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What was the economic imperative to build a ship to cross the Atlantic? Why send humans to their death out into some unknown massive ocean? Why get together fun
by cloutchaser 5y ago
What was the economic imperative to build a ship to cross the Atlantic? Why send humans to their death out into some unknown massive ocean? Why get together funding for that?
- tomrod 5y agoWealth. Columbus wanted in on the spice trade and convinced backers to support him. At the time, we had ships that floated on the ocean. The space race's initial run was motivated by national pride and defense. The costs to keep it up have been high, which is why SpaceX's approach at reducing fixed pre-launch costs have found success.
- brandmeyer 5y agoIts the same with SpaceX. Musk wants to build a Libertarian utopia on Mars under his personal control in his own lifetime.
- kiba 5y agoElon Musk actually advocated direct democracy.
- ceejayoz 5y agoWithout constitutional constraints, a direct democracy can presumably vote to make Musk dictator-for-life, right? If there are to be constitutional constraints, the nature of that democracy is very much undefined at the moment. (His being in complete control over the mechanism required to immigrate helps shape that direct democracy, too.)
- SEJeff 5y agoWhich would certainly be an interesting experiment for his one million person mars colony.
- simonh 5y agoLibertarian, but under his direct control? I don't think Libertarian means what you think it means. On the other hand we managed to end up with a suspiciously high number of communist dictatorships, which is equally contradictory, so who knows.
- littlestymaar 5y agoInterestingly enough, you're using a state-sponsored[1] program as an example here… [1]: yes, I know the “state” was “a bit” different in that early modern world, but still Columbus would not have done that thanks to market forces alone.
- cloutchaser 5y agoI wasn't commenting on state or market forces. I was replying to a very insightful comment saying "Why would anyone build a rocket??"
- littlestymaar 5y agoYou answered a comment talking about how market forces would have lacked for the private sector to build rockets (in opposition to how the public sector didn't need such economic reason to do things): > What would have been the economic imperative that would have jump started the development of rockets in the first place? With this one: > What was the economic imperative to build a ship to cross the Atlantic? How is it “not commenting on state or market force”?
- Teever 5y agoYou have misunderstood my initial comment.