17 ms·

Why Land on the Moon? (1963)

67 points by ForHackernews 10y ago

throwanem 10y ago
A brilliant example of competition driving human achievement. Pity we lacked a more worthy opponent, though; otherwise we might well now be on Mars. Or they might - it'd be a win for the species, either way.
- acqq 10y ago
  The scientists from 1963 were right even then: the robots were enough to explore the Moon, transporting human flesh and bones around and keeping them alive is not something that directly increases our knowledge of the Universe. The "man on the Moon" was a political, not a scientific project. The worst place on Earth is still better suited for human life than either Moon or Mars or any other object in the Solar system. We depend on almost all, compared to the other objects, unique properties of the Earth. And the other stars, which could have the planets more suited for us are many light years away. The humanity must learn to respect the Earth. We won't get a way to easily survive without Earth no matter how we'd like to. Global warming or a nuclear weapon "accident" are too probable to wipe out what the humanity achieved up to now for us to ignore the necessity of urgently solving these. Not to mention even more "inconvenient" questions of the whole approach to the use of all the Earth resources. We still have to clean up our own backyard first. There is no known reachable second Earth waiting for us and we won't discover it by experimenting with the survival of a few persons on Mars. The human life is not self-sustainable there and it won't be even if we create some "colony."
  - Pigo 10y ago
    I've been wondering why we don't focus on getting 3D visuals of the surface of Mars that can then be distributed the same way Hubble images are. Even a low quality 3D experience would transport all of us to the surface of Mars for a moment.
    - krallja 10y ago
      https://mars.nasa.gov/mars3d/ https://mars.nasa.gov/mars3d/ ?
      - Pigo 10y ago
        Yes, I suppose I should have said with virtual/augmented reality experience. But something tells me that you knew what I meant.
  - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
    > Global warming or a nuclear weapon "accident" are too probable to wipe out what the humanity achieved up to now > We still have to clean up our own backyard first > We won't discover [a second Earth] by experimenting with the survival of a few persons on Mars > Human life is not self-sustainable [on Mars] and it won't be even if we create some "colony" These are assumptions. If colonizing Mars and mastering terrestrial civilization were mutually exclusive, I'd agree with you. But there is a lot of spending between those poles. If the Apollo programs offer us any lessons, it's that space travel and better living on Earth are more complementary than competitive.
  - adrianN 10y ago
    What makes you think human life on Mars is not sustainable? Mars has everything we need to live.
    - rimliu 10y ago
      Except air, water, food and protection from space radiation?
      - adrianN 10y ago
        It has oxygen, water is relatively abundant, food can grow on Mars (in greenhouses or underground), dirt is excellent for shielding radiation.
      - Neliquat 10y ago
        We can generate/recycle most if not all of these from or on mars. Surely not trivial, but possible. Air, water, food are a loop we already know well, and structures arent new...
        acqq 10y ago
        We don't have even sustainable use of the Earth resources, even if the Earth is actually suited for human life, but you somehow imagine that we'd be able to do better on Mars, which isn't suited for life at all, having no magnetosphere? Please study where the energy on Earth comes from and how the rare materials are obtained. The basic assumption of all "Mars colonies work" theories is the functioning Earth civilization that supports it, paying a lot for it (at least in resources and work) to support it. The argument for having a Mars colony is "in case something happens to Earth." But "in case something happens to Earth" the Mars colony dies. It's that simple.
        btkramer9 10y ago
        Living on mars forces everything you do to be considered sustainable from first principles. It's like removing the standard library and every 3rd-party library from a project. You would never do it because it's a waste of time, but if you were forced to then you'd see things from a new perspective. You would probably change quite a few things along the way. Everything you learn would be able to benefit us back on Earth.
  - rimliu 10y ago
    "We won't discover second Europe, let's just stay there". Human curiosity brought us where we are now, it would be kind of sad to ditch that with the excuse that it's "not practical".
    - mark_edward 10y ago
      It would have been better for untold millions if Europeans had indeed "just stayed there".
      - throwanem 10y ago
        No one lives on the moon, or on Mars - in the latter case, not for many millions of years at least; in the former, not ever.
    - acqq 10y ago
