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I honestly don't see the point of doing this. The scientific bounty from going to the moon was tiny comparing to the amount of resource put into it. I think po

• JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  What? This is nonsense. We have an social and industrial complex that would not exist if not for the space program. This internet. Your cell phone. The attempt to do great exploration begets the technology, which changes the world. This has been true since sailing ship days.
  • stevewilhelm 12y ago
    I would guess if the capital and talent marshaled to send a man the the moon had been tasked to build a global mobile communications network we would now have a better Internet and would have had cell phones a decade earlier.
    • JoeAltmaier 12y ago
      Yes in a Pollyanna ideal world you could choose what worked in hindsight. But we can't know until we try, what we will discover.
      • Retra 12y ago
        AI, underground cities, high-speed rail systems, package delivery systems, renewable energy, genetic construction, nanotechnology, infrastructure optimization, recycling, natural language, experimental schools, community integration projects, ... There are plenty of great projects to work on that will provide valuable insights if they fail, and great benefit if they succeed.
        • fsloth 12y ago
          The difference with these and the space program was that the space program had a very specific goal. These, on the other hand, are technological exploits. I.e. a "high-speed rail system" is not a goal in itself like the space program was but a goal of "smallest possible travel time with lowest cost between points A and B" would be. The end result of this might be a high-speed rail system, or something else entirely. The value of programs with ambitious targets is that they will provide real world solutions forged out of necessity. Sometimes these will lead to new areas of industrial production, sometimes find that all they will need is a bunch of ducktape. To make great leaps, we usually cannot put the technology before the end. It all starts with a great goal. Von Braun was obsessed with rocket engines because he wanted to explore the space. Heisenberg did not invent linear algebra (he was not aware it already existed, I think) because he was obsessed of numbers but because there was a specific physics problem he wanted to solve and he intuitively grasped he needed new tools to calculate the stuff he needed to calculate. Etc. The real world problems provide two things at the same time: need and validation. They create a real world need, and if the new technique provides a valuable solution, it establishes the usage of this technology as a valid method.
• snowwrestler 12y ago
  Some folks want to know how exploration can benefit them scientifically. Other folks wonder what the point of science is, if not exploration.
  • nfoz 12y ago
    Meeting the needs of humanity might be considered a point for science, differen than "exploration". It seems that the debate is whether we meet the needs of humans right now suffering on this planet, or if we meet the needs of the long-term species under the premise, the assumption that we are simultaneously unwilling or unable to solve the problems here on Earth that we ourselves have caused.
  • nemo 12y ago
    I'm all for expanding frontiers of science. I'd much prefer sending robotic exploration craft, though. I don't see much scientific gain coming out of putting the people in space, while the massively increased costs associated of keeping people alive and well in space just subtract from scientific gains in knowledge and exploration. Putting people in space is for PR, putting robots in space is for science.