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I was talking to an oncologist yesterday. Her biggest frustration is that Silicon Valley billionaires are spending billions upon billions to send things to spac

I was talking to an oncologist yesterday. Her biggest frustration is that Silicon Valley billionaires are spending billions upon billions to send things to space, when there are serious problems on Earth that could be fought, most importantly cancer. It’s hard to argue with her. $400B/yr would fund a lot of research that would benefit humanity a lot better than a coordinated mission to Mars, even though it would be very exciting to see in my lifetime.

Latty 8y ago
To be fair, the commercial space industry isn't focused on stuff like Mars (that's mostly PR stuff) - it's about satellites. GPS, communication, mapping, etc... These are things that make a huge difference to our everyday lives.
Oi7ie6op 8y ago
We know that civilization will survive cancer just fine. We do not know the same about asteroid impacts or global warming. So in terms of potential future lives saved space exploration and fighting global warming are worth a lot more than cancer research. After all there has to be someone to get cancer in the first place.
ryanmercer 8y ago
Money is going into biotech fortunately though. Sam Altman started nudging YC towards biotech a few years ago (one article example https://www.wired.com/2015/11/y-combinator-sam-altman-interview-on-investing-in-biotech-startups/ https://www.wired.com/2015/11/y-combinator-sam-altman-interv... ) and to date has funded the following companies directly involved in cancer research and treatement: Cambridge Cancer Genomics, Oncobox, Mednet, HistoWiz, Luminist, iSono Health, Notable Labs. And I agree, cancer needs figured out (at least the common ones) I lost my father's mother and my father to cancer in my youth and my mother is a survivor of thyroid cancer, I figure I'm a ticking time bomb. Space needs to be a priority though, we're quickly screwing this planet and we're one space-rock or super-volcano away from extinction (both have happened before, both will almost certainly happen again). What I'm more upset about is people spending obscene fortunes on Farmville, World of Warcraft gold, Candy Crush EleventeenNinenty4 Now With Extra Bedazzle, Fortnight etc. Energy, agriculture, medical, space are often neglected in favor of the iPad fruit of the month app of the week. It is extremely frustrating.
- harperlee 8y ago
  > we're quickly screwing this planet I'd love to see humans achieve interplanetary colonization in my lifespan, but that one is a lame reason: as much as we hurt Earth, it will remain much more habitable than Mars.
  - ryanmercer 8y ago
    > but that one is a lame reason: as much as we hurt Earth, it will remain much more habitable than Mars If we stopped using all fossil fuels TODAY (as well as eliminated the cattle and hog industries), as in every single person on the planet, it would a few thousand years to return to pre-industrial revolution levels of CO2. We're realistically looking at a MINIMUM of 6ft increase in sea level before the end of the century (bye-bye most coastal cities unless you ring every last inch of coast with dikes). We are rapidly depleting aquifers the world around (much faster than they can replenish), we're rapidly depleting soil (creating appreciable amounts of topsoil takes centuries), population is still climbing, electricity demand the world around is climbing, someone is producing a banned ozone depleting compound ( https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/it-seems-someone-is-producing-a-banned-ozone-depleting-chemical-again/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/it-seems-someone-is-... ) etc. It's not a lame reason, it is an extremely valid one. We need to develop the technology and means to have self-sustaining colonies (even if enclosed in habitats) off of Earth before stuff gets so bad here we simply don't have the resources to commit to doing such.
    - iamforreal 8y ago
      A supervolcano eruption, nuclear winter, or large asteroid impact would still leave the earth more habitable than Mars. We're a long way from being Venus
      - ryanmercer 8y ago
        Tech developed for off-world colonies can be used on earth...
  - 8y ago
zimablue 8y ago
To be fair cancer is super overfunded and a waste of money to fund relative to lots of more easily cured third world diseases or poverty itself. Always someone with a better case than you.
- vibrio 8y ago
  "waste of money" is strong. Live with a loved one as they progress through rounds of cancer therapies and I suspect you will identify unmet need. It will change you. It's not a cancer vs infectious disease/clean water situation, both goals are valid and possible within reasonable means.
  - gibybo 8y ago
    >both goals are valid and possible within reasonable means. I thought that was the point zimablue was trying to make.
  - AstralStorm 8y ago
    Unfortunately, they compete for the same funding. We have a much more pressing issue than either: lack of working antibiotics... Cancer unsolved does not cause too many issues (it is a terrible disease nonetheless), while solving third world medical problems is mostly matter of goodwill and logistics (and comparatively cheap). But if we hit a new resistant superbug... That will decimate everywhere, everyone. Think plague combined with malaria. Talking about multidrug resistant strains of bacteria. If just one becomes reasonably virulent we are really out of luck. We need something new to have in reserve. Basic research as done in cancer research may or may not help.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      > But if we hit a new resistant superbug... That will decimate everywhere, everyone. Think plague combined with malaria. Talking about multidrug resistant strains of bacteria. If just one becomes reasonably virulent we are really out of luck. AFAIR this is a bit of a dramatization. The primary threat of superbugs isn't a new super plague (which is unlikely). The danger is that a big part of our medicine will suddenly revert to preindustrial mortality rates - surgeries that are routine today will become life-threatening, including probably anything you do at the dentist's. Imagine getting a cut in the kitchen, going to hospital for stitches, and ending up in a body bag. This alone will be both seriously deadly and disruptive to the economy. It is a serious issue indeed.
russellbeattie 8y ago
I think if we in the U.S. stopped killing people in senseless wars, we could use some of the trillions we spend on that to both fund medical research and fly to Mars. But that's obviously a fantasy.
- endymi0n 8y ago
  Then again, for the 700 billion dollars defense budget you'd get free universal healthcare and higher education for all of the US — AND would still have a few dozen billions to spare on cancer and Mars expeditions... but who in their right mind would want that?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - qaq 8y ago
    40% of US GDP is financial services it would be hard to argue that you could preserve that without being dominant military power.
    - clarkmoody 8y ago
      I would blame the size of the financial services sector on the Fed and inflationary money. I don't see what military power has to do with it? What's the size of the financial sector of Luxembourg or Switzerland?
      - qaq 8y ago
        Well name 1 other country that cab increase money supply the way FED does yet maintains the status of world's reserve currency? Luxembourg nobody cares on a global scale. Switzerland has extremely competent military and they are def. not in a position to manipulate the currency the way FED does and remain a viable financial center.
        rsync 8y ago
ChuckMcM 8y ago
This is a false dichotomy that always annoys me. It is entirely possible that by spending $400B to safely send people to Mars and live there, especially in a moderately high radiation environment, that we will discover EXACTLY the mechanisms that send cells into cancer states and how to reverse that so they stop. Otherwise we're going to have colonists getting cancer and dying too quickly. Then not only do we get to be multiplanetary so that when the crap really starts hitting the fan there is a lifeboat, but we also cure cancer.
- wilsonnb2 8y ago
  It's also entirely possible that the cure for all forms of cancer is a diet consisting entirely of frosted flakes, and that spending $400B researching the effects of all-cereal diets would also discover the cure for cancer. However, it's far more likely that $400B in cancer research will do more for curing cancer than hoping for side effects from $400B in other research.
  - mattigames 8y ago
    Imagine giving someone 200 years ago $400B for cancer research; what do you think it would have happen? Do you think they would have found the cure? No. The same thing happens today, $400B may do nothing big for cancer research and what's needed to advance in that area its time; decades (maybe centuries) of advancements in many fields that are not directly related to cancer research but given enough time those advancements will be used together to find a cure (e.g. map the entire DNA; nanorobots, etc)
  - ChuckMcM 8y ago
    We have already spent $500B on cancer research[1] and it hasn't cured. This also isn't an "either/or" proposition. As I mentioned, people travelling in space are subject to a lot of radiation which is known to cause cancer, so part of the research is going to be figuring out how to fix cells that are cancerous. Cancer is a systemic problem, it isn't measles or polio or TB. You have to understand the system in order to fix it and pushing humans into new environments will give us better insights into the system we call human life. [1] https://bigthink.com/devil-in-the-data/the-never-ending-war-on-cancer https://bigthink.com/devil-in-the-data/the-never-ending-war-...
