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Doubtful a net benefit. Those come at tremendous cost to the public, like years of extra work per person. We haven't even paid for the Vietnam War yet, and the
by genwin 14y ago
Doubtful a net benefit. Those come at tremendous cost to the public, like years of extra work per person. We haven't even paid for the Vietnam War yet, and the interest is compounding on that. We're quickly approaching half of every tax dollar spent on interest. Add space exploration, it could reach 90%.
- dbaupp 14y agoExtra work compared to what? Is there any other reasonable way that space-derived technologies (e.g. those on this list[0]) could have been invented? If the US wants to pay off it debts, maybe the first thing to do is reduce the amount spend on, for example, the military. The US spends $700+ billion dollars (or 4% of GDP) on its military[1], on something that is even less of a net benefit to humanity: killing people. Surely the $20 billion[2] currently spent on NASA pales in comparison to that, and the benefit to humanity of non-military technological improvement is far larger. (Clearly, DARPA et al. fund technological improvement too, but the purpose, and first use, of these technologies is normally quite saddening.) [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_e... [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA