7 ms·

Bill Gates questions worth of space exploration for improving humanity (2013)

58 points by sprt 9y ago

cm2012 9y ago
There is certainly a large internet subculture that places undue moral value on space travel.
- xyzxyz998 9y ago
  I'm not opposing what you're saying but I feel like the distribution is somewhat: 80% - Science and its marvels 15% - Humanity survival (IMHO not possible) 5% - So we know more and more and somehow fix problems where that knowledge may be applicable (is that what you're calling moral value)? I do think that we should be better off spending money elsewhere. I don't know why Trump is so pro-space travel and stuff.
prodmerc 9y ago
I get what he means, but you can spend the next 500 years trying to fix humanity's problems on Earth, it will never end. Meanwhile, space is the final frontier, and just like our ancestors, we're compelled to go out and conquer it. It's actually an easier task than fixing all the stupid.
- chrischen 9y ago
  Compelled by Star Trek.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
wavesandwind 9y ago
Good to know that Bill Gates shares this viewpoint. It's not that space travel is wrong or doesn't have great potential. It's just that, in my view (and I guess it's also BG's judging from his short quote only), it cannot not alone bring humanity into the bright future. Look at how we are (mis)treating the environment. Look at all the greed, corruption and anger around us. Anyone seriously thinks going to new worlds will change these human tendencies? Of course not. I see only one truly worthy alternative - education, with strong emphasis on sustainability and care about the environment, as well as some sort of moral principles that would help prevent spending trillions on new ways to kill each other (aka defence) in future generations.
- ebbv 9y ago
  Forget about human beings. As far as we know, Earth is the only source of life in the galaxy or even universe. There is no guarantee it exists anywhere else, or that it will continue to exist here. In fact it is certain one day life will cease to exist on Earth. As the only life form capable of spreading it off planet, I feel like we have a moral obligation to do so before it is snuffed out.
  - wavesandwind 9y ago
    Good point. Still, chances of spreading it will be higher if we don't kill ourselves first or drown in our own garbage - that's where things are going so far sadly. I don't believe that fixing self-destruction and pollution is that much harder than finding a way to travel to distant stars. Why are people assuming that that's the case and putting all their hopes on space travel?
    - wooter 9y ago
      > Why are people assuming that that's the case and putting all their hopes on space travel? is anyone doing that? the relative market values/investment in tesla (solar/electric sustainability) vs spacex strongly suggests otherwise. where is your straw man? i say we let the few astrophysicists out there do astrophysics if they've attracted the capital rather than reprioritize based on your subjective unquantifiable morality.
      - wavesandwind 9y ago
        > is anyone doing that? the relative market values/investment in tesla (solar/electric sustainability) vs spacex strongly suggests otherwise. where is your straw man? You're bending my words a bit. Tesla's function isn't to stop self-destruction or clean up pollution. At best it will not add more to the pollution. That's just the tip of the iceberg and there's a lot of damage already done that should to be undone. But hey, there's no money in that so why bother, right? This kind of one-dimensional judgement further contributes to humanities pile of problems. >reprioritize based on your subjective unquantifiable morality. It maybe "unquantifiable", but it definitely exists and plays a vital role. Just look at Mr Gates' activities. I don't believe you can fix everything by putting capital in the right place. That will always give human greed an advantage over good will.
petra 9y ago
It's possible that even Elon Musk has changed his mind about the value of Mars for humanity. One could view his plan to convince cities replace their roads with 3D tunnels, as preparing a massive shelter for humanity, to protect us against catastrophic risk, instead of a mars colony. BTW: he has very smart leverage strategies, especially in the context of him a change makes, instead of of the common focus of value extraction of most business people. Is there any place one can read about such strategies ?
- maliker 9y ago
  Or the tunneling machines are for building habitats on Mars. Well, it's a fun hypothesis at least. Anything that could improve traffic in major cities gets my vote of approval regardless of what other applications it has.
  - drcross 9y ago
    I think your point is probably closer to the truth. Musk's desire to travel to mars seems to stem from the fact that it's a pretty awesome, adventurous thing to do, so it's one that doesn't fade on some whims. Whatever people say about Musk, he undoubtedly is pushing humanity in a better direction so maybe we should leave him to it.
- amsilprotag 9y ago