megaman22 8y ago
Fighting cancer is being the little Dutch boy sticking your finger in a dam. Adding a decade or so at the end of people's lives is great, but bodies break down, and you're going to be fighting a constant rear-guard action. Getting off this rock is the first step towards getting all of our eggs out of one basket.
- wilsonnb2 8y ago
  > Getting off this rock is the first step towards getting all of our eggs out of one basket. Yes it is, but why should I care whether all of our eggs are in one basket, or two baskets, or a million baskets? The survival of the human race as a whole is not a concern of mine.
  - endtime 8y ago
    Then why do you expect anyone to value your opinion on what to do with human-race-as-a-whole-scale resources?
    - wilsonnb2 8y ago
      Because I care to what happens about all living humans today. I simply don't care about the long term survival of our species. Spreading across the galaxy or the universe so that there can be more humans alive or to ensure that if one planet gets wiped out, some humans live on are placing value on the existence of humans as a species in the universe. That's what I don't care about. I don't think we have intrinsic value that needs to be preserved.
      - softawre 8y ago
        How many generations down do you care about? Do you think fixing global warming is a waste of time, if it might affect 3 generations down?
        wilsonnb2 8y ago
partiallypro 8y ago
That assumes that more money equals more results in cancer (or any) research, which is just not true. We're already making huge breakthroughs in cancer research, research takes a lot of time.
zilian 8y ago
That's a mainstream argument against space exploration. We could then apply it to, "we could try to feed everybody before developing new medication for the rich"... We can tackle many problems at once and we have to ask ourselves : what's the goal of humanity ? Also : are we safe forever on Earth ?
- softawre 8y ago
  > are we safe forever on Earth ? and that's why Mars exploration is more important than curing cancer. Cancer is unlikely to kill everyone of us all at once.
  - rad88 8y ago
    So are planetary risks. They give the name to "astronomically unlikely". But while cancer might not kill everyone at once, it's going to kill billions of us.
    - megaman22 8y ago
      We're all going to die. And if we don't get killed by something else, we die of cancer, eventually. Death, taxes and cancer are as close to a trinity of certainty as you can get, and I'm not sanguine about finding a "cure" for conditions that represent the terminus of a lifetime of wear and tear on the body, at least on actionable timescales.
  - nrclark 8y ago
    There's almost nothing we could do to this planet which would make Mars a more attractive option. I guess there's always a meteor/comet risk, but practically anything else still leaves Earth as a better option. Even if we all had to live in bio-domes because the planet was so polluted, it would _still_ be a better option than Mars, just by virtue of the fact that we have gravity and an atmosphere. On Mars, a cracked bio-dome means everybody dies. On Earth, you could probably just go fix it. Earth has: - Gravity - Much better temperatures compared to Mars - A moderately-pressurized atmosphere - Water (even if it's salty/polluted)
F_r_k 8y ago
Hi highly recommend anyone to read Ernst Stuhlinger's (former NASA administrator) letter to a nun in Africa : https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-a-1970-letter-to-a-nun-in-africa/ https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-...
- geoffreyhale 8y ago
  "significant progress in the solutions of technical problems is frequently made not by a direct approach, but by first setting a goal of high challenge which offers a strong motivation for innovative work"
Maybestring 8y ago
Silicon Valley billionaires are spending $400B/yr on space travel? Where is all this money going?
- corobo 8y ago
  That number comes from the parent comment's hypothetical 1% of each country's GDP
beamatronic 8y ago
There are populations of humans on this planet that have very low cancer rates. All we have to do is adopt their lifestyle. Eat right and exercise. That’s probably 90% of it right there. Don’t need to spend any money.
- pvaldes 8y ago
  Eat right, exercise and do not live in a environment plenty of carcinogenic substances like a cit... oh, wait.
- nradov 8y ago
  More like 42%. https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/more-than-4-in-10-cancers-and-cancer-deaths-linked-to-modifiable-risk-factors.html https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/more-than-4-in-10-cancers...
waiquoo 8y ago
To be fair, dealing with radiation induced carcinogenesis is already on NASA's radar (https://humanresearchroadmap.nasa.gov/risks/risk.aspx?i=96 https://humanresearchroadmap.nasa.gov/risks/risk.aspx?i=96). Any long-term space mission will require mitigating cancer risk, which is probably about as close to a cure that we can reasonably hope for. So the two (space travel and cancer) are actually very closely linked.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
This is peculiar logic if you break it into its most fundamental. Dealing with cancer's entire purpose is extending the average human life expectancy. Right now cancer is the cause in about 12.5% [1] of all deaths. And the average years of life lost from cancer victims is 15.7 [2]. So if we completely eliminated all cancer we'd expect to extend the life expectancy for everybody by 0.125 * 15.7 = 1.97 years on average. In the US 22% [3] of deaths are from cancer, so it would be .22 * 15.7 = 3.5 years. So we change our life expectancy in the US from 79.3 years to 82.8 and now suddenly we can become a space faring civilization? Doesn't really make a whole lot of sense does it? [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rat... [2] - https://www.progressreport.cancer.gov/end/life_lost#field_most_recent_estimates https://www.progressreport.cancer.gov/end/life_lost#field_mo... [3] - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm
- forapurpose 8y ago
  FWIW, far more productive time is lost to cancer, and there is also great suffering (which is important; life != yearslived). There are sick patients, their families, plus all the resources consumed for treatment.
Nadya 8y ago
A sufficiently sized meteor could wipe out all life on Earth as we know it - or play "Pick your end of days scenario" between WW3, superviruses, or whatever. Having a few backup humans on the Moon or Mars is more beneficial to the survival of the human race than curing cancer is. Curing cancer saves individuals - establishing an off-Earth colony of humans could save all of humanity. Are the chances of a mass extinction of humans slim-to-none? Yes, but currently all of our eggs exist in a single basket: Earth.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  Unfortunately, super plagues still have a chance to propagate and Mars (even more so Moon) still can be bombed in the course of WW3. That is assuming the colony actually is reasonably self sustainable, which is quite a high bar.
  - Nadya 8y ago
    The chances are arguably smaller though - which is the point of having more than 1 basket to store your eggs in.
- rad88 8y ago
  It could not save "all of humanity". Humanity would be down there on Earth dying. In the end who you would save would again be individuals -- a few people on the moon. The question is could you save more people in space in a hypothetical end of world scenario than you could people on Earth dying in a very real scenario today.
  - Nadya 8y ago
    I refuse to argue against pedantry. You knew exactly what I meant by saying "all of humanity". 0 humans alive after mass extinction on Earth = humans are extinct, humanity has ended vs 100 humans living in a space colony after mass extinction on Earth = humans are not extinct, humanity has been saved. >The question is could you save more people in space in a hypothetical end of world scenario than you could people on Earth dying in a very real scenario today. There is no certainty of an end-of-world scenario but there's also no certainty that a cure for cancer actually exists or would be found. There is reason to believe and enough supporting evidence that a space colony would be theoretically possible - even if not self-sustaining for quite some time. So the question is a very real fix to a theoretical problem vs a theoretical fix to a very real problem.
corobo 8y ago
Alright so we split it. 200B for space, 200B for humanity research
Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
There's a relevant xkcd here: https://www.xkcd.com/1232/ https://www.xkcd.com/1232/
danielamitay 8y ago
A letter from an associate director of science at NASA in 1970 answering this question: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html
fjabre 8y ago
Disease and hunger will be ongoing for as long as we continue to be human. If it's not cancer or hunger it will be something else. Interplanetary travel is very obviously the next logical step for mankind. This doesn't have to come at the expense of biotech or medicine, and in fact would probably enhance it and accelerate discoveries across all fields of science and technology. Just how much of a window do you think we have on this planet? It's not a free ride forever. At some point whether tomorrow or 1000 years from now things can and will go very wrong. We were not the first dominant species on earth and it's more likely that we won't be the last.
