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So the basic argument goes: "Doing space research/exploration will yield scientific and technological breakthroughs to help our problems here on Earth." Ok I b

So the basic argument goes: "Doing space research/exploration will yield scientific and technological breakthroughs to help our problems here on Earth." Ok I buy that. I agree we need to spend some % of our societal resources on basic research. The real question is - what is best bang for the buck when doing basic research? Opponents would argue that space research (specifically exploring other planets) is a very expensive way to do basic research. I'm all for exploring space because I think humanity needs to, but does the basic research argument really hold?

aggie 11y ago
You're leaving out part of his argument which justifies space exploration as inherently valuable beyond its technical and scientific contributions: a paradigm shift of the human condition, brought on by our increased awareness of our place in the universe. "Although our space program seems to lead us away from our Earth and out toward the moon, the sun, the planets, and the stars, I believe that none of these celestial objects will find as much attention and study by space scientists as our Earth. It will become a better Earth, not only because of all the new technological and scientific knowledge which we will apply to the betterment of life, but also because we are developing a far deeper appreciation of our Earth, of life, and of man." Imagine if we found evidence of past life on Mars or Europa. It would change our understanding of life on Earth. You can't make that discovery in a lab.
- Animats 11y ago
  "Imagine if we found evidence of past life on Mars or Europa." In the past, one could imagine. But there are Mars orbiters returning Google Earth quality