      If you refer to the American continent, the people lived there and that the civilizations as Columbus arrived. They had from our point of view unpleasant religions but otherwise were very able to live without the input from other continents. The continent allowed self sustainable human life. Compare Mars. If you want to implement Mars colony because of a possible nuclear catastrophe, the Earth after one would be more suitable for human life than Mars is now! Ditto for most "end of civilization as we know it" scenarios. All the concepts of "building a colony on Mars" assume the healthy Earth with a functioning high-tech civilization.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    Knowledge isn't the only consideration here. This moment in history is the first in which our species has been without a frontier. Early evidence suggests rather strongly that we're not at our best that way.
    - acqq 10y ago
      For the most of its existence Euroasian civilizations didn't function based on the existence of inhabited lands which are to be conquered, quite the opposite, it was known the other humans are there and the conquering involved military actions. And there were other civilizations on the American continent too at the time it was "discovered" by the Europeans. Still, the whole Earth is Earth-life-friendly due to so many aspects not present on Mars, including the magnetosphere and air.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  > Pity we lacked a more worthy opponent, though; otherwise we might well now be on Mars. It wasn't the fault of the opponent, really - or at least so I was led to believe when reading up on NERVA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA#In_the_space_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA#In_the_space_program "The Mars mission became NERVA's downfall. Members of Congress in both political parties judged that a manned mission to Mars would be a tacit commitment for the United States to decades more of the expensive Space Race. Manned Mars missions were enabled by nuclear rockets; therefore, if NERVA could be discontinued the Space Race might wind down and the budget would be saved."
- acjohnson55 10y ago
  From Wikipedia [1]: > Landing men on the Moon by the end of 1969 required the most sudden burst of technological creativity, and the largest commitment of resources ($24 billion) ever made by any nation in peacetime. At its peak, the Apollo program employed 400,000 people and required the support of over 20,000 industrial firms and universities. I don't think that effort would have been considered sustainable. Although it's a bit of a shame that we seem able to find the cash for perpetual war instead. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program
  - Gracana 10y ago
    It's kind of sad that "the largest commitment of resources ever made by any nation in peacetime" is still only about a third of what we spend every year on war.
hyperpallium 10y ago
Can be read as a question about real estate. The moon was not claimed for the USA (though a USA flag was planted). What if the moon was less like Antartica, amd more like California?
elcapitan 10y ago
"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." (JFK) [1] Probably my favorite quote of all time. Those were the times. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwFvJog2dMw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwFvJog2dMw
- problems 10y ago
  I always found that quote incredibly pointless. If you just want to do something because it's hard, there's lots of options, the cheapest is to turn up the difficulty on a game. Don't waste tax payer money sending humans to the moon for no scientific purpose - leave that to the machines. Hard things can be wasteful too, just because something is hard doesn't make it valuable.
  - melling 10y ago
    Come now. We've wasted a lot more tax payer money on endeavors with much less reward. http://thevietnamwar.info/how-much-vietnam-war-cost/ http://thevietnamwar.info/how-much-vietnam-war-cost/ Vietnam War cost more than putting a man on the moon http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSBRE92D0PG20130314 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSB... Imagine how $2 trillion of R&D would have changed the world.
    - problems 10y ago
      I agree we've definitely wasted far more money in far worse ways, but it still doesn't change the fact it's wasteful scientifically and economically speaking, just because there are bigger wastes doesn't mean we should accept all smaller ones, this is known as the "fallacy of relative privation" or "not as bad as" fallacy.
      - melling 10y ago
        When you say wasteful, you mean not the most efficient? Because science and engineering benefited from the project. we are better off for having done the project. However, we could've gained the same knowledge in other ways, for less money. So, if it costs of $25 billion to put a man on the moon, and the same knowledge could have acquired for $15 billion, you think the effort was wasted?
mkmk 10y ago
I recommend the book 'Flight' by Christopher Kraft. It's a quick read, and a really enjoyable history lesson about the development of the US space program.
losteverything 10y ago
I use the moon challenge as a time, before cable, when the media was the glue that kept the country together. One single view repeated over time. Then, imo, cable and now the internet has changed glue to acid that breaks us apart. I have not changed but how we get information and news has. Can we have another moon moment? Probably not but to me the better introspective question is am I adapting to how information is sought, ignored and processed by me???