simplicio 8y ago
I don't think that's true. Musk, whose probably the most prominent billionaire funding space exploration, put about 100 million into SpaceX over a decade or so. While the funding just by the National Cancer Institute just for breast cancer in just one year is something like 500 mil. The funding for cancer research seems to dwarf that for privately funded spacecraft. (plus, its not like there aren't any billionaires funding cancer research) Plus, I don't think its obvious that slow progress in finding cancer cures is due to resource constraints. Even if you showered 400 billion on cancer researchers, its not obvious you'd get a huge uptick in cancer treatment innovation.
Raphmedia 8y ago
You can defragment your hard-drive all day, won't change a thing when it crashes and you have no backup.
- ryanmercer 8y ago
  Great analogy! I'm stealing that.
Angostura 8y ago
Stuff cancer, $400B/yr would actually let us address some of the climate change issues that we should have dealt with a decade ago.
jonathanstrange 8y ago
Look at it this way. If we don't make it into space for long-term living, mankind will very likely be extinguished. The disagreement is only about how pressing the issue is but we might just as well start now before it's too late. Look at the rate of species extinction on earth.[1] [1] https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/crowded_planet/images/PopExtGraph.jpg https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_...
pc86 8y ago
An oncologist wishing more money was spent on cancer? In other news, water is wet. First of all, the optimal place for me to spend my money is not necessarily the optimal place for someone else to spend theirs. We can't know for sure, of course, but who were would have preferred Elon Musk start a cancer research firm instead of SpaceX? Secondly, there is no universal "cancer" that we can fight. There are hundreds of different types, just as distinct as different diseases. You could turn pancreatic cancer into a chronic condition tomorrow and no make any progress at all toward curing oropharyngeal cancer. There's a great exchange in the West Wing episode "Galileo" about just this type of narrow minded viewpoint. Sam Seaborn: There are a lot of hungry people in the world, Mal, and none of them are hungry because we went to the moon. None of them are colder and certainly none of them are dumber because we went to the moon. Mallory O'Brian: And we went to the moon. Do we really have to go to Mars? SS: Yes. MO: Why? SS: Because it's next. Because we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill and we saw fire; and we crossed the ocean and we pioneered the west, and we took to the sky. The history of man is hung on a timeline of exploration and this is what's next. No to mention the fact that all the cancer drugs in the world will not save us from an asteroid. If we don't get people living and populating on other planets, the human species is doomed.
- darpa_escapee 8y ago
  I'd argue that there are many problems endemic to the way we've structured society that spell out our doom on Earth, and if they aren't fixed here, will spell out our doom on other planets. We should fix our problems here, today, before exporting them elsewhere. Nevermind the fact that the after almost any type of disaster, the bottom of the ocean is infinitely more habitable than Mars. Mars as a holdout for humanity is truly a moonshot.
  - kbenson 8y ago
    > We should fix our problems here, today, before exporting them elsewhere. Although, if we export them, that's that many different places to try out solutions in semi-isolation in an attempt to find one that works. If we can parallelize the process, and also get cleaner starting conditions to test, why shouldn't we do so?
crimsonalucard 8y ago
If you think money is being wasted on space think again. The military industrial complex. Money would be better spend on a space industrial complex let alone a cancer industrial complex.
Robotbeat 8y ago
"Why doesn't Elon Musk try to solve problems down here on Earth instead of wasting it on space???" (Meanwhile, two weeks ago as Musk and team are trying to solve problems down here on Earth...) "WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO SOLVE PROBLEMS DOWN HERE ON EARTH? YOU'RE NOT THE EXPERT! STAY. IN. YOUR. LANE!" (With the caveat that Musk's reaction wasn't exactly great, this is literally what happened. Notice that billionaires NOT trying to solve problems are safely ignored as they buy yachts and islands.)
- thaumaturgy 8y ago
  When someone's as public a figure as Musk, it becomes nearly impossible to be any sort of human being and still be "decent" according to the standards of the noisy crowd. The few celebrities that are mostly universally liked pull it off by having almost no personality, so everyone can agree, "oh, yeah, they're nice." After @popehat's tweet the other day [1], it finally sunk in that everyone's favorite hobby today is finding people to hate, and hating them. A lot of people are competing to be the noisiest about it, to make sure that they have an opinion about other people and that as many people as possible know what that opinion is. We've added audience participation to the afternoon soap opera. Celebrities can let the public chisel away at them until the only thing left to say about them is that they're "nice", or they can resist being chiseled at and that will only make the public hate them more. [1]: https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1021912366722637825 https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1021912366722637825 footnote: people whose hobbies include "hating Elon Musk" might interpret this as a defense of Musk. It's not. It's an indictment of modern society.
oliverx0 8y ago
All these benefits are indirectly the result of NASA funding for space exploration: https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/techtransfer https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/techtransfer
imron 8y ago
Right, but who's to say though whether some breakthrough in space travel will lead to technology that ultimately helps cure cancer? In fact, if you look at NASA's spinoff brochure (space technologies that have trickled down to daily life) for this year [0], two of the items are directly related to cancer research. 0: https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2018/pdf/2018_Brochure_web.pdf https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2018/pdf/2018_Brochure_web.p...
chunky1994 8y ago
This is almost exactly the point addressed in Dr. Ernst Stuhlingher (then the associate director of NASA) in this elegant response: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html Which was written to a Zambia based nun who asked how this funding could be justified given the numerous starving children she saw everyday.
loosetypes 8y ago
I usually think of wannabe Mars-colonists as the unrealistic ones, but I can’t help but think of the umbrella notion of curing cancer as the more fantasty-driven idea. Is cancer not just the accumulation of cellular damage? Sometimes it happens earlier than we’d like or is induced by external factors a la radiation, but ultimately cell replication wears at telomeres and degrades molecular regulation of cell growth. Sure, some specific cases are treatable, but if you live long enough, you’ll get cancer in one way or another - the upper bound. Does “curing cancer” not entail solving all problems associated with aging as well? It sounds so good on the surface, but do we actually have a better idea what we’re talking when we say “curing cancer” than “solving artificial general intelligence”?
bamboozled 8y ago
Or, just get 2% over 5 years from top 5 ranked nations by GDP for both endeavours ? Doesn’t seem ridiculous to me?
lightsighter 8y ago
That's all fine and good right up until the next >=10km diameter asteroid has a collision with the Earth, in which case all those humans with cancer will be in the same state as all the humans without cancer. Given that it's been about 65 million years since the last one of these and they tend to happen about every 50 million years or so, you could argue that we are due...
tw04 8y ago
We won't have to worry about cancer if we get hit by a big enough asteroid and have no backup plan... I hate to break it to you, while cancer is horrible and I'd never wish it upon anyone, it's not even in the top 10 list of things that threaten our entire species. Hell, it's probably not in the top 100.
squarefoot 8y ago
Sending stuff in space is a lot more than just loading weight into a rocket and blast it in orbit. The research involved in space missions is huge and involves materials, fuel, energy, health, etc. potentially benefiting every possible field, including those unrelated with space. Even if cancer cure research isn't directly affected, good chances are that cancer detection is.
v_lisivka 8y ago
We already have problem with over-population. Cure for cancer will make this problem worse. To solve this problem, we need to expand.
tomputer 8y ago
What if there is a cure for cancer but it’s living/growing on Mars?
Eric_WVGG 8y ago
Let's say you have cancer, but you're also in the middle of a famine and can't feed yourself. That's a more fundamental problem, right? Zoom out, what good is curing cancer in the face of apocalyptic climate change? The case for Mars is that “humanity putting all of their eggs in one basket” (Earth) is the most fundamental problem of all. Everything else is a band-aid. (Cancer can’t be cured, incidentally: https://tapas.io/episode/58081 https://tapas.io/episode/58081)