  From [0]: > Musk is without doubt a dazzling salesman. Who better than a guardian of human welfare to sell you your new, self-driving Tesla? Andrew Ng—the chief scientist at Baidu, known as China’s Google—based in Sunnyvale, California, writes off Musk’s Manichaean throwdown as “marketing genius." “At the height of the recession, he persuaded the U.S. government to help him build an electric sports car,” Ng recalled, incredulous. Based on the TED talk [1], Musk seems to be proposing a scarce luxury transport solution. The Boring Company is an answer to the question, "What inconvenience do Los Angeles millionaires suffer daily?" And for this he is being elevated to no less than savior of humanity? [0] http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/elon-musk-billion-dollar-crusade-to-stop-ai-space-x http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/elon-musk-billion-dol... [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/elon_musk_the_future_we_re_building_and_boring#t-75806 https://www.ted.com/talks/elon_musk_the_future_we_re_buildin...
ekianjo 9y ago
I guess, just like he did not see the point of Free Software.
easilyBored 9y ago
Everybody’s got their own priorities. In terms of improving the state of humanity, I don’t see the direct connection. I guess it’s fun, because you shoot rockets up in the air. But it’s not an area that I’ll be putting money into That' the beauty of it, a lot of rich people with their own ideas and priorities. The world problems existed even before the rich started spending on space exploration, and likely we'll have problems for millions of years. This quote from Interstellar is thought provoking: "we're not meant to save to earth, we're meant to leave it"
- scriptkiddy 9y ago
  I'd like to add to your quote here. It's not something from the film, but it's something I feel like not enough people understand: The Earth doesn't need saving. No matter what we do, we cannot kill the Earth. We do not have that power. We can make the Earth inhospitable for ourselves, but it will recover. The Earth will keep spinning until the Sun expands and swallows Earth whole billions of years from now. We, as a species, do not have any sort of power capable of stopping the Earth from doing its thing. In fact, one could argue that we are part of the Earth's thing. We don't exist on Earth, we are part of Earth.
cletus 9y ago
Honestly, I don't really get it either. As for tech billionaires dabbling in space, it comes down to what they expect to get out of it. In Musk's case he's managed to create a company that can launch payloads into orbit (and hopefully beyond one day) at what will hopefully be a fraction of today's launch costs if the promise of reusable first stages holds true. He's also managed to do this on a fraction of the budget that NASA seems to be spending on the SLS. Launching satellites is a commercial enterprise so hopefully self-sustaining. Must hopes to leverage this to one day colonize Mars. Well, good for him. Not sure what Bezos is up to but superficially it looks like a "me too" SpaceX. So why send things other than satellites into orbit or probes into deep space? That's really what it comes down. Some will point to the resources out there. This argument I just don't buy because the economics of any material on earth are many orders of magnitude cheaper than what resources from space could possibly cost. Take iron, for example. You're talking less than $100/ton. How could extraction from space possibly compete with that? Obviously accessible iron on earth is ultimately limited but even at $10,000/ton it'll drastically change human society. So what about colonization of other planets and moons? Well, first you need to ask why. To me, the only goal that makes sense is to ensure survival of humanity by creating a self-sustaining colony as anything built on the premise of requiring supply from Earth is ultimately just a vanity project. So what would it take to have a self-sustaining colony on another world? If you think about it, it's a lot and I'm not sure it's feasible with current technology. Also, where? Other worlds are pretty inhospitable. A lot are attracted to Mars but I'm not sure why. It essentially has no atmosphere (pressure is much closer to a vacuum than Earth's atmospheric pressure), which, incidentally, is one of the problems with the Martian (the movie at least; I haven't read the book). It lacks the Earth's protection against UV rays too. So what about interstellar travel? Sad as it sounds, I just don't think humans are built for it. We live too short a period. The distances are so vast that how would you ever construct a vessel large enough to make the trip and be self-sustaining or have enough supplies for thousands of years and then also propel it to the necessary speeds? The conclusion I come to is that there are simply too many of us here on Earth and this will resolve itself if we don't resolve it first.
- skummetmaelk 9y ago
  If establishing a colony on a different orbital body is just a vanity project, then what isn't?
MarkMc 9y ago
I half agree with Gates. To me, sending probes into space deepens our understanding of nature and over time that knowledge will benefit humanity. But sending humans into space is really just an exercise in human vanity, like climbing Mount Everest or placing a person at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. For the cost of sending a man to Mars we could send out two probes - one to Mars and one to Europa. Wouldn't that be better for science and humanity?
xchip 9y ago
As a physicist I totally agree, there are more urgent matters.
godmodus 9y ago
Tech developed for space is whats saving us though. Push for space -> more science in general. Fewer skeptics. More educated folk. Have to disagree with big B on this.
jansho 9y ago
I love Elon Musk's original vision. I think we need one backup plan as radical as that. But when you have others like Jeff Bezos jumping on the bandwagon, it becomes a race and I wonder about the true motives. Race for what? Humanity, ego or boyish dreams to conquer space? Let's not forget that Earth 1.0 is the best one we've got, by literally lightyears. If humanity is the concern, let's start with fixing it. Fix poverty, fix the environment. There doesn't need to be a 'magic bullet' that solves all of this at once, because if we have enough rich people targeting different areas, the world will radically improve. I respect Bill Gates for realising this. He's not perfect, but it's clear that he's less concerned about glamorous legacies. He chooses a few areas he believes he can make a difference in, and he sticks to them. It's not just for rich people though. If you're interested, here's a link that someone posted a while ago: https://80000hours.org https://80000hours.org
- wellboy 9y ago
  The reason for a backup is not poverty or other things that you can possibly fix, but extinction events, such as nuclear war, evil AI, virus etc.
  - jansho 9y ago
    Sure. We need the backup for worst case scenarios like that. What about the world as it stands now? We need the wealthy to jump on that bandwagon, not the former. I understand that Elon Musk actually wants to reboot space race to ramp up innovation (sorry I can't remember the source, but I believe it was an early interview where he was talking about NASA not being as forward-looking as it used to be.) But it's hard not to be cynical when there is still a lot of suffering in this world. Can't we make everyone in this world at least have dinner everyday?
    - wellboy 9y ago
      There are a lot already fighting poverty, diseases and the like, no one did something about space exploration. So would it be smarter to say that you need another one fighting the former or that you add the first to find a solution for one of humanity's biggest threats in the next century?
crush-n-spread 9y ago
Anyone who's claiming that there is no direct connection between the improvement of humanity's condition and space travel is right; there is no direct impact, but the indirect connection between new forms of society and an overall increase in human well-being is staggering, also obvious. Look at the pioneers who left the oligarchies of the United Kingdom to start a new society in America. They took their lessons from the oligarchies and forged a new set of rules, a new way of running their country, democracy. They could not have created this new method within Britain! This is the important part: The creators of democracy did so within brand new territory, and then it spread to the rest of the world. Humans are going to do amazing things on Mars, and the things we do there would absolutely be impossible to do on Earth. However, the incredibly strong and probably breathtaking examples we set for Earth will certainly inspire long term positive change on our home planet. I conclude that if you want to make large, sweeping, positive changes on your home turf, the best way is to set up a much, much better society and wait for them to copy you. Don't waste time trying to convince the people around you who are already comfortable enough!
dwaltrip 9y ago
In my view, this misses the mark. The primary benefit is the second-order effects. Inspiring the next generation of scientists, engineers, and innovators. New technology developed in the process that improves life on Earth. New scientific advancements. A deep feeling of awe and wonder, that ignores borders and nationalities, and brings us closer together as a species. Now from an economic and investment standpoint. The most important angle here is one of marginal benefit. If we are already spending 100 billion a year on disease, poverty, and climate change (this is a very conservative guess), how much good is adding a few billion more? It's likely not going to move the needle extensively. However, that money that will make an enormous difference in our space endeavors, letting us reap some of those second order benefits. This idea is core to approaches that involve casting a wide net or diversifying your efforts -- essential strategies for when information/understanding is incomplete and the possibility space is broad. Very much like where we are at today. Lastly, we need to look longer term. A space program is essential in moving humanity into the next technological era, and will likely have many unforseen positive benefits. Looking at the two paths, I think 200 years now, all else being equal, the GDP and happiness quotient of a society that invests in space exploration will be significantly higher than in one that doesn't. P.S. This is also a bit ironic coming from Bill Gates, given the impact the space program had on the nascent computing industry: http://www.computerworld.com/article/2525898/app-development/nasa-s-apollo-technology-has-changed-history.html http://www.computerworld.com/article/2525898/app-development...