- awacs 10y ago
  It's hard to have a "moon moment" in times where there is a large population that think we never landed on the moon, and half the country believes in alternative facts.
  - losteverything 10y ago
    And the third half have trouble with statistics.
chrismealy 10y ago
That was completely unconvincing. Sending people to the moon was a mistake. Totally a job for robots.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  They didn't have robots in 1969, at least nothing that could do almost anything useful. They did send a bunch of automated probes to orbit and the Moon back in those days, and most of them failed because the tech was so poor, and the few that didn't fail didn't do much useful science anyway.
  - strombourg 10y ago
    To be clear, Venera 7 landed on Venus and transmitted data in 1970. We did have robots (probes, landers) that while crude by today's standards, did serve a scientific purpose. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera
    - Arizhel 10y ago
      Venera 7 lasted less than an hour and only transmitted one or two crappy images, along with some sensor data. Granted, humans can't do any better on the surface of Venus due to the temperature and pressure, but humans can do far better than that on the Moon with ~1969 technology, and they did. Humans brought back many kilograms of rock samples, they set up a bunch of experiments, they drove around for hours on a buggy (in the later landings, not Apollo 11); they did FAR more than any lander of the time could possibly have done.
      - strombourg 10y ago
        I'm thrilled that we went to the moon, and am glad we did. Venera is just an example of a possible alternative to what we chose to do by sending humans in that era. Less science for less money. 1969 space technology was the result of a mandate to get humans on the moon. A mandate to get robots on the moon would have likely radically increased the ability of these robots to collect data as compared to what Venera accomplished. I'm still +1 for human exploration.
libeclipse 10y ago
Damn it guys. We've been on the moon! We actually launched rockets carrying people off the planet to the moon. What the fuck. If that doesn't give you butterflies and plaster a massive childish smile on your face, I'd conjecture that there's something wrong with you.
- throwanem 10y ago
  It helps not to know in detail the difference between the space program we had, and the one we could have had. If you've seen 2001: A Space Odyssey, its entire first act, and a fair fraction of the second, were predicated on the assumption that the Apollo missions would serve as the preliminary to real human space colonization which their architects intended that they be. For those excited about the concept of space colonization who wish to stay that way, I don't suppose I can unreservedly recommend detailed study of the US manned space program's history, especially not that post-1969. To say that such study can be disillusioning beggars language. It does, though, answer a whole slew of questions which all more or less boil down to: "What the hell happened?" But it's up to each interested individual to evaluate for herself whether the acquisition of such knowledge is worth more or less than the fatigue its possession is likely to inflict on her idealism.
lispenlightment 10y ago
After USA got schooled by a bunch of "commies" who were able to make history by putting the first human and satellite in space (among other things), America had to prove to the world that a nation as filthy rich as theirs was not a total waste of space and was still capable of rivaling the dirt poor USSR which only a few decades ago consisted primarily of illiterate, toothless peasants. US claimed that they did it for mankind, yet they never shared any knowledge, technology, or offered any assistance to other countries to allow them to make the similar advances in an effort to progress our world towards bigger goals. Who knows, maybe mankind could've been on Mars by now if everyone had the know-how. The whole thing was an impressive, yet selfish and ultimately useless, feat. Well, at least all the American kids can now claim that "they've" been to the moon.
- burkaman 10y ago
  What are you talking about? Have you heard of the ISS? Hubble? NISAR? The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project? In what world does NASA not share its knowledge and technology?
jonathansizz 10y ago
It makes me sad when I think of the sacrifices made by previous generations for the greater good, to consider that in our time we're happy to gamble with the future just to make things more comfortable for us in the present. In the 1940s, millions of people made the ultimate sacrifice to defeat tyranny, then in the 60s huge amounts were invested into technology, transforming society, but we can't even agree on a carbon tax to start to pay for the mess we're making, never mind trying to come up with ways to reverse the damage. A green economy should be our generation's Moon landing. Massive investment in basic research and into renewables, energy storage and transport, and improved materials could again transform the world, and benefit all of us, but I guess if you can't physically see your enemy then there's just not enough urgency.