jsolson 8y ago
Single-planet redundancy isn't a problem until it's a _really big_ (say, inescapable) problem. I'd put good odds on us wiping ourselves out or being wiped out before we manage to put a sustainable stake in some other chunk of ground. Also $400B/yr is great if you can make use of it. Do we have the intellectual and facility resources to make use of that sort of windfall today? Probably not. Could more money go to cancer research for immediate positive effect? Probably, although working out the logistics for how best to direct that funding requires resources of its own (which is of course the sort of work the Gates Foundation does).
itronitron 8y ago
alternatively, you could have big pharma cut the spending they devote to marketing and spend that money on R&D
PinkMilkshake 8y ago
I think it's fairly straightforward to make a argument against what she said. Western society worked out ages ago that it's best just to leave individuals to pursue what they find valuable. It may not be the most efficient system, but it works. Anything other than that implies that it's possible for everyone to have (more likely to be forced to have) the same set of values, and that we can all agree on how to order human pursuits from most beneficial to least beneficial. We already know that kind of collectivist approach fails every time.
namuol 8y ago
> most importantly cancer What about starvation, genocide, growing inequality, or the looming Alzheimer's epidemic? Where should we put the most money, and when? Scientific/Technological R&D is the ONE thing that can offer solutions to all of these problems, even if the research isn't directly related to them.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
A lot of research discoveries and new products have come out of both military needs and space programs. In fact, the horrors of war have a long historical association with medical discoveries and medical progress. I wish life worked like you think it does. But I have no reason to believe it actually does.
saudioger 8y ago
My plumber thinks we should spend the money on better toilets.
dizzystar 8y ago
A lot of technology she takes for granted was built by the space missions. The tech behind CAT and MRI scans are two examples, but there are many more within medicine. A lot of money is sent to various billionaires. The founder of 5 Hour Energy, for example, spends millions of dollars a year on various medical and green energy projects.
- gjm11 8y ago
  What technology behind MRI scans was "built by the space missions"? The underlying physical phenomenon is nuclear magnetic resonance. This was first observed by Isidor Rabi in 1938, well before the space missions. NMR spectroscopy was developed in the 1940s and 1950s, again before the space missions. The first magnetic resonance imaging work was done by Paul Lauterbur in the early 1970s. Before him there was Raymond Damadian (who had the idea of using NMR diagnostically but didn't make any images) and after him there was Peter Mansfield. None of these people, so far as I know, had anything to do with space exploration. Good MRI machines need very powerful magnets, which these days are made using superconducting wires. Superconductivity was discovered in 1911, long before space exploration was a thing. The first superconducting electromagnet was made by Yntema in 1955, before the space program; the first good superconducting electromagnet was made by Kunzler, Buehler, Hsu & Wernick in 1961; so far as I know they have no connection with space exploration. But don't trust me. How about NASA? Here's a quotation from https://spinoff.nasa.gov/pdf/AIAA-2010-8885-305.pdf https://spinoff.nasa.gov/pdf/AIAA-2010-8885-305.pdf: Confusion about NASA’s technological contributions to daily life exists even at the highest levels of government. In his speech at NASA Headquarters in January 2004 in support of the Vision for Space Exploration, President George W. Bush said, “Medical technologies that help prolong life—such as the imaging processing used in CAT scanners and MRI machines—trace their origins to technology engineered for the use in space.” This, like the previous examples, is incorrect. NASA has contributed in recent years to the advancement of several specific forms of medical imaging devices, and in the past the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has done groundbreaking research in the field of digital imaging. The CAT scan and MRI technologies, however, are specific applications for which NASA can take no direct credit.
kamaal 8y ago
>>when there are serious problems on Earth that could be fought, most importantly cancer. There will be very serious problems on Earth, as long as we are on Earth. The only way to buy yourself more time and resources to solve these endless problems is to move to the vastness of space and settle there. Once you have have that much time, do what you feel like doing. Cure Cancer or paint the next Mona Lisa.
dr_strange 8y ago
Countries(Politicians) could use a small amount from the billions spent on defence these days. But who wants to cut out their own existence, right?
rospaya 8y ago
There's a great Gil Scott Heron song with the same theme. In his case it was poverty and healthcare among African Americans in the 60s, not cancer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goh2x_G0ct4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goh2x_G0ct4
Brockenstein 8y ago
TL:DR; Your oncologist friend does't understand science or that money doesn't buy solutions or guarantee a linear speedup of results. There's always going to be problems and no matter what problem you're invested in, someone has a more dire problem that they think all the money and resources should be spent on. And the thing your oncologist friend needs to realize is that throwing more money at a problem doesn't yield better results. We could spend every penny the Earth spends on space for the next 50 years and not get a solution any faster than the current level of research. The other issue is this, what's so special about space? Cancer has been with us since forever. What if instead of investing in computers, we spent all that money on cancer research. What if instead of investing in electricity we had spent all that money on cancer research? What if instead of investing in exploring the world, we spent all that money on cancer research. We could walk back through history and smack down every sort of human endeavor not directly related to cancer research and criticize it as a waste of time compared to any problem someone feels is more important and needs immediate attention. If we did that we'd still be in the stone age and that's not going to help solve serious problems. Some of it is that it's not always apparent what benefits we'll gain in the long term from unrelated fields of research and discovery. What did electricity do for cancer research in 1882? Not a damn thing. But in 2018 it powers computers and labs worldwide that help us make huge advancements, cure people, increase life expectency. Who could have imagined that in 1882 though? But I am sure people lined up by the truckload to poo poo electricity as a waste of time when there's "real" problems to solve. What did digital computers do for cancer research in the 1940's? Probably not a damn thing and it was decades before they were powerful enough, available enough, and cheap enough to become the backbone for research of all kinds. We've probably learned more and made more advancements in cancer research thanks to computers in the last 40 years than the last 40,000 years. Seems worthwhile to me. We can't predict what avenues of research and exploration will lead us to the knowledge that changes the world. Yeah, it may not always be obvious and not everything happens on the immediate timescale that we would like or hope for. But it is shortsighted and hopelessly naive to say, "this will never have a benefit the problems I care about so we should abandon it, clearly it's a waste of time." >It’s hard to argue with her. $400B/yr would fund a lot of research that would benefit humanity a lot better than a coordinated mission to Mars, even though it would be very exciting to see in my lifetime. How about this: A manned mission to mars has serious hurdles relating to human survivability. The unprotected radiation exposure on the trip and on Mars would certainly have affects leading, among other things, higher cancer rates among astronauts. These are problems we're aware of and need to be solved. And what if that effort leads to serious breakthroughs in cancer research or prevention? And we know space travel has serious effects on the human body, if we study that and gain a better understanding of the human body as a result that would have a hard time not having benefits for cancer research, a subject largely centered around a problem with the function of the human body in certain cases. There's all sorts of ways manned space travel can lead to benefits for all mankind.
timdavila 8y ago
We could have both if the defensive budget was cut by a percent or two
Ultimatt 8y ago
If you're going to Mars there is plenty of room for cancer research as part of that. Unless spending years exposed to the solar wind is fine with everyone. Plus this argument is bullshit. Why spend more on cancer when only a third or less money is spent on mental illness affecting huge numbers of younger people many of whom turn to suicide? Once you play this game we end up with the poorest of societies focussed on the very bottom of a needs hierarchy exploding a useless population.

