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I'd say this kind of highlights the limits of economic rationality as a decision-making rule. Yes, that's rational. But being careless with other people's live
by gmac 3y ago
I'd say this kind of highlights the limits of economic rationality as a decision-making rule.
Yes, that's rational. But being careless with other people's lives is something many people (including me, an economist) are morally not OK with.
- pfdietz 3y agoI'd say it illustrates that the Space Shuttle program wasn't actually worthwhile. When push came to shove, the supposed benefits were less than a rather piddling amount of astronaut life value. We have no trouble continuing to risk lives in other activities (the military, for example).
- gmac 3y agoQuite possibly. But I suspect the full benefits are pretty hard to assess from our armchairs. I imagine there's a fair amount of useful technology that got developed along the way, and a bunch of global cultural value (and US soft power) over several decades derived from having putting a person on the moon.
- pfdietz 3y agoThose benefiting from the spending have incentive to exaggerate the benefits up to the limit of plausibility. So, as a rule of thumb, expect the actual benefits to be less than the claimed benefits. It's certainly the case that many of the supposed benefits of the Space Shuttle (and the Space Station) didn't materialize. The Space Shuttle has the additional "negative benefit" of having retarded development of US expendable boosters. Something like an expendable Falcon 9 could have been created decades earlier, had policy been rational.