3 ms·

Let's review some history for the moment. Back in the 19th century "egghead" scientists conducted numerous lines of research into several subjects which were at

Let's review some history for the moment. Back in the 19th century "egghead" scientists conducted numerous lines of research into several subjects which were at the time considered to be extremely esoteric, the essence of pure, "blue sky" research. Some examples from that century would be: electromagnetism, particle physics, quantum mechanics, and gas laws. As it turned out, understanding such things lead to lots of innovations which had not been anticipated beforehand. Everything from electric motors and lightbulbs to micro-processors, cell phones, internal combustion engines, fertilizer, and AIDS drugs. Those innovations built on the back of once pure scientific research have resulted in billions of years of human lives lived that would not have been other wise, and billions of years of lives lived in improved conditions (due to more food, cleaner water, greater wealth, and so on), literally tens of trillions of dollars per year of added economic activity due to those innovations and quadrillions of dollars of added value and increased wealth to human civilization. All due to egghead scientists studying stuff just because they were curious. What will be the next set of breakthroughs? Where will it come from? How much value will they add? We don't know, that's why we continue to sustain and support our curiosity across such broad ranges of subjects. Not only might breakthroughs come from surprising directions, but I think the scientists have more than earned it. Not everything we do needs to have some tangible return-on-investment back to some concrete bottom line on Earth in the near term.

graycat 11y ago
Sure, but you left out some crucial parts: "Often we find that a good question is more important than a good answer" - Richard Bellman. IMHO pictures of Pluto do not answer good questions. Commonly, one of the most important steps in good research is good problem selection. IMHO, getting pictures of Pluto is not good problem selection. Mars? It's closer in. There we might get some clues to the formation of the solar system. And we have a chance of setting up a base on Mars for astronomy or whatever. Pluto? As we have long known, it's really 'out there'. Pluto? Wild guess: There is so little going on there, and it's so darned cold, that maybe we could use it as a source of a preserved record of some of the major events in the galaxy over the past 5 billion years or so Pluto has been going around out there. For this guess, maybe look at the justification NASA gave for the Pluto effort.
- InclinedPlane 11y ago
  You seem to be missing it. Let me try to break it down again. First off, plain and simple, we don't know what we don't know. So straightforward it's tautological. It makes sense to expand our knowledge in every direction possible. This is the MO of a curious species. And curious species are vastly more successful than incurious ones. To paraphrase Randall Munroe, the legacies of incurious species are carefully discovered, studied, and remembered by curious ones. Curiosity is a survival trait. Dedicating less than 4 parts per million of our country's enormous economic activity toward studying an important part of our stellar neighborhood seems a worthwhile entry in the activities column of a sufficiently curious people. Moreover, the return-on-investment on unbounded curiosity is so close to infinite that it's hard to view complaints about such comparatively tiny expenditures in regards to their practicality or short-term tangible returns as anything other than laughably myopic.
  - graycat 11y ago
    > It makes sense to expand our knowledge in every direction possible. Not quite: Instead, for any amount of money, there are, or, as we start spending the money on research, soon will be, more candidate research projects than money. So we have to pick and choose our research projects. IMHO we have better candidate research projects, including just in investigating the solar system, than getting fly-by pictures of Pluto. Maybe NASA has some longer term ideas for research on Pluto where the recent pictures, and maybe also just the trip there, are just the beginning. Okay, land there, in a bunch of nitrogen snow. Take and analyze some samples and radio the data back to earth. Maybe get some data unique and valuable data on the formation of the solar system, maybe on some gamma ray bursts or super nova explosions, etc. Maybe. But just the pictures? IMHO, not so good.

graycat 11y ago

Sure, but you left out some crucial parts: "Often we find that a good question is more important than a good answer" - Richard Bellman. IMHO pictures of Pluto do not answer good questions. Commonly, one of the most important steps in good research is good problem selection. IMHO, getting pictures of Pluto is not good problem selection. Mars? It's closer in. There we might get some clues to the formation of the solar system. And we have a chance of setting up a base on Mars for astronomy or whatever. Pluto? As we have long known, it's really 'out there'. Pluto? Wild guess: There is so little going on there, and it's so darned cold, that maybe we could use it as a source of a preserved record of some of the major events in the galaxy over the past 5 billion years or so Pluto has been going around out there. For this guess, maybe look at the justification NASA gave for the Pluto effort.

InclinedPlane 11y ago
You seem to be missing it. Let me try to break it down again. First off, plain and simple, we don't know what we don't know. So straightforward it's tautological. It makes sense to expand our knowledge in every direction possible. This is the MO of a curious species. And curious species are vastly more successful than incurious ones. To paraphrase Randall Munroe, the legacies of incurious species are carefully discovered, studied, and remembered by curious ones. Curiosity is a survival trait. Dedicating less than 4 parts per million of our country's enormous economic activity toward studying an important part of our stellar neighborhood seems a worthwhile entry in the activities column of a sufficiently curious people. Moreover, the return-on-investment on unbounded curiosity is so close to infinite that it's hard to view complaints about such comparatively tiny expenditures in regards to their practicality or short-term tangible returns as anything other than laughably myopic.
- graycat 11y ago
  > It makes sense to expand our knowledge in every direction possible. Not quite: Instead, for any amount of money, there are, or, as we start spending the money on research, soon will be, more candidate research projects than money. So we have to pick and choose our research projects. IMHO we have better candidate research projects, including just in investigating the solar system, than getting fly-by pictures of Pluto. Maybe NASA has some longer term ideas for research on Pluto where the recent pictures, and maybe also just the trip there, are just the beginning. Okay, land there, in a bunch of nitrogen snow. Take and analyze some samples and radio the data back to earth. Maybe get some data unique and valuable data on the formation of the solar system, maybe on some gamma ray bursts or super nova explosions, etc. Maybe. But just the pictures? IMHO, not so good.