- Judgmentality 9y ago
  > Now from an economic and investment standpoint. The most important angle here is one of marginal benefit. If we are already spending 100 billion a year on disease, poverty, and climate change (this is a very conservative guess), how much good is adding a few billion more? It's likely not going to move the needle extensively. However, that money that will make an enormous difference in our space endeavors, letting us reap some of those second order benefits. I feel like this is faulty reasoning. That money might fund a project that otherwise wouldn't get funded which may cure cancer (unlikely, but honestly I'd say finding a moderate breakthrough for treating a specific strain of cancer with a few billion dollars is about as likely as that few billion dollars getting us significantly closer to Mars). It's not that every project is getting funded and it's just how much they get funded - some projects don't get funded at all. Nobody can predict the future which is why startup investing is so hard - the winners often start out looking like losers (DropBox, AirBnB, Google, Tesla, Apple all struggled to raise money initially). And big accomplishments often come from underdogs, like the Wright Brothers (who were up against much better funded and better educated competition). And sometimes the best discoveries are completely accidental - like penicillin. Nobody knows the best way to allocate resources. I think the smart thing to do is to back things because you believe in them, not because they seem underappreciated. And honestly, Elon Musk has such a cult following that I'd say anything he does gets way more love than all the other things that money could be spent on.
FrozenVoid 9y ago
Asteroid mining is ignored. The value of materials in them is immense and will change the economy. All these scenarios of "X running out in Y years" become irrelevant once asteroid/space industry develops. http://www.asterank.com/ http://www.asterank.com/
c-smile 9y ago
There are not that many useful tasks that can be solved in principle with massive use of rockets based on chemical reaction. But none of these tasks are "mission critical" for survival of the civilization. Having 10 companies launching rockets instead of current 5 will not make any differences in principle. It is just a matter of time for next gamma burst or so to wipe out life on the planet. So we need colonies on large enough distances. And Mars does not count as it is too close. To achieve that goal (civilization survival) we a) must keep our common home habitable and b) focus efforts on finding ways of inter-stellar travelling.
- JacksonGariety 9y ago
  You must choose between a) and b).
elorant 9y ago
It's funny that he says that because I remember him almost a decade ago asking on LinkedIn "how we will encourage more young people to pursue careers in science and technology". Well, that's how. Space exploration is sexy and intriguing as hell. Take for example how much admiration and awe the Cassini mission has created. We have a tiny vessel in the edges of our solar system some 1,5bn kms away exploring unknown worlds and sending back valuable feedback. You can't but feel humbled by all that. Imagine now what will happen if a few years in the future we find life in some planet out there. Space exploration will bring more people to science because it attracts a lot of attention. It's intriguing because it involves a multitude of disciplinaries from engineering to biology, geology, physics, astronomy, you name it. Look at how many great sci-fi movies have been produced in the last decade. The reason for that is that younger generations understand technology and are intrigued by it. And there's nothing more intriguing than setting a colony on Mars or sending a probe το Europa to drill on the ice in search for life. We do that, and thirty years down the road we'll have two or three times as many scientists as we have today. And then they will take humanity further. As they've done for the last 200 years. We live in a time of prosperity due to scientific breakthroughs, from fighting infectious deceases that expanded life expectancy to decades, to improving agriculture productivity and thus increase access to food for more people.
- Veedrac 9y ago
  I feel he's come to the conclusion that the right answer is to bring a healthy standard of living, education and stability to the billion-plus people in extreme poverty, who would be contributing far more had they only the chance.

58 points by sprt 9y ago

cm2012 9y ago

There is certainly a large internet subculture that places undue moral value on space travel.

xyzxyz998 9y ago
I'm not opposing what you're saying but I feel like the distribution is somewhat: 80% - Science and its marvels 15% - Humanity survival (IMHO not possible) 5% - So we know more and more and somehow fix problems where that knowledge may be applicable (is that what you're calling moral value)? I do think that we should be better off spending money elsewhere. I don't know why Trump is so pro-space travel and stuff.

prodmerc 9y ago

I get what he means, but you can spend the next 500 years trying to fix humanity's problems on Earth, it will never end. Meanwhile, space is the final frontier, and just like our ancestors, we're compelled to go out and conquer it. It's actually an easier task than fixing all the stupid.

chrischen 9y ago
Compelled by Star Trek.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

wavesandwind 9y ago

Good to know that Bill Gates shares this viewpoint. It's not that space travel is wrong or doesn't have great potential. It's just that, in my view (and I guess it's also BG's judging from his short quote only), it cannot not alone bring humanity into the bright future. Look at how we are (mis)treating the environment. Look at all the greed, corruption and anger around us. Anyone seriously thinks going to new worlds will change these human tendencies? Of course not. I see only one truly worthy alternative - education, with strong emphasis on sustainability and care about the environment, as well as some sort of moral principles that would help prevent spending trillions on new ways to kill each other (aka defence) in future generations.

ebbv 9y ago
Forget about human beings. As far as we know, Earth is the only source of life in the galaxy or even universe. There is no guarantee it exists anywhere else, or that it will continue to exist here. In fact it is certain one day life will cease to exist on Earth. As the only life form capable of spreading it off planet, I feel like we have a moral obligation to do so before it is snuffed out.
- wavesandwind 9y ago
  Good point. Still, chances of spreading it will be higher if we don't kill ourselves first or drown in our own garbage - that's where things are going so far sadly. I don't believe that fixing self-destruction and pollution is that much harder than finding a way to travel to distant stars. Why are people assuming that that's the case and putting all their hopes on space travel?
  - wooter 9y ago
    > Why are people assuming that that's the case and putting all their hopes on space travel? is anyone doing that? the relative market values/investment in tesla (solar/electric sustainability) vs spacex strongly suggests otherwise. where is your straw man? i say we let the few astrophysicists out there do astrophysics if they've attracted the capital rather than reprioritize based on your subjective unquantifiable morality.
    - wavesandwind 9y ago
      > is anyone doing that? the relative market values/investment in tesla (solar/electric sustainability) vs spacex strongly suggests otherwise. where is your straw man? You're bending my words a bit. Tesla's function isn't to stop self-destruction or clean up pollution. At best it will not add more to the pollution. That's just the tip of the iceberg and there's a lot of damage already done that should to be undone. But hey, there's no money in that so why bother, right? This kind of one-dimensional judgement further contributes to humanities pile of problems. >reprioritize based on your subjective unquantifiable morality. It maybe "unquantifiable", but it definitely exists and plays a vital role. Just look at Mr Gates' activities. I don't believe you can fix everything by putting capital in the right place. That will always give human greed an advantage over good will.

petra 9y ago

It's possible that even Elon Musk has changed his mind about the value of Mars for humanity. One could view his plan to convince cities replace their roads with 3D tunnels, as preparing a massive shelter for humanity, to protect us against catastrophic risk, instead of a mars colony. BTW: he has very smart leverage strategies, especially in the context of him a change makes, instead of of the common focus of value extraction of most business people. Is there any place one can read about such strategies ?

maliker 9y ago
Or the tunneling machines are for building habitats on Mars. Well, it's a fun hypothesis at least. Anything that could improve traffic in major cities gets my vote of approval regardless of what other applications it has.
- drcross 9y ago
  I think your point is probably closer to the truth. Musk's desire to travel to mars seems to stem from the fact that it's a pretty awesome, adventurous thing to do, so it's one that doesn't fade on some whims. Whatever people say about Musk, he undoubtedly is pushing humanity in a better direction so maybe we should leave him to it.
amsilprotag 9y ago
From [0]: > Musk is without doubt a dazzling salesman. Who better than a guardian of human welfare to sell you your new, self-driving Tesla? Andrew Ng—the chief scientist at Baidu, known as China’s Google—based in Sunnyvale, California, writes off Musk’s Manichaean throwdown as “marketing genius." “At the height of the recession, he persuaded the U.S. government to help him build an electric sports car,” Ng recalled, incredulous. Based on the TED talk [1], Musk seems to be proposing a scarce luxury transport solution. The Boring Company is an answer to the question, "What inconvenience do Los Angeles millionaires suffer daily?" And for this he is being elevated to no less than savior of humanity? [0] http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/elon-musk-billion-dollar-crusade-to-stop-ai-space-x http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/elon-musk-billion-dol... [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/elon_musk_the_future_we_re_building_and_boring#t-75806 https://www.ted.com/talks/elon_musk_the_future_we_re_buildin...

ekianjo 9y ago

I guess, just like he did not see the point of Free Software.

easilyBored 9y ago

Everybody’s got their own priorities. In terms of improving the state of humanity, I don’t see the direct connection. I guess it’s fun, because you shoot rockets up in the air. But it’s not an area that I’ll be putting money into That' the beauty of it, a lot of rich people with their own ideas and priorities. The world problems existed even before the rich started spending on space exploration, and likely we'll have problems for millions of years. This quote from Interstellar is thought provoking: "we're not meant to save to earth, we're meant to leave it"

scriptkiddy 9y ago
I'd like to add to your quote here. It's not something from the film, but it's something I feel like not enough people understand: The Earth doesn't need saving. No matter what we do, we cannot kill the Earth. We do not have that power. We can make the Earth inhospitable for ourselves, but it will recover. The Earth will keep spinning until the Sun expands and swallows Earth whole billions of years from now. We, as a species, do not have any sort of power capable of stopping the Earth from doing its thing. In fact, one could argue that we are part of the Earth's thing. We don't exist on Earth, we are part of Earth.

cletus 9y ago

Honestly, I don't really get it either. As for tech billionaires dabbling in space, it comes down to what they expect to get out of it. In Musk's case he's managed to create a company that can launch payloads into orbit (and hopefully beyond one day) at what will hopefully be a fraction of today's launch costs if the promise of reusable first stages holds true. He's also managed to do this on a fraction of the budget that NASA seems to be spending on the SLS. Launching satellites is a commercial enterprise so hopefully self-sustaining. Must hopes to leverage this to one day colonize Mars. Well, good for him. Not sure what Bezos is up to but superficially it looks like a "me too" SpaceX. So why send things other than satellites into orbit or probes into deep space? That's really what it comes down. Some will point to the resources out there. This argument I just don't buy because the economics of any material on earth are many orders of magnitude cheaper than what resources from space could possibly cost. Take iron, for example. You're talking less than $100/ton. How could extraction from space possibly compete with that? Obviously accessible iron on earth is ultimately limited but even at $10,000/ton it'll drastically change human society. So what about colonization of other planets and moons? Well, first you need to ask why. To me, the only goal that makes sense is to ensure survival of humanity by creating a self-sustaining colony as anything built on the premise of requiring supply from Earth is ultimately just a vanity project. So what would it take to have a self-sustaining colony on another world? If you think about it, it's a lot and I'm not sure it's feasible with current technology. Also, where? Other worlds are pretty inhospitable. A lot are attracted to Mars but I'm not sure why. It essentially has no atmosphere (pressure is much closer to a vacuum than Earth's atmospheric pressure), which, incidentally, is one of the problems with the Martian (the movie at least; I haven't read the book). It lacks the Earth's protection against UV rays too. So what about interstellar travel? Sad as it sounds, I just don't think humans are built for it. We live too short a period. The distances are so vast that how would you ever construct a vessel large enough to make the trip and be self-sustaining or have enough supplies for thousands of years and then also propel it to the necessary speeds? The conclusion I come to is that there are simply too many of us here on Earth and this will resolve itself if we don't resolve it first.

skummetmaelk 9y ago
If establishing a colony on a different orbital body is just a vanity project, then what isn't?

MarkMc 9y ago

I half agree with Gates. To me, sending probes into space deepens our understanding of nature and over time that knowledge will benefit humanity. But sending humans into space is really just an exercise in human vanity, like climbing Mount Everest or placing a person at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. For the cost of sending a man to Mars we could send out two probes - one to Mars and one to Europa. Wouldn't that be better for science and humanity?

xchip 9y ago

As a physicist I totally agree, there are more urgent matters.

godmodus 9y ago

Tech developed for space is whats saving us though. Push for space -> more science in general. Fewer skeptics. More educated folk. Have to disagree with big B on this.

jansho 9y ago

I love Elon Musk's original vision. I think we need one backup plan as radical as that. But when you have others like Jeff Bezos jumping on the bandwagon, it becomes a race and I wonder about the true motives. Race for what? Humanity, ego or boyish dreams to conquer space? Let's not forget that Earth 1.0 is the best one we've got, by literally lightyears. If humanity is the concern, let's start with fixing it. Fix poverty, fix the environment. There doesn't need to be a 'magic bullet' that solves all of this at once, because if we have enough rich people targeting different areas, the world will radically improve. I respect Bill Gates for realising this. He's not perfect, but it's clear that he's less concerned about glamorous legacies. He chooses a few areas he believes he can make a difference in, and he sticks to them. It's not just for rich people though. If you're interested, here's a link that someone posted a while ago: https://80000hours.org https://80000hours.org

wellboy 9y ago
The reason for a backup is not poverty or other things that you can possibly fix, but extinction events, such as nuclear war, evil AI, virus etc.
- jansho 9y ago
  Sure. We need the backup for worst case scenarios like that. What about the world as it stands now? We need the wealthy to jump on that bandwagon, not the former. I understand that Elon Musk actually wants to reboot space race to ramp up innovation (sorry I can't remember the source, but I believe it was an early interview where he was talking about NASA not being as forward-looking as it used to be.) But it's hard not to be cynical when there is still a lot of suffering in this world. Can't we make everyone in this world at least have dinner everyday?
  - wellboy 9y ago
    There are a lot already fighting poverty, diseases and the like, no one did something about space exploration. So would it be smarter to say that you need another one fighting the former or that you add the first to find a solution for one of humanity's biggest threats in the next century?

crush-n-spread 9y ago

Anyone who's claiming that there is no direct connection between the improvement of humanity's condition and space travel is right; there is no direct impact, but the indirect connection between new forms of society and an overall increase in human well-being is staggering, also obvious. Look at the pioneers who left the oligarchies of the United Kingdom to start a new society in America. They took their lessons from the oligarchies and forged a new set of rules, a new way of running their country, democracy. They could not have created this new method within Britain! This is the important part: The creators of democracy did so within brand new territory, and then it spread to the rest of the world. Humans are going to do amazing things on Mars, and the things we do there would absolutely be impossible to do on Earth. However, the incredibly strong and probably breathtaking examples we set for Earth will certainly inspire long term positive change on our home planet. I conclude that if you want to make large, sweeping, positive changes on your home turf, the best way is to set up a much, much better society and wait for them to copy you. Don't waste time trying to convince the people around you who are already comfortable enough!

dwaltrip 9y ago

In my view, this misses the mark. The primary benefit is the second-order effects. Inspiring the next generation of scientists, engineers, and innovators. New technology developed in the process that improves life on Earth. New scientific advancements. A deep feeling of awe and wonder, that ignores borders and nationalities, and brings us closer together as a species. Now from an economic and investment standpoint. The most important angle here is one of marginal benefit. If we are already spending 100 billion a year on disease, poverty, and climate change (this is a very conservative guess), how much good is adding a few billion more? It's likely not going to move the needle extensively. However, that money that will make an enormous difference in our space endeavors, letting us reap some of those second order benefits. This idea is core to approaches that involve casting a wide net or diversifying your efforts -- essential strategies for when information/understanding is incomplete and the possibility space is broad. Very much like where we are at today. Lastly, we need to look longer term. A space program is essential in moving humanity into the next technological era, and will likely have many unforseen positive benefits. Looking at the two paths, I think 200 years now, all else being equal, the GDP and happiness quotient of a society that invests in space exploration will be significantly higher than in one that doesn't. P.S. This is also a bit ironic coming from Bill Gates, given the impact the space program had on the nascent computing industry: http://www.computerworld.com/article/2525898/app-development/nasa-s-apollo-technology-has-changed-history.html http://www.computerworld.com/article/2525898/app-development...

