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As well as that, there are numerous side benefits. As TFA says, we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the floor of the oceans. The amount

As well as that, there are numerous side benefits. As TFA says, we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the floor of the oceans. The amount of knowledge that will be gained for the public domain from this effort will be massive. Take CERN for instance - even if the benefits of verifying the Higgs Boson are beyond you, you can't argue that its providing the incubating environment for technologies such as the World Wide Web, and development of other engineering know-how, is in and of itself a bad thing!

moftz 11y ago
Scientific advancement is great and I support it but there's a point where you need to spend money on other endeavors as well. $100M may not seem like much in the big picture but where is this money being diverted from? Cancer research? Poverty relief? Healthcare? Defense? It would be great if we could fund every research proposal out there but we have a lot of pressing, current issues now that may be worth more fixing than doing furthering science more.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  That's a fair point, though it would be even better if science wasn't so terribly underfunded as it is. We have a lot of pressing, current issues but we also have a lot of spending that could be put to better use. Like defense, for which in first world countries $100M is basically change money. Or corporate welfare. Or funding political campaigns. Science is literally the last thing you want to use "we have a lot of pressing, current issues now that may be worth more fixing" line against.
- ricksplat 11y ago
  Science must be done, not just for the sake of academics and the people in labs, but for the sake of those very causes people claim it draws money away from. Cancer research, poverty relief, healthcare and defence [bad example] can all benefit from a good dose of science. Even if not applied to the field itself some very significant advances have come about through serendipitous discoveries when somebody was doing something else. What matters is the scientific method such that the results can be shared and reproduced. Specifically one could imagine some benefits from deep sea exploration in the south pacific could benefit each of these fields, but I'll admit that's spurious. But the point is, for political ends it is being done anyway, and while we're at it we may as well be "doing science" and getting the best out of it.
  - vanattab 11y ago
    I agree with your overall point but why is defense a bad example? Defense systems benifit a great deal from advancements in science.
    - ricksplat 11y ago
      Haha cool, I just thought it was a bad example because defence in particular is notoriously well funded. In fact it's a better example for citing as a source of virtuous secondary benefits (like CERN, SETI or the search for MH370) because though controversial it's given us the internet!

moftz 11y ago

Scientific advancement is great and I support it but there's a point where you need to spend money on other endeavors as well. $100M may not seem like much in the big picture but where is this money being diverted from? Cancer research? Poverty relief? Healthcare? Defense? It would be great if we could fund every research proposal out there but we have a lot of pressing, current issues now that may be worth more fixing than doing furthering science more.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
That's a fair point, though it would be even better if science wasn't so terribly underfunded as it is. We have a lot of pressing, current issues but we also have a lot of spending that could be put to better use. Like defense, for which in first world countries $100M is basically change money. Or corporate welfare. Or funding political campaigns. Science is literally the last thing you want to use "we have a lot of pressing, current issues now that may be worth more fixing" line against.
ricksplat 11y ago
Science must be done, not just for the sake of academics and the people in labs, but for the sake of those very causes people claim it draws money away from. Cancer research, poverty relief, healthcare and defence [bad example] can all benefit from a good dose of science. Even if not applied to the field itself some very significant advances have come about through serendipitous discoveries when somebody was doing something else. What matters is the scientific method such that the results can be shared and reproduced. Specifically one could imagine some benefits from deep sea exploration in the south pacific could benefit each of these fields, but I'll admit that's spurious. But the point is, for political ends it is being done anyway, and while we're at it we may as well be "doing science" and getting the best out of it.
- vanattab 11y ago
  I agree with your overall point but why is defense a bad example? Defense systems benifit a great deal from advancements in science.
  - ricksplat 11y ago
    Haha cool, I just thought it was a bad example because defence in particular is notoriously well funded. In fact it's a better example for citing as a source of virtuous secondary benefits (like CERN, SETI or the search for MH370) because though controversial it's given us the internet!