Latty 8y ago

To be fair, the commercial space industry isn't focused on stuff like Mars (that's mostly PR stuff) - it's about satellites. GPS, communication, mapping, etc... These are things that make a huge difference to our everyday lives.

Oi7ie6op 8y ago

We know that civilization will survive cancer just fine. We do not know the same about asteroid impacts or global warming. So in terms of potential future lives saved space exploration and fighting global warming are worth a lot more than cancer research. After all there has to be someone to get cancer in the first place.

ryanmercer 8y ago

Money is going into biotech fortunately though. Sam Altman started nudging YC towards biotech a few years ago (one article example https://www.wired.com/2015/11/y-combinator-sam-altman-interview-on-investing-in-biotech-startups/ https://www.wired.com/2015/11/y-combinator-sam-altman-interv... ) and to date has funded the following companies directly involved in cancer research and treatement: Cambridge Cancer Genomics, Oncobox, Mednet, HistoWiz, Luminist, iSono Health, Notable Labs. And I agree, cancer needs figured out (at least the common ones) I lost my father's mother and my father to cancer in my youth and my mother is a survivor of thyroid cancer, I figure I'm a ticking time bomb. Space needs to be a priority though, we're quickly screwing this planet and we're one space-rock or super-volcano away from extinction (both have happened before, both will almost certainly happen again). What I'm more upset about is people spending obscene fortunes on Farmville, World of Warcraft gold, Candy Crush EleventeenNinenty4 Now With Extra Bedazzle, Fortnight etc. Energy, agriculture, medical, space are often neglected in favor of the iPad fruit of the month app of the week. It is extremely frustrating.

harperlee 8y ago
> we're quickly screwing this planet I'd love to see humans achieve interplanetary colonization in my lifespan, but that one is a lame reason: as much as we hurt Earth, it will remain much more habitable than Mars.
- ryanmercer 8y ago
  > but that one is a lame reason: as much as we hurt Earth, it will remain much more habitable than Mars If we stopped using all fossil fuels TODAY (as well as eliminated the cattle and hog industries), as in every single person on the planet, it would a few thousand years to return to pre-industrial revolution levels of CO2. We're realistically looking at a MINIMUM of 6ft increase in sea level before the end of the century (bye-bye most coastal cities unless you ring every last inch of coast with dikes). We are rapidly depleting aquifers the world around (much faster than they can replenish), we're rapidly depleting soil (creating appreciable amounts of topsoil takes centuries), population is still climbing, electricity demand the world around is climbing, someone is producing a banned ozone depleting compound ( https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/it-seems-someone-is-producing-a-banned-ozone-depleting-chemical-again/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/it-seems-someone-is-... ) etc. It's not a lame reason, it is an extremely valid one. We need to develop the technology and means to have self-sustaining colonies (even if enclosed in habitats) off of Earth before stuff gets so bad here we simply don't have the resources to commit to doing such.
  - iamforreal 8y ago
    A supervolcano eruption, nuclear winter, or large asteroid impact would still leave the earth more habitable than Mars. We're a long way from being Venus
    - ryanmercer 8y ago
      Tech developed for off-world colonies can be used on earth...
- 8y ago

zimablue 8y ago

To be fair cancer is super overfunded and a waste of money to fund relative to lots of more easily cured third world diseases or poverty itself. Always someone with a better case than you.

vibrio 8y ago
"waste of money" is strong. Live with a loved one as they progress through rounds of cancer therapies and I suspect you will identify unmet need. It will change you. It's not a cancer vs infectious disease/clean water situation, both goals are valid and possible within reasonable means.
- gibybo 8y ago
  >both goals are valid and possible within reasonable means. I thought that was the point zimablue was trying to make.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  Unfortunately, they compete for the same funding. We have a much more pressing issue than either: lack of working antibiotics... Cancer unsolved does not cause too many issues (it is a terrible disease nonetheless), while solving third world medical problems is mostly matter of goodwill and logistics (and comparatively cheap). But if we hit a new resistant superbug... That will decimate everywhere, everyone. Think plague combined with malaria. Talking about multidrug resistant strains of bacteria. If just one becomes reasonably virulent we are really out of luck. We need something new to have in reserve. Basic research as done in cancer research may or may not help.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    > But if we hit a new resistant superbug... That will decimate everywhere, everyone. Think plague combined with malaria. Talking about multidrug resistant strains of bacteria. If just one becomes reasonably virulent we are really out of luck. AFAIR this is a bit of a dramatization. The primary threat of superbugs isn't a new super plague (which is unlikely). The danger is that a big part of our medicine will suddenly revert to preindustrial mortality rates - surgeries that are routine today will become life-threatening, including probably anything you do at the dentist's. Imagine getting a cut in the kitchen, going to hospital for stitches, and ending up in a body bag. This alone will be both seriously deadly and disruptive to the economy. It is a serious issue indeed.

russellbeattie 8y ago

I think if we in the U.S. stopped killing people in senseless wars, we could use some of the trillions we spend on that to both fund medical research and fly to Mars. But that's obviously a fantasy.

endymi0n 8y ago
Then again, for the 700 billion dollars defense budget you'd get free universal healthcare and higher education for all of the US — AND would still have a few dozen billions to spare on cancer and Mars expeditions... but who in their right mind would want that?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- qaq 8y ago
  40% of US GDP is financial services it would be hard to argue that you could preserve that without being dominant military power.
  - clarkmoody 8y ago
    I would blame the size of the financial services sector on the Fed and inflationary money. I don't see what military power has to do with it? What's the size of the financial sector of Luxembourg or Switzerland?
    - qaq 8y ago
      Well name 1 other country that cab increase money supply the way FED does yet maintains the status of world's reserve currency? Luxembourg nobody cares on a global scale. Switzerland has extremely competent military and they are def. not in a position to manipulate the currency the way FED does and remain a viable financial center.
      - rsync 8y ago

ChuckMcM 8y ago

This is a false dichotomy that always annoys me. It is entirely possible that by spending $400B to safely send people to Mars and live there, especially in a moderately high radiation environment, that we will discover EXACTLY the mechanisms that send cells into cancer states and how to reverse that so they stop. Otherwise we're going to have colonists getting cancer and dying too quickly. Then not only do we get to be multiplanetary so that when the crap really starts hitting the fan there is a lifeboat, but we also cure cancer.

wilsonnb2 8y ago
It's also entirely possible that the cure for all forms of cancer is a diet consisting entirely of frosted flakes, and that spending $400B researching the effects of all-cereal diets would also discover the cure for cancer. However, it's far more likely that $400B in cancer research will do more for curing cancer than hoping for side effects from $400B in other research.
- mattigames 8y ago
  Imagine giving someone 200 years ago $400B for cancer research; what do you think it would have happen? Do you think they would have found the cure? No. The same thing happens today, $400B may do nothing big for cancer research and what's needed to advance in that area its time; decades (maybe centuries) of advancements in many fields that are not directly related to cancer research but given enough time those advancements will be used together to find a cure (e.g. map the entire DNA; nanorobots, etc)
- ChuckMcM 8y ago
  We have already spent $500B on cancer research[1] and it hasn't cured. This also isn't an "either/or" proposition. As I mentioned, people travelling in space are subject to a lot of radiation which is known to cause cancer, so part of the research is going to be figuring out how to fix cells that are cancerous. Cancer is a systemic problem, it isn't measles or polio or TB. You have to understand the system in order to fix it and pushing humans into new environments will give us better insights into the system we call human life. [1] https://bigthink.com/devil-in-the-data/the-never-ending-war-on-cancer https://bigthink.com/devil-in-the-data/the-never-ending-war-...

