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A Hubble or James Webb is easily a billion dollar effort, making it THE major limitation for discovery. No one is investing that sort of money for no return. Ho
by pwython 10y ago
A Hubble or James Webb is easily a billion dollar effort, making it THE major limitation for discovery. No one is investing that sort of money for no return. Honestly, even if they did, it would be frowned upon considering the more important humanitarian investments at hand.
- thangalin 10y ago"In 1970, a Zambia-based nun named Sister Mary Jucunda wrote to Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger, then-associate director of science at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, in response to his ongoing research into a piloted mission to Mars. Specifically, she asked how he could suggest spending billions of dollars on such a project at a time when so many children were starving on Earth." I encourage you to read his reply. http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html
- a_imho 10y agoThe voyage to Mars will certainly not be a direct source of food for the hungry. However, it will lead to so many new technologies and capabilities that the spin-offs from this project alone will be worth many times the cost of its implementation. Supposedly he is right and NASA money is well spent, it still not implies it is efficiently spent. Furthermore, he seems to writes off aids as a net loss in his analogy, without considering the benefits of children not starving (to death). Which is especially weird with the follow up We need more young men and women who choose science as a career /devils advocate