67 points by ForHackernews 10y ago

A brilliant example of competition driving human achievement. Pity we lacked a more worthy opponent, though; otherwise we might well now be on Mars. Or they might - it'd be a win for the species, either way.

acqq 10y ago
The scientists from 1963 were right even then: the robots were enough to explore the Moon, transporting human flesh and bones around and keeping them alive is not something that directly increases our knowledge of the Universe. The "man on the Moon" was a political, not a scientific project. The worst place on Earth is still better suited for human life than either Moon or Mars or any other object in the Solar system. We depend on almost all, compared to the other objects, unique properties of the Earth. And the other stars, which could have the planets more suited for us are many light years away. The humanity must learn to respect the Earth. We won't get a way to easily survive without Earth no matter how we'd like to. Global warming or a nuclear weapon "accident" are too probable to wipe out what the humanity achieved up to now for us to ignore the necessity of urgently solving these. Not to mention even more "inconvenient" questions of the whole approach to the use of all the Earth resources. We still have to clean up our own backyard first. There is no known reachable second Earth waiting for us and we won't discover it by experimenting with the survival of a few persons on Mars. The human life is not self-sustainable there and it won't be even if we create some "colony."
- Pigo 10y ago
  I've been wondering why we don't focus on getting 3D visuals of the surface of Mars that can then be distributed the same way Hubble images are. Even a low quality 3D experience would transport all of us to the surface of Mars for a moment.
  - krallja 10y ago
    https://mars.nasa.gov/mars3d/ https://mars.nasa.gov/mars3d/ ?
    - Pigo 10y ago
      Yes, I suppose I should have said with virtual/augmented reality experience. But something tells me that you knew what I meant.
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago
  > Global warming or a nuclear weapon "accident" are too probable to wipe out what the humanity achieved up to now > We still have to clean up our own backyard first > We won't discover [a second Earth] by experimenting with the survival of a few persons on Mars > Human life is not self-sustainable [on Mars] and it won't be even if we create some "colony" These are assumptions. If colonizing Mars and mastering terrestrial civilization were mutually exclusive, I'd agree with you. But there is a lot of spending between those poles. If the Apollo programs offer us any lessons, it's that space travel and better living on Earth are more complementary than competitive.
- adrianN 10y ago
  What makes you think human life on Mars is not sustainable? Mars has everything we need to live.
  - rimliu 10y ago
    Except air, water, food and protection from space radiation?
    - adrianN 10y ago
      It has oxygen, water is relatively abundant, food can grow on Mars (in greenhouses or underground), dirt is excellent for shielding radiation.
    - Neliquat 10y ago
      We can generate/recycle most if not all of these from or on mars. Surely not trivial, but possible. Air, water, food are a loop we already know well, and structures arent new...
      - acqq 10y ago
        We don't have even sustainable use of the Earth resources, even if the Earth is actually suited for human life, but you somehow imagine that we'd be able to do better on Mars, which isn't suited for life at all, having no magnetosphere? Please study where the energy on Earth comes from and how the rare materials are obtained. The basic assumption of all "Mars colonies work" theories is the functioning Earth civilization that supports it, paying a lot for it (at least in resources and work) to support it. The argument for having a Mars colony is "in case something happens to Earth." But "in case something happens to Earth" the Mars colony dies. It's that simple.
        btkramer9 10y ago
        Living on mars forces everything you do to be considered sustainable from first principles. It's like removing the standard library and every 3rd-party library from a project. You would never do it because it's a waste of time, but if you were forced to then you'd see things from a new perspective. You would probably change quite a few things along the way. Everything you learn would be able to benefit us back on Earth.
- rimliu 10y ago
  "We won't discover second Europe, let's just stay there". Human curiosity brought us where we are now, it would be kind of sad to ditch that with the excuse that it's "not practical".
  - mark_edward 10y ago
    It would have been better for untold millions if Europeans had indeed "just stayed there".
    - throwanem 10y ago
      No one lives on the moon, or on Mars - in the latter case, not for many millions of years at least; in the former, not ever.
  - acqq 10y ago
    If you refer to the American continent, the people lived there and that the civilizations as Columbus arrived. They had from our point of view unpleasant religions but otherwise were very able to live without the input from other continents. The continent allowed self sustainable human life. Compare Mars. If you want to implement Mars colony because of a possible nuclear catastrophe, the Earth after one would be more suitable for human life than Mars is now! Ditto for most "end of civilization as we know it" scenarios. All the concepts of "building a colony on Mars" assume the healthy Earth with a functioning high-tech civilization.
- throwanem 10y ago
  Knowledge isn't the only consideration here. This moment in history is the first in which our species has been without a frontier. Early evidence suggests rather strongly that we're not at our best that way.
  - acqq 10y ago
    For the most of its existence Euroasian civilizations didn't function based on the existence of inhabited lands which are to be conquered, quite the opposite, it was known the other humans are there and the conquering involved military actions. And there were other civilizations on the American continent too at the time it was "discovered" by the Europeans. Still, the whole Earth is Earth-life-friendly due to so many aspects not present on Mars, including the magnetosphere and air.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
> Pity we lacked a more worthy opponent, though; otherwise we might well now be on Mars. It wasn't the fault of the opponent, really - or at least so I was led to believe when reading up on NERVA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA#In_the_space_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA#In_the_space_program "The Mars mission became NERVA's downfall. Members of Congress in both political parties judged that a manned mission to Mars would be a tacit commitment for the United States to decades more of the expensive Space Race. Manned Mars missions were enabled by nuclear rockets; therefore, if NERVA could be discontinued the Space Race might wind down and the budget would be saved."
acjohnson55 10y ago
From Wikipedia [1]: > Landing men on the Moon by the end of 1969 required the most sudden burst of technological creativity, and the largest commitment of resources ($24 billion) ever made by any nation in peacetime. At its peak, the Apollo program employed 400,000 people and required the support of over 20,000 industrial firms and universities. I don't think that effort would have been considered sustainable. Although it's a bit of a shame that we seem able to find the cash for perpetual war instead. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program
- Gracana 10y ago
  It's kind of sad that "the largest commitment of resources ever made by any nation in peacetime" is still only about a third of what we spend every year on war.

