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None of those things has had any affect on my life or the lives of anybody i personally know (yet). I booked a ride on Uber just the other day. edit: typo

by _nedR 11y ago

LeoNatan25 11y ago
That is a ridiculous, close minded statement. You enjoy the fruits of space experimentation on the ISS every day. In addition, much of what is space technology today and the research done to develop it finds its way to civilian aviation, transportation and so many other fields. But you enjoy your naive, small scale, narrow point of view. Like a horse with a saddle, ignorance is a bliss.
- _nedR 11y ago
  Wow. No need to go hyperbolic. First off, SpaceX had little/nothing to do with any of the stuff you mentioned. Second, I am not devaluing what SpaceX has done or is trying to do. I am a big fan actually of such ventures which strive to find new frontiers. My reply was in the context of this thread where lot of people are dissing Uber saying they are not a real technology company, and people lamenting the fact that a taxi company raised more money than a space faring company. I was pointing out the close-mindedness (if you will) of those people. Uber is having tremendous impact in the here and now across the world, and touching the lives of millions of people. What they have done is nothing to dismiss. Also the vision of the future they are working towards could be even more transformative (possibly save hundreds of thousands of lives a year). What SpaceX is trying is far more riskier and ambitious and its rewards for humanity (if it succeeds) lay further into the future and may end up having greater impact on the future of humanity (or it may not). In the interim its impact is limited (because it is a long-term project). It makes no sense to compare the two ventures as some competition. The worlds needs both. There is nothing wrong with the fact that Uber has a greater valuation than SpaceX. Uber provides greater value to their customers right now. And they could provide greater returns to their investors sooner (if they chose to ). SpaceX as of now is much more riskier investment and its real returns lay farther in the future.
- eru 11y ago
  > You enjoy the fruits of space experimentation on the ISS every day. What has manned (!) space flight ever done for us?
  - elektromekatron 11y ago
    Helped keep the peace between the USSR and the USA through the cold war, by giving them something to collaborate on and so build some trust and keep communication going. edit - there is other stuff as well, but 'peace' seemed the best option to go with given the way you phrased the question - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Hubble_Images_of_M100_Before_and_After_Mirror_Repair_-_GPN-2002-000064.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Hubble_I...
    - eru 11y ago
      Ok, that's an interesting hypothesis. How can we falsify / verify it? (One competing hypothesis is `nukes kept the peace'.)
      - elektromekatron 11y ago
        Well, we can imagine another world where we still have superpowers with nukes pointed at each other but without big civil collaborative science projects going on between them. Both worlds could end up in an all-out nuclear war, but which one do you think is more likely?
        eru 11y ago
        We can imagine a lot of things. I was thinking of rather more evidence-based evidence.
        elektromekatron 11y ago
        Well, without going down the road of trying to find plausible probabilities for imaginary scenarios it is difficult to chip away at either hypothesis, given we do not have a variety of different earths to test on.
- leoedin 11y ago
  Space technology in the 60s certainly resulted in wider benefit. Today? There's definitely some innovation happening, but broadly (compared to, say, consumer electronics) space is an incredibly slow moving, incredibly risk averse field. It often takes decades for components developed for other fields to end up in space. A satellite today will probably be filled with electronic components designed 20 years ago. Justifying doing anything new is hugely expensive and so rarely happens. Ultimately, in the past designing for space was a new field with rapid development but as the field has matured the huge cost involved in launching anything has made the whole industry hugely risk averse. There is innovation happening from new players (cube sats, spacex), but even these areas are mostly about finding cheaper ways to do things rather than inventing new stuff.

None of those things has had any affect on my life or the lives of anybody i personally know (yet). I booked a ride on Uber just the other day. edit: typo

by _nedR 11y ago

None of those things has had any affect on my life or the lives of anybody i personally know (yet). I booked a ride on Uber just the other day. edit: typo

LeoNatan25 11y ago

That is a ridiculous, close minded statement. You enjoy the fruits of space experimentation on the ISS every day. In addition, much of what is space technology today and the research done to develop it finds its way to civilian aviation, transportation and so many other fields. But you enjoy your naive, small scale, narrow point of view. Like a horse with a saddle, ignorance is a bliss.

_nedR 11y ago
Wow. No need to go hyperbolic. First off, SpaceX had little/nothing to do with any of the stuff you mentioned. Second, I am not devaluing what SpaceX has done or is trying to do. I am a big fan actually of such ventures which strive to find new frontiers. My reply was in the context of this thread where lot of people are dissing Uber saying they are not a real technology company, and people lamenting the fact that a taxi company raised more money than a space faring company. I was pointing out the close-mindedness (if you will) of those people. Uber is having tremendous impact in the here and now across the world, and touching the lives of millions of people. What they have done is nothing to dismiss. Also the vision of the future they are working towards could be even more transformative (possibly save hundreds of thousands of lives a year). What SpaceX is trying is far more riskier and ambitious and its rewards for humanity (if it succeeds) lay further into the future and may end up having greater impact on the future of humanity (or it may not). In the interim its impact is limited (because it is a long-term project). It makes no sense to compare the two ventures as some competition. The worlds needs both. There is nothing wrong with the fact that Uber has a greater valuation than SpaceX. Uber provides greater value to their customers right now. And they could provide greater returns to their investors sooner (if they chose to ). SpaceX as of now is much more riskier investment and its real returns lay farther in the future.
eru 11y ago
> You enjoy the fruits of space experimentation on the ISS every day. What has manned (!) space flight ever done for us?
- elektromekatron 11y ago
  Helped keep the peace between the USSR and the USA through the cold war, by giving them something to collaborate on and so build some trust and keep communication going. edit - there is other stuff as well, but 'peace' seemed the best option to go with given the way you phrased the question - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Hubble_Images_of_M100_Before_and_After_Mirror_Repair_-_GPN-2002-000064.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Hubble_I...
  - eru 11y ago
    Ok, that's an interesting hypothesis. How can we falsify / verify it? (One competing hypothesis is `nukes kept the peace'.)
    - elektromekatron 11y ago
      Well, we can imagine another world where we still have superpowers with nukes pointed at each other but without big civil collaborative science projects going on between them. Both worlds could end up in an all-out nuclear war, but which one do you think is more likely?
      - eru 11y ago
        We can imagine a lot of things. I was thinking of rather more evidence-based evidence.
        elektromekatron 11y ago
        Well, without going down the road of trying to find plausible probabilities for imaginary scenarios it is difficult to chip away at either hypothesis, given we do not have a variety of different earths to test on.
leoedin 11y ago
Space technology in the 60s certainly resulted in wider benefit. Today? There's definitely some innovation happening, but broadly (compared to, say, consumer electronics) space is an incredibly slow moving, incredibly risk averse field. It often takes decades for components developed for other fields to end up in space. A satellite today will probably be filled with electronic components designed 20 years ago. Justifying doing anything new is hugely expensive and so rarely happens. Ultimately, in the past designing for space was a new field with rapid development but as the field has matured the huge cost involved in launching anything has made the whole industry hugely risk averse. There is innovation happening from new players (cube sats, spacex), but even these areas are mostly about finding cheaper ways to do things rather than inventing new stuff.