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It also makes one question just how useful spending those resources on going to the moon in the first place. After spending all that time and all those resource

by bnralt 4y ago

It also makes one question just how useful spending those resources on going to the moon in the first place. After spending all that time and all those resources (not just financial; it also occupied the time of our limited pool of top engineers and scientists) on going to the moon, over 50 years later we're still struggling to return there. People don't seem to understand that we make good use of space and space flight, but humans in space just aren't that useful at the moment. At the beginning of the space age it seemed like they might be; there were ideas for a manned spy satellite, such as the Manned Orbiting Laboratory[1]. But as tech advanced, the people who actually using space flight to accomplish things realized that automated systems functioned better. NASA spends 44.9% of its budget on human space flight, and just 3.5% on aeronautics[2], when it's likely the aeronautics research improves people's lives much more than the human space flight efforts. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Orbiting_Laboratory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Orbiting_Laboratory [2] https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/nasa-budget https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/nasa-budget

trasz 4y ago
You can’t claim territory without sending people.
- bnralt 4y ago
  Consider the last inhospitable area there was a rush to explore, Antarctica. The efforts to claim it haven't amounted to much, mostly because it's such a terrible place to build settlements. Chile and Argentina have tried to make settlements at the very tip, but the population there is smaller than the population of the USA's McMurdo Station. Antarctic exploration is a good analogy. A little over a century ago, it was the new frontier. But as we advanced, the excitement gave way to cold reality. Though it was exciting at the time, I doubt most people could tell you who the first person to reach the South Pole was. And the doubtful that the journeys actually provided any benefit to modern researchers there. If we had simply waited a few decades and started exploring when the technology was there (the so-called "Mechanical age" of Antarctic exploration), fewer lives would have been lost and we would have been in the same place we are today.
  - trasz 4y ago
    One crucial difference is that Antarctica isn’t strategically important, so there is no incentive to colonize.
KennyBlanken 4y ago
I'll go further. It is insane that we are spending billions just to say we put people in lunar orbit because we're worried our peepees will look too small if the Chinese do it first. There's zero useful science being accomplished here that cannot be accomplished minus humans on the craft for less money, faster. It's a national embarrassment that we have teachers being paid a pittance, doing unpaid labor, paying for basic supplies out of pocket, and children go hungry at school because we think they should have to pay for a meal - but we can spend billions on what amounts to a blank check to the aerospace defense industry in the name of "science." People always talk about the benefits of space exploration for developments in science and technology that are necessitated (when really, most of the tech was developed for spy satellites and nuclear weapons delivery, and the doe-eyed "exploration" missions are post-facto justifications and emotional manipulation.) What would be the benefits for science and technology if every kid in the US was fed at school, had enough (and current) textbooks, sufficient stationary supplies in their classrooms, and teachers who were fairly compensated for their labor (and their school staffed sufficiently such that teachers didn't have to put in nearly 100% more labor than they are paid for?)
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  > but we can spend billions on what amounts to a blank check to the aerospace defense industry in the name of "science." Do you really think single-digit billions is going to pay for a meaningful increase to teachers' wages, plus feeding students? NASA gets $22B per year - less than $12B of that goes to manned flights. There's 3.1M public school teachers in the US. If you took ALL of that money and gave it all to teachers (which is ridiculous - they're paid by states, not federally) - that amounts to a ~10% raise - and if you count future pensions - it's not even a ~3% raise. You have $0 left over to pay for hungry students. There's also another 3M employees at public schools beside teachers that get nothing... It's almost as if NASA's budget has nothing to do with anything you mentioned.
  - tffcccdredf 4y ago
    10% and even a 3% raise across the board for all teacher sounds amazing. You're stats proved the opposite point you tried to make.

by bnralt 4y ago

trasz 4y ago

You can’t claim territory without sending people.

bnralt 4y ago
Consider the last inhospitable area there was a rush to explore, Antarctica. The efforts to claim it haven't amounted to much, mostly because it's such a terrible place to build settlements. Chile and Argentina have tried to make settlements at the very tip, but the population there is smaller than the population of the USA's McMurdo Station. Antarctic exploration is a good analogy. A little over a century ago, it was the new frontier. But as we advanced, the excitement gave way to cold reality. Though it was exciting at the time, I doubt most people could tell you who the first person to reach the South Pole was. And the doubtful that the journeys actually provided any benefit to modern researchers there. If we had simply waited a few decades and started exploring when the technology was there (the so-called "Mechanical age" of Antarctic exploration), fewer lives would have been lost and we would have been in the same place we are today.
- trasz 4y ago
  One crucial difference is that Antarctica isn’t strategically important, so there is no incentive to colonize.

KennyBlanken 4y ago

I'll go further. It is insane that we are spending billions just to say we put people in lunar orbit because we're worried our peepees will look too small if the Chinese do it first. There's zero useful science being accomplished here that cannot be accomplished minus humans on the craft for less money, faster. It's a national embarrassment that we have teachers being paid a pittance, doing unpaid labor, paying for basic supplies out of pocket, and children go hungry at school because we think they should have to pay for a meal - but we can spend billions on what amounts to a blank check to the aerospace defense industry in the name of "science." People always talk about the benefits of space exploration for developments in science and technology that are necessitated (when really, most of the tech was developed for spy satellites and nuclear weapons delivery, and the doe-eyed "exploration" missions are post-facto justifications and emotional manipulation.) What would be the benefits for science and technology if every kid in the US was fed at school, had enough (and current) textbooks, sufficient stationary supplies in their classrooms, and teachers who were fairly compensated for their labor (and their school staffed sufficiently such that teachers didn't have to put in nearly 100% more labor than they are paid for?)

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
> but we can spend billions on what amounts to a blank check to the aerospace defense industry in the name of "science." Do you really think single-digit billions is going to pay for a meaningful increase to teachers' wages, plus feeding students? NASA gets $22B per year - less than $12B of that goes to manned flights. There's 3.1M public school teachers in the US. If you took ALL of that money and gave it all to teachers (which is ridiculous - they're paid by states, not federally) - that amounts to a ~10% raise - and if you count future pensions - it's not even a ~3% raise. You have $0 left over to pay for hungry students. There's also another 3M employees at public schools beside teachers that get nothing... It's almost as if NASA's budget has nothing to do with anything you mentioned.
- tffcccdredf 4y ago
  10% and even a 3% raise across the board for all teacher sounds amazing. You're stats proved the opposite point you tried to make.