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People say all the time, "why spend all that money on space when there's so many problems on Earth?" Why do people never say the same thing about all the money
by trixie_ 5y ago
People say all the time, "why spend all that money on space when there's so many problems on Earth?"
Why do people never say the same thing about all the money spent on video games and Starbucks? Which is arguably a lot more money.
- rlayton2 5y agoThose might be the same people who say "why do you do research in field X, rather than on cancer research?". Why do you have a job as an admin rather than go back to school and become a cancer scientist? It's easier to criticize the actions of others than to take responsibility.
- kiba 5y agoSpace colonization is simply jumping third or fourth steps removed from the dream of making our Earth more livable and more ecologically diverse, or learning how to build and make an acrology. From that perspective, it's no wonder why people think it's a waste of space, because they saw no meaningful purpose. Meanwhile, we're doing the opposite of terraforming Earth, by making it more unlivable everyday.
- flutetornado 5y agoIf space colonization leads to mining resources from asteroids and offloading the environmental costs of such mining from earth or get us building materials strong enough to give us a space elevator or space factories sending their waste into the sun, you wouldn’t be saying this perhaps.
- ModernMech 5y agoTrust me, people have a lot of opinions on video games being a waste of time and money. You should have heard my parents when I was a teenager.
- SllX 5y agoWell that’s not really a fair comparison. Space research is usually funded with taxpayer money (this is changing, but a fair amount of SpaceX’s revenue is still NASA contracts). Games and Starbucks are funded by folks after-tax wages. In both cases it’s money that they earned, but they have a lot more individual agency with the latter portion of their wages than the former portion.
- brailsafe 5y agoWhy spend money on Starbucks in Seattle when they're innumerable better coffee shops for the $$.
- mitchdoogle 5y agoPeople do say similar things about video games and Starbucks. "A cup of coffee per day" is often used as a barometer when charities want you to donate to them. It's not a bad question though. Someone who wants space exploration should think about that question and be able to answer it in a meaningful way.