hyperpallium 10y ago

Can be read as a question about real estate. The moon was not claimed for the USA (though a USA flag was planted). What if the moon was less like Antartica, amd more like California?

elcapitan 10y ago

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." (JFK) [1] Probably my favorite quote of all time. Those were the times. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwFvJog2dMw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwFvJog2dMw

problems 10y ago
I always found that quote incredibly pointless. If you just want to do something because it's hard, there's lots of options, the cheapest is to turn up the difficulty on a game. Don't waste tax payer money sending humans to the moon for no scientific purpose - leave that to the machines. Hard things can be wasteful too, just because something is hard doesn't make it valuable.
- melling 10y ago
  Come now. We've wasted a lot more tax payer money on endeavors with much less reward. http://thevietnamwar.info/how-much-vietnam-war-cost/ http://thevietnamwar.info/how-much-vietnam-war-cost/ Vietnam War cost more than putting a man on the moon http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSBRE92D0PG20130314 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSB... Imagine how $2 trillion of R&D would have changed the world.
  - problems 10y ago
    I agree we've definitely wasted far more money in far worse ways, but it still doesn't change the fact it's wasteful scientifically and economically speaking, just because there are bigger wastes doesn't mean we should accept all smaller ones, this is known as the "fallacy of relative privation" or "not as bad as" fallacy.
    - melling 10y ago
      When you say wasteful, you mean not the most efficient? Because science and engineering benefited from the project. we are better off for having done the project. However, we could've gained the same knowledge in other ways, for less money. So, if it costs of $25 billion to put a man on the moon, and the same knowledge could have acquired for $15 billion, you think the effort was wasted?

mkmk 10y ago

I recommend the book 'Flight' by Christopher Kraft. It's a quick read, and a really enjoyable history lesson about the development of the US space program.

losteverything 10y ago

I use the moon challenge as a time, before cable, when the media was the glue that kept the country together. One single view repeated over time. Then, imo, cable and now the internet has changed glue to acid that breaks us apart. I have not changed but how we get information and news has. Can we have another moon moment? Probably not but to me the better introspective question is am I adapting to how information is sought, ignored and processed by me???

awacs 10y ago
It's hard to have a "moon moment" in times where there is a large population that think we never landed on the moon, and half the country believes in alternative facts.
- losteverything 10y ago
  And the third half have trouble with statistics.

chrismealy 10y ago

That was completely unconvincing. Sending people to the moon was a mistake. Totally a job for robots.