megaman22 8y ago

Fighting cancer is being the little Dutch boy sticking your finger in a dam. Adding a decade or so at the end of people's lives is great, but bodies break down, and you're going to be fighting a constant rear-guard action. Getting off this rock is the first step towards getting all of our eggs out of one basket.

wilsonnb2 8y ago
> Getting off this rock is the first step towards getting all of our eggs out of one basket. Yes it is, but why should I care whether all of our eggs are in one basket, or two baskets, or a million baskets? The survival of the human race as a whole is not a concern of mine.
- endtime 8y ago
  Then why do you expect anyone to value your opinion on what to do with human-race-as-a-whole-scale resources?
  - wilsonnb2 8y ago
    Because I care to what happens about all living humans today. I simply don't care about the long term survival of our species. Spreading across the galaxy or the universe so that there can be more humans alive or to ensure that if one planet gets wiped out, some humans live on are placing value on the existence of humans as a species in the universe. That's what I don't care about. I don't think we have intrinsic value that needs to be preserved.
    - softawre 8y ago
      How many generations down do you care about? Do you think fixing global warming is a waste of time, if it might affect 3 generations down?
      - wilsonnb2 8y ago

partiallypro 8y ago

That assumes that more money equals more results in cancer (or any) research, which is just not true. We're already making huge breakthroughs in cancer research, research takes a lot of time.

zilian 8y ago

That's a mainstream argument against space exploration. We could then apply it to, "we could try to feed everybody before developing new medication for the rich"... We can tackle many problems at once and we have to ask ourselves : what's the goal of humanity ? Also : are we safe forever on Earth ?

softawre 8y ago
> are we safe forever on Earth ? and that's why Mars exploration is more important than curing cancer. Cancer is unlikely to kill everyone of us all at once.
- rad88 8y ago
  So are planetary risks. They give the name to "astronomically unlikely". But while cancer might not kill everyone at once, it's going to kill billions of us.
  - megaman22 8y ago
    We're all going to die. And if we don't get killed by something else, we die of cancer, eventually. Death, taxes and cancer are as close to a trinity of certainty as you can get, and I'm not sanguine about finding a "cure" for conditions that represent the terminus of a lifetime of wear and tear on the body, at least on actionable timescales.
- nrclark 8y ago
  There's almost nothing we could do to this planet which would make Mars a more attractive option. I guess there's always a meteor/comet risk, but practically anything else still leaves Earth as a better option. Even if we all had to live in bio-domes because the planet was so polluted, it would _still_ be a better option than Mars, just by virtue of the fact that we have gravity and an atmosphere. On Mars, a cracked bio-dome means everybody dies. On Earth, you could probably just go fix it. Earth has: - Gravity - Much better temperatures compared to Mars - A moderately-pressurized atmosphere - Water (even if it's salty/polluted)

F_r_k 8y ago

Hi highly recommend anyone to read Ernst Stuhlinger's (former NASA administrator) letter to a nun in Africa : https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-a-1970-letter-to-a-nun-in-africa/ https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-...

geoffreyhale 8y ago
"significant progress in the solutions of technical problems is frequently made not by a direct approach, but by first setting a goal of high challenge which offers a strong motivation for innovative work"

Maybestring 8y ago

Silicon Valley billionaires are spending $400B/yr on space travel? Where is all this money going?

corobo 8y ago
That number comes from the parent comment's hypothetical 1% of each country's GDP

beamatronic 8y ago

There are populations of humans on this planet that have very low cancer rates. All we have to do is adopt their lifestyle. Eat right and exercise. That’s probably 90% of it right there. Don’t need to spend any money.

pvaldes 8y ago
Eat right, exercise and do not live in a environment plenty of carcinogenic substances like a cit... oh, wait.
nradov 8y ago
More like 42%. https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/more-than-4-in-10-cancers-and-cancer-deaths-linked-to-modifiable-risk-factors.html https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/more-than-4-in-10-cancers...

waiquoo 8y ago

To be fair, dealing with radiation induced carcinogenesis is already on NASA's radar (https://humanresearchroadmap.nasa.gov/risks/risk.aspx?i=96 https://humanresearchroadmap.nasa.gov/risks/risk.aspx?i=96). Any long-term space mission will require mitigating cancer risk, which is probably about as close to a cure that we can reasonably hope for. So the two (space travel and cancer) are actually very closely linked.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

This is peculiar logic if you break it into its most fundamental. Dealing with cancer's entire purpose is extending the average human life expectancy. Right now cancer is the cause in about 12.5% [1] of all deaths. And the average years of life lost from cancer victims is 15.7 [2]. So if we completely eliminated all cancer we'd expect to extend the life expectancy for everybody by 0.125 * 15.7 = 1.97 years on average. In the US 22% [3] of deaths are from cancer, so it would be .22 * 15.7 = 3.5 years. So we change our life expectancy in the US from 79.3 years to 82.8 and now suddenly we can become a space faring civilization? Doesn't really make a whole lot of sense does it? [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rat... [2] - https://www.progressreport.cancer.gov/end/life_lost#field_most_recent_estimates https://www.progressreport.cancer.gov/end/life_lost#field_mo... [3] - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm

forapurpose 8y ago
FWIW, far more productive time is lost to cancer, and there is also great suffering (which is important; life != yearslived). There are sick patients, their families, plus all the resources consumed for treatment.

Nadya 8y ago

A sufficiently sized meteor could wipe out all life on Earth as we know it - or play "Pick your end of days scenario" between WW3, superviruses, or whatever. Having a few backup humans on the Moon or Mars is more beneficial to the survival of the human race than curing cancer is. Curing cancer saves individuals - establishing an off-Earth colony of humans could save all of humanity. Are the chances of a mass extinction of humans slim-to-none? Yes, but currently all of our eggs exist in a single basket: Earth.

AstralStorm 8y ago
Unfortunately, super plagues still have a chance to propagate and Mars (even more so Moon) still can be bombed in the course of WW3. That is assuming the colony actually is reasonably self sustainable, which is quite a high bar.
- Nadya 8y ago
  The chances are arguably smaller though - which is the point of having more than 1 basket to store your eggs in.
rad88 8y ago
It could not save "all of humanity". Humanity would be down there on Earth dying. In the end who you would save would again be individuals -- a few people on the moon. The question is could you save more people in space in a hypothetical end of world scenario than you could people on Earth dying in a very real scenario today.
- Nadya 8y ago
  I refuse to argue against pedantry. You knew exactly what I meant by saying "all of humanity". 0 humans alive after mass extinction on Earth = humans are extinct, humanity has ended vs 100 humans living in a space colony after mass extinction on Earth = humans are not extinct, humanity has been saved. >The question is could you save more people in space in a hypothetical end of world scenario than you could people on Earth dying in a very real scenario today. There is no certainty of an end-of-world scenario but there's also no certainty that a cure for cancer actually exists or would be found. There is reason to believe and enough supporting evidence that a space colony would be theoretically possible - even if not self-sustaining for quite some time. So the question is a very real fix to a theoretical problem vs a theoretical fix to a very real problem.

corobo 8y ago

Alright so we split it. 200B for space, 200B for humanity research

Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago

There's a relevant xkcd here: https://www.xkcd.com/1232/ https://www.xkcd.com/1232/

danielamitay 8y ago

A letter from an associate director of science at NASA in 1970 answering this question: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html

fjabre 8y ago

Disease and hunger will be ongoing for as long as we continue to be human. If it's not cancer or hunger it will be something else. Interplanetary travel is very obviously the next logical step for mankind. This doesn't have to come at the expense of biotech or medicine, and in fact would probably enhance it and accelerate discoveries across all fields of science and technology. Just how much of a window do you think we have on this planet? It's not a free ride forever. At some point whether tomorrow or 1000 years from now things can and will go very wrong. We were not the first dominant species on earth and it's more likely that we won't be the last.

simplicio 8y ago

I don't think that's true. Musk, whose probably the most prominent billionaire funding space exploration, put about 100 million into SpaceX over a decade or so. While the funding just by the National Cancer Institute just for breast cancer in just one year is something like 500 mil. The funding for cancer research seems to dwarf that for privately funded spacecraft. (plus, its not like there aren't any billionaires funding cancer research) Plus, I don't think its obvious that slow progress in finding cancer cures is due to resource constraints. Even if you showered 400 billion on cancer researchers, its not obvious you'd get a huge uptick in cancer treatment innovation.

Raphmedia 8y ago

You can defragment your hard-drive all day, won't change a thing when it crashes and you have no backup.

ryanmercer 8y ago
Great analogy! I'm stealing that.

Angostura 8y ago

Stuff cancer, $400B/yr would actually let us address some of the climate change issues that we should have dealt with a decade ago.

jonathanstrange 8y ago

Look at it this way. If we don't make it into space for long-term living, mankind will very likely be extinguished. The disagreement is only about how pressing the issue is but we might just as well start now before it's too late. Look at the rate of species extinction on earth.[1] [1] https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/crowded_planet/images/PopExtGraph.jpg https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_...

pc86 8y ago

An oncologist wishing more money was spent on cancer? In other news, water is wet. First of all, the optimal place for me to spend my money is not necessarily the optimal place for someone else to spend theirs. We can't know for sure, of course, but who were would have preferred Elon Musk start a cancer research firm instead of SpaceX? Secondly, there is no universal "cancer" that we can fight. There are hundreds of different types, just as distinct as different diseases. You could turn pancreatic cancer into a chronic condition tomorrow and no make any progress at all toward curing oropharyngeal cancer. There's a great exchange in the West Wing episode "Galileo" about just this type of narrow minded viewpoint. Sam Seaborn: There are a lot of hungry people in the world, Mal, and none of them are hungry because we went to the moon. None of them are colder and certainly none of them are dumber because we went to the moon. Mallory O'Brian: And we went to the moon. Do we really have to go to Mars? SS: Yes. MO: Why? SS: Because it's next. Because we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill and we saw fire; and we crossed the ocean and we pioneered the west, and we took to the sky. The history of man is hung on a timeline of exploration and this is what's next. No to mention the fact that all the cancer drugs in the world will not save us from an asteroid. If we don't get people living and populating on other planets, the human species is doomed.

darpa_escapee 8y ago
I'd argue that there are many problems endemic to the way we've structured society that spell out our doom on Earth, and if they aren't fixed here, will spell out our doom on other planets. We should fix our problems here, today, before exporting them elsewhere. Nevermind the fact that the after almost any type of disaster, the bottom of the ocean is infinitely more habitable than Mars. Mars as a holdout for humanity is truly a moonshot.
- kbenson 8y ago
  > We should fix our problems here, today, before exporting them elsewhere. Although, if we export them, that's that many different places to try out solutions in semi-isolation in an attempt to find one that works. If we can parallelize the process, and also get cleaner starting conditions to test, why shouldn't we do so?

crimsonalucard 8y ago

If you think money is being wasted on space think again. The military industrial complex. Money would be better spend on a space industrial complex let alone a cancer industrial complex.

Robotbeat 8y ago

"Why doesn't Elon Musk try to solve problems down here on Earth instead of wasting it on space???" (Meanwhile, two weeks ago as Musk and team are trying to solve problems down here on Earth...) "WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO SOLVE PROBLEMS DOWN HERE ON EARTH? YOU'RE NOT THE EXPERT! STAY. IN. YOUR. LANE!" (With the caveat that Musk's reaction wasn't exactly great, this is literally what happened. Notice that billionaires NOT trying to solve problems are safely ignored as they buy yachts and islands.)

thaumaturgy 8y ago
When someone's as public a figure as Musk, it becomes nearly impossible to be any sort of human being and still be "decent" according to the standards of the noisy crowd. The few celebrities that are mostly universally liked pull it off by having almost no personality, so everyone can agree, "oh, yeah, they're nice." After @popehat's tweet the other day [1], it finally sunk in that everyone's favorite hobby today is finding people to hate, and hating them. A lot of people are competing to be the noisiest about it, to make sure that they have an opinion about other people and that as many people as possible know what that opinion is. We've added audience participation to the afternoon soap opera. Celebrities can let the public chisel away at them until the only thing left to say about them is that they're "nice", or they can resist being chiseled at and that will only make the public hate them more. [1]: https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1021912366722637825 https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1021912366722637825 footnote: people whose hobbies include "hating Elon Musk" might interpret this as a defense of Musk. It's not. It's an indictment of modern society.

oliverx0 8y ago

All these benefits are indirectly the result of NASA funding for space exploration: https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/techtransfer https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/techtransfer

imron 8y ago

Right, but who's to say though whether some breakthrough in space travel will lead to technology that ultimately helps cure cancer? In fact, if you look at NASA's spinoff brochure (space technologies that have trickled down to daily life) for this year [0], two of the items are directly related to cancer research. 0: https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2018/pdf/2018_Brochure_web.pdf https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2018/pdf/2018_Brochure_web.p...

chunky1994 8y ago

This is almost exactly the point addressed in Dr. Ernst Stuhlingher (then the associate director of NASA) in this elegant response: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html Which was written to a Zambia based nun who asked how this funding could be justified given the numerous starving children she saw everyday.

loosetypes 8y ago

I usually think of wannabe Mars-colonists as the unrealistic ones, but I can’t help but think of the umbrella notion of curing cancer as the more fantasty-driven idea. Is cancer not just the accumulation of cellular damage? Sometimes it happens earlier than we’d like or is induced by external factors a la radiation, but ultimately cell replication wears at telomeres and degrades molecular regulation of cell growth. Sure, some specific cases are treatable, but if you live long enough, you’ll get cancer in one way or another - the upper bound. Does “curing cancer” not entail solving all problems associated with aging as well? It sounds so good on the surface, but do we actually have a better idea what we’re talking when we say “curing cancer” than “solving artificial general intelligence”?

bamboozled 8y ago

Or, just get 2% over 5 years from top 5 ranked nations by GDP for both endeavours ? Doesn’t seem ridiculous to me?

lightsighter 8y ago

That's all fine and good right up until the next >=10km diameter asteroid has a collision with the Earth, in which case all those humans with cancer will be in the same state as all the humans without cancer. Given that it's been about 65 million years since the last one of these and they tend to happen about every 50 million years or so, you could argue that we are due...

tw04 8y ago

We won't have to worry about cancer if we get hit by a big enough asteroid and have no backup plan... I hate to break it to you, while cancer is horrible and I'd never wish it upon anyone, it's not even in the top 10 list of things that threaten our entire species. Hell, it's probably not in the top 100.

squarefoot 8y ago

Sending stuff in space is a lot more than just loading weight into a rocket and blast it in orbit. The research involved in space missions is huge and involves materials, fuel, energy, health, etc. potentially benefiting every possible field, including those unrelated with space. Even if cancer cure research isn't directly affected, good chances are that cancer detection is.

v_lisivka 8y ago

We already have problem with over-population. Cure for cancer will make this problem worse. To solve this problem, we need to expand.

tomputer 8y ago

What if there is a cure for cancer but it’s living/growing on Mars?

