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> the fact that sending humans vs sending robots isn't a zero sum game only if we pretend there's infinite money available. if sending a single human being to
by rgbrenner 12y ago
> the fact that sending humans vs sending robots isn't a zero sum game
only if we pretend there's infinite money available. if sending a single human being to mars/moon is so expensive that NASA isn't capable of doing anything else.. then it is a zero-sum game.
> The reality is also that we don't learn much science with practical benefits for the hundreds of millions to billions of dollars we spend on these probes.
It's unfair to compare one probe against sending a human. The moon landing cost $150 billion. Is a human more valuable than 100 or 500 of these probes?
- crdoconnor 12y ago>only if we pretend there's infinite money available. If we cut out bank bailouts (wasted money) and 95% of the defence/wars budget (wasted money) we could increase the NASA budget probably at least 100x. The money's there, it's just being squandered.
- SilasX 12y agoAnd if those savings were spent on probes instead of human space travel, the scientific output would still be 100x as much per dollar invested. Having extra resources doesn't eliminate opportunity costs. Edit: found an xkcd for it: http://xkcd.com/871/ http://xkcd.com/871/