and fascinating question; where did we came from?



Please be reasonable in a debate with other people. Even if things can be frustrating for you it makes no sense to revert to name calling. Just explaining your thought with reason can bring much more understanding and willingness to other people to be open minded to your ideas.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

at the end of the day, NASA still works closely with the military. they keep
a lot of secrets as well, ones that would likely appall the general public.
make no mistake, as an organization, they are corrupt.