Arizhel 10y ago
They didn't have robots in 1969, at least nothing that could do almost anything useful. They did send a bunch of automated probes to orbit and the Moon back in those days, and most of them failed because the tech was so poor, and the few that didn't fail didn't do much useful science anyway.
- strombourg 10y ago
  To be clear, Venera 7 landed on Venus and transmitted data in 1970. We did have robots (probes, landers) that while crude by today's standards, did serve a scientific purpose. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    Venera 7 lasted less than an hour and only transmitted one or two crappy images, along with some sensor data. Granted, humans can't do any better on the surface of Venus due to the temperature and pressure, but humans can do far better than that on the Moon with ~1969 technology, and they did. Humans brought back many kilograms of rock samples, they set up a bunch of experiments, they drove around for hours on a buggy (in the later landings, not Apollo 11); they did FAR more than any lander of the time could possibly have done.
    - strombourg 10y ago
      I'm thrilled that we went to the moon, and am glad we did. Venera is just an example of a possible alternative to what we chose to do by sending humans in that era. Less science for less money. 1969 space technology was the result of a mandate to get humans on the moon. A mandate to get robots on the moon would have likely radically increased the ability of these robots to collect data as compared to what Venera accomplished. I'm still +1 for human exploration.

libeclipse 10y ago

Damn it guys. We've been on the moon! We actually launched rockets carrying people off the planet to the moon. What the fuck. If that doesn't give you butterflies and plaster a massive childish smile on your face, I'd conjecture that there's something wrong with you.

throwanem 10y ago
It helps not to know in detail the difference between the space program we had, and the one we could have had. If you've seen 2001: A Space Odyssey, its entire first act, and a fair fraction of the second, were predicated on the assumption that the Apollo missions would serve as the preliminary to real human space colonization which their architects intended that they be. For those excited about the concept of space colonization who wish to stay that way, I don't suppose I can unreservedly recommend detailed study of the US manned space program's history, especially not that post-1969. To say that such study can be disillusioning beggars language. It does, though, answer a whole slew of questions which all more or less boil down to: "What the hell happened?" But it's up to each interested individual to evaluate for herself whether the acquisition of such knowledge is worth more or less than the fatigue its possession is likely to inflict on her idealism.

lispenlightment 10y ago

After USA got schooled by a bunch of "commies" who were able to make history by putting the first human and satellite in space (among other things), America had to prove to the world that a nation as filthy rich as theirs was not a total waste of space and was still capable of rivaling the dirt poor USSR which only a few decades ago consisted primarily of illiterate, toothless peasants. US claimed that they did it for mankind, yet they never shared any knowledge, technology, or offered any assistance to other countries to allow them to make the similar advances in an effort to progress our world towards bigger goals. Who knows, maybe mankind could've been on Mars by now if everyone had the know-how. The whole thing was an impressive, yet selfish and ultimately useless, feat. Well, at least all the American kids can now claim that "they've" been to the moon.

burkaman 10y ago
What are you talking about? Have you heard of the ISS? Hubble? NISAR? The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project? In what world does NASA not share its knowledge and technology?

jonathansizz 10y ago

It makes me sad when I think of the sacrifices made by previous generations for the greater good, to consider that in our time we're happy to gamble with the future just to make things more comfortable for us in the present. In the 1940s, millions of people made the ultimate sacrifice to defeat tyranny, then in the 60s huge amounts were invested into technology, transforming society, but we can't even agree on a carbon tax to start to pay for the mess we're making, never mind trying to come up with ways to reverse the damage. A green economy should be our generation's Moon landing. Massive investment in basic research and into renewables, energy storage and transport, and improved materials could again transform the world, and benefit all of us, but I guess if you can't physically see your enemy then there's just not enough urgency.