4 ms·

Every time I hear him talk about Mars (placing it before curing cancer), I think "if only he had grown up wanting to eradicate poverty." Still...rather than thi

Every time I hear him talk about Mars (placing it before curing cancer), I think "if only he had grown up wanting to eradicate poverty." Still...rather than think ill of his idea - and work - we should celebrate his innovation and the way he will inspire others. As I thought about how he is perfecting rocket technology, I wandered off on a tangential rocket technology (thought) that would tract nuclear rockets launched from the earth's surface and curry them off into space... and return home.Is it a good idea? It is if it works. Do I plan on working on it? I don't know shit about rockets, so probably not. The point it, we need more "Mars Men" in order to discover the ideas that will change things here on earth. Maybe Musk won't cure cancer or end wars but maybe someone inspired by him will.

dreamling 10y ago
how many things were invented as byproducts of the space race? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- XorNot 10y ago
  This is also a thing I think we don't explain very well, because a frequent response is "oh those things would've been invented anyway" (with the implication they would've been invented more cheaply). Which is not how it works. The cost of the actual raw materials to build almost anything is a tiny tiny tiny 1% fraction of the cost of what the thing actually costs to build. Rocket fuel, titanium etc. are all cheap compared to the cost of actual rockets. So the question of course is, where does all that extra money though? And the answer of course is: into people, process and technology. The cost of rocketry, or particle accelerators or fundamental science, is correctly viewed as a massive sponsorship and investment into people and tools to improve how they do something so they can do it better. And that is why "spin-off technology" actually happens in the first place - because large projects mean that we have now skilled up, tooled up and improved the capability of vast numbers of people, companies and fields of trade - which is what makes new innovations possible, or changes the market dynamics so things become economical and then profitable.
nixos 10y ago
Eradicating poverty is orders of magnitude harder than landing a colony on Mars. Hypothetically, if the US were to put 20% of their budget into (truly) getting people on Mars, they'll do it. If they put 20% of their budget into eradicating poverty? Right now the US government puts between 10% to 30% of their budget into Medicare and Medicaid. Is poverty eradicated?
hx87 10y ago
Eradicating poverty is a political problem. Going to Mars is an engineering problem. Political problems are orders of magnitude harder to solve than engineering ones.

dreamling 10y ago

how many things were invented as byproducts of the space race? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
XorNot 10y ago
This is also a thing I think we don't explain very well, because a frequent response is "oh those things would've been invented anyway" (with the implication they would've been invented more cheaply). Which is not how it works. The cost of the actual raw materials to build almost anything is a tiny tiny tiny 1% fraction of the cost of what the thing actually costs to build. Rocket fuel, titanium etc. are all cheap compared to the cost of actual rockets. So the question of course is, where does all that extra money though? And the answer of course is: into people, process and technology. The cost of rocketry, or particle accelerators or fundamental science, is correctly viewed as a massive sponsorship and investment into people and tools to improve how they do something so they can do it better. And that is why "spin-off technology" actually happens in the first place - because large projects mean that we have now skilled up, tooled up and improved the capability of vast numbers of people, companies and fields of trade - which is what makes new innovations possible, or changes the market dynamics so things become economical and then profitable.

nixos 10y ago

Eradicating poverty is orders of magnitude harder than landing a colony on Mars. Hypothetically, if the US were to put 20% of their budget into (truly) getting people on Mars, they'll do it. If they put 20% of their budget into eradicating poverty? Right now the US government puts between 10% to 30% of their budget into Medicare and Medicaid. Is poverty eradicated?

hx87 10y ago

Eradicating poverty is a political problem. Going to Mars is an engineering problem. Political problems are orders of magnitude harder to solve than engineering ones.