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Obviously, he's got a point. The shuttle was meaningless without a space station to dock too, and obviously many weird concessions were made for the sake of mil
by wazoox 16y ago
Obviously, he's got a point. The shuttle was meaningless without a space station to dock too, and obviously many weird concessions were made for the sake of military applications.
But by his metric, manned flights as a whole are meaningless. That everything we do must be useful and come with a predictable ROI is questionable. Do we need the pyramids, the cathedrals? What about the LHC?
- patio11 16y agoBut by his metric, manned flights as a whole are meaningless. Manned flights as a whole are meaningless. They accomplish no purpose but to generate PR for billion dollar handouts to defense contractors. There is nothing -- nothing -- humans can do in space that systems cannot do better, with the exceptions of "mug for the camera" and "perish". What passes for "science experiments" in space bears more resemblance to a high school fair in microgravity than to actual science. (Here's a spider spinning its web... in microgravity! With four highly trained military officers and a few hundred million in hardware along for the ride!)
- wazoox 16y ago> Manned flights as a whole are meaningless. They accomplish no purpose but to generate PR for billion dollar handouts to defense contractors. Sure, but people /do want/ to fly, and visit the moons of saturn. Well I don't know for you, but I sure want to :) It's probably the main motivation for space exploration at the individual level.
- decadentcactus 16y agoAgreed. I want to go up there too, mostly because it's there, and something to accomplish. I think robots also have their place however.