Eric_WVGG 8y ago

Let's say you have cancer, but you're also in the middle of a famine and can't feed yourself. That's a more fundamental problem, right? Zoom out, what good is curing cancer in the face of apocalyptic climate change? The case for Mars is that “humanity putting all of their eggs in one basket” (Earth) is the most fundamental problem of all. Everything else is a band-aid. (Cancer can’t be cured, incidentally: https://tapas.io/episode/58081 https://tapas.io/episode/58081)

jsolson 8y ago

Single-planet redundancy isn't a problem until it's a _really big_ (say, inescapable) problem. I'd put good odds on us wiping ourselves out or being wiped out before we manage to put a sustainable stake in some other chunk of ground. Also $400B/yr is great if you can make use of it. Do we have the intellectual and facility resources to make use of that sort of windfall today? Probably not. Could more money go to cancer research for immediate positive effect? Probably, although working out the logistics for how best to direct that funding requires resources of its own (which is of course the sort of work the Gates Foundation does).

itronitron 8y ago

alternatively, you could have big pharma cut the spending they devote to marketing and spend that money on R&D

PinkMilkshake 8y ago

I think it's fairly straightforward to make a argument against what she said. Western society worked out ages ago that it's best just to leave individuals to pursue what they find valuable. It may not be the most efficient system, but it works. Anything other than that implies that it's possible for everyone to have (more likely to be forced to have) the same set of values, and that we can all agree on how to order human pursuits from most beneficial to least beneficial. We already know that kind of collectivist approach fails every time.

namuol 8y ago

> most importantly cancer What about starvation, genocide, growing inequality, or the looming Alzheimer's epidemic? Where should we put the most money, and when? Scientific/Technological R&D is the ONE thing that can offer solutions to all of these problems, even if the research isn't directly related to them.

DoreenMichele 8y ago

A lot of research discoveries and new products have come out of both military needs and space programs. In fact, the horrors of war have a long historical association with medical discoveries and medical progress. I wish life worked like you think it does. But I have no reason to believe it actually does.

saudioger 8y ago

My plumber thinks we should spend the money on better toilets.

dizzystar 8y ago

A lot of technology she takes for granted was built by the space missions. The tech behind CAT and MRI scans are two examples, but there are many more within medicine. A lot of money is sent to various billionaires. The founder of 5 Hour Energy, for example, spends millions of dollars a year on various medical and green energy projects.

gjm11 8y ago
What technology behind MRI scans was "built by the space missions"? The underlying physical phenomenon is nuclear magnetic resonance. This was first observed by Isidor Rabi in 1938, well before the space missions. NMR spectroscopy was developed in the 1940s and 1950s, again before the space missions. The first magnetic resonance imaging work was done by Paul Lauterbur in the early 1970s. Before him there was Raymond Damadian (who had the idea of using NMR diagnostically but didn't make any images) and after him there was Peter Mansfield. None of these people, so far as I know, had anything to do with space exploration. Good MRI machines need very powerful magnets, which these days are made using superconducting wires. Superconductivity was discovered in 1911, long before space exploration was a thing. The first superconducting electromagnet was made by Yntema in 1955, before the space program; the first good superconducting electromagnet was made by Kunzler, Buehler, Hsu & Wernick in 1961; so far as I know they have no connection with space exploration. But don't trust me. How about NASA? Here's a quotation from https://spinoff.nasa.gov/pdf/AIAA-2010-8885-305.pdf https://spinoff.nasa.gov/pdf/AIAA-2010-8885-305.pdf: Confusion about NASA’s technological contributions to daily life exists even at the highest levels of government. In his speech at NASA Headquarters in January 2004 in support of the Vision for Space Exploration, President George W. Bush said, “Medical technologies that help prolong life—such as the imaging processing used in CAT scanners and MRI machines—trace their origins to technology engineered for the use in space.” This, like the previous examples, is incorrect. NASA has contributed in recent years to the advancement of several specific forms of medical imaging devices, and in the past the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has done groundbreaking research in the field of digital imaging. The CAT scan and MRI technologies, however, are specific applications for which NASA can take no direct credit.

kamaal 8y ago

>>when there are serious problems on Earth that could be fought, most importantly cancer. There will be very serious problems on Earth, as long as we are on Earth. The only way to buy yourself more time and resources to solve these endless problems is to move to the vastness of space and settle there. Once you have have that much time, do what you feel like doing. Cure Cancer or paint the next Mona Lisa.

dr_strange 8y ago

Countries(Politicians) could use a small amount from the billions spent on defence these days. But who wants to cut out their own existence, right?

rospaya 8y ago

There's a great Gil Scott Heron song with the same theme. In his case it was poverty and healthcare among African Americans in the 60s, not cancer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goh2x_G0ct4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goh2x_G0ct4

Brockenstein 8y ago

TL:DR; Your oncologist friend does't understand science or that money doesn't buy solutions or guarantee a linear speedup of results. There's always going to be problems and no matter what problem you're invested in, someone has a more dire problem that they think all the money and resources should be spent on. And the thing your oncologist friend needs to realize is that throwing more money at a problem doesn't yield better results. We could spend every penny the Earth spends on space for the next 50 years and not get a solution any faster than the current level of research. The other issue is this, what's so special about space? Cancer has been with us since forever. What if instead of investing in computers, we spent all that money on cancer research. What if instead of investing in electricity we had spent all that money on cancer research? What if instead of investing in exploring the world, we spent all that money on cancer research. We could walk back through history and smack down every sort of human endeavor not directly related to cancer research and criticize it as a waste of time compared to any problem someone feels is more important and needs immediate attention. If we did that we'd still be in the stone age and that's not going to help solve serious problems. Some of it is that it's not always apparent what benefits we'll gain in the long term from unrelated fields of research and discovery. What did electricity do for cancer research in 1882? Not a damn thing. But in 2018 it powers computers and labs worldwide that help us make huge advancements, cure people, increase life expectency. Who could have imagined that in 1882 though? But I am sure people lined up by the truckload to poo poo electricity as a waste of time when there's "real" problems to solve. What did digital computers do for cancer research in the 1940's? Probably not a damn thing and it was decades before they were powerful enough, available enough, and cheap enough to become the backbone for research of all kinds. We've probably learned more and made more advancements in cancer research thanks to computers in the last 40 years than the last 40,000 years. Seems worthwhile to me. We can't predict what avenues of research and exploration will lead us to the knowledge that changes the world. Yeah, it may not always be obvious and not everything happens on the immediate timescale that we would like or hope for. But it is shortsighted and hopelessly naive to say, "this will never have a benefit the problems I care about so we should abandon it, clearly it's a waste of time." >It’s hard to argue with her. $400B/yr would fund a lot of research that would benefit humanity a lot better than a coordinated mission to Mars, even though it would be very exciting to see in my lifetime. How about this: A manned mission to mars has serious hurdles relating to human survivability. The unprotected radiation exposure on the trip and on Mars would certainly have affects leading, among other things, higher cancer rates among astronauts. These are problems we're aware of and need to be solved. And what if that effort leads to serious breakthroughs in cancer research or prevention? And we know space travel has serious effects on the human body, if we study that and gain a better understanding of the human body as a result that would have a hard time not having benefits for cancer research, a subject largely centered around a problem with the function of the human body in certain cases. There's all sorts of ways manned space travel can lead to benefits for all mankind.

timdavila 8y ago

We could have both if the defensive budget was cut by a percent or two

Ultimatt 8y ago

If you're going to Mars there is plenty of room for cancer research as part of that. Unless spending years exposed to the solar wind is fine with everyone. Plus this argument is bullshit. Why spend more on cancer when only a third or less money is spent on mental illness affecting huge numbers of younger people many of whom turn to suicide? Once you play this game we end up with the poorest of societies focussed on the very bottom of a needs hierarchy exploding a useless population.