Judgmentality 9y ago
> Now from an economic and investment standpoint. The most important angle here is one of marginal benefit. If we are already spending 100 billion a year on disease, poverty, and climate change (this is a very conservative guess), how much good is adding a few billion more? It's likely not going to move the needle extensively. However, that money that will make an enormous difference in our space endeavors, letting us reap some of those second order benefits. I feel like this is faulty reasoning. That money might fund a project that otherwise wouldn't get funded which may cure cancer (unlikely, but honestly I'd say finding a moderate breakthrough for treating a specific strain of cancer with a few billion dollars is about as likely as that few billion dollars getting us significantly closer to Mars). It's not that every project is getting funded and it's just how much they get funded - some projects don't get funded at all. Nobody can predict the future which is why startup investing is so hard - the winners often start out looking like losers (DropBox, AirBnB, Google, Tesla, Apple all struggled to raise money initially). And big accomplishments often come from underdogs, like the Wright Brothers (who were up against much better funded and better educated competition). And sometimes the best discoveries are completely accidental - like penicillin. Nobody knows the best way to allocate resources. I think the smart thing to do is to back things because you believe in them, not because they seem underappreciated. And honestly, Elon Musk has such a cult following that I'd say anything he does gets way more love than all the other things that money could be spent on.

FrozenVoid 9y ago

Asteroid mining is ignored. The value of materials in them is immense and will change the economy. All these scenarios of "X running out in Y years" become irrelevant once asteroid/space industry develops. http://www.asterank.com/ http://www.asterank.com/

c-smile 9y ago

There are not that many useful tasks that can be solved in principle with massive use of rockets based on chemical reaction. But none of these tasks are "mission critical" for survival of the civilization. Having 10 companies launching rockets instead of current 5 will not make any differences in principle. It is just a matter of time for next gamma burst or so to wipe out life on the planet. So we need colonies on large enough distances. And Mars does not count as it is too close. To achieve that goal (civilization survival) we a) must keep our common home habitable and b) focus efforts on finding ways of inter-stellar travelling.

JacksonGariety 9y ago
You must choose between a) and b).

elorant 9y ago

It's funny that he says that because I remember him almost a decade ago asking on LinkedIn "how we will encourage more young people to pursue careers in science and technology". Well, that's how. Space exploration is sexy and intriguing as hell. Take for example how much admiration and awe the Cassini mission has created. We have a tiny vessel in the edges of our solar system some 1,5bn kms away exploring unknown worlds and sending back valuable feedback. You can't but feel humbled by all that. Imagine now what will happen if a few years in the future we find life in some planet out there. Space exploration will bring more people to science because it attracts a lot of attention. It's intriguing because it involves a multitude of disciplinaries from engineering to biology, geology, physics, astronomy, you name it. Look at how many great sci-fi movies have been produced in the last decade. The reason for that is that younger generations understand technology and are intrigued by it. And there's nothing more intriguing than setting a colony on Mars or sending a probe το Europa to drill on the ice in search for life. We do that, and thirty years down the road we'll have two or three times as many scientists as we have today. And then they will take humanity further. As they've done for the last 200 years. We live in a time of prosperity due to scientific breakthroughs, from fighting infectious deceases that expanded life expectancy to decades, to improving agriculture productivity and thus increase access to food for more people.

Veedrac 9y ago
I feel he's come to the conclusion that the right answer is to bring a healthy standard of living, education and stability to the billion-plus people in extreme poverty, who would be contributing far more had they only the chance.