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Spending on space exploration has been in debate and protested since the 60's, and probably even earlier than that. Not to say that it isn't worth discussing, o

Spending on space exploration has been in debate and protested since the 60's, and probably even earlier than that. Not to say that it isn't worth discussing, only to counter the comment about being rarely acknowledged.

ianai 8y ago
Not to mention that government finances are nothing like private finances. Governments are assumed to be infinitely lived and their debt can always be paid by new debt. Debt isn’t the same thing for a government that it is for a private entity. For instance, only the government creates money. A Tbill is literally the government taking currency today and agreeing to give it out with interest over time. It was going to need to do that all along. I say NASA’s budget could be much greater. And employment for all could be guaranteed. Political movements to the otherwise are bad for society. They actively hurt society and guard against betterment. We’re talking dark ages vs progress.
RA_Fisher 8y ago
Is that right? I hadn't seen much discussion of that.
- ivan_gammel 8y ago
  It would be very easy to figure out via few simple searches. For example: "About 164,000,000 results" in Google for popular search "is space race worth it?" And 41 million of search results for "space race economic impact", and so on. This question has been discussed almost on every single forum I've been registered in my life, including multiple times on HN.
- stagger87 8y ago
  During the 60's more people opposed the Apollo program spending than supported it, specifically for the reasons you allude to, spend that money on social programs, etc... De-funding these types of programs has been a major talking point of almost every election since then. The discussion has even been renewed quite a bit since SpaceX has came into existence. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/moondoggle-the-forgotten-opposition-to-the-apollo-program/262254/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/moond...

ianai 8y ago

Not to mention that government finances are nothing like private finances. Governments are assumed to be infinitely lived and their debt can always be paid by new debt. Debt isn’t the same thing for a government that it is for a private entity. For instance, only the government creates money. A Tbill is literally the government taking currency today and agreeing to give it out with interest over time. It was going to need to do that all along. I say NASA’s budget could be much greater. And employment for all could be guaranteed. Political movements to the otherwise are bad for society. They actively hurt society and guard against betterment. We’re talking dark ages vs progress.

RA_Fisher 8y ago

Is that right? I hadn't seen much discussion of that.

ivan_gammel 8y ago
It would be very easy to figure out via few simple searches. For example: "About 164,000,000 results" in Google for popular search "is space race worth it?" And 41 million of search results for "space race economic impact", and so on. This question has been discussed almost on every single forum I've been registered in my life, including multiple times on HN.
stagger87 8y ago
During the 60's more people opposed the Apollo program spending than supported it, specifically for the reasons you allude to, spend that money on social programs, etc... De-funding these types of programs has been a major talking point of almost every election since then. The discussion has even been renewed quite a bit since SpaceX has came into existence. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/moondoggle-the-forgotten-opposition-to-the-apollo-program/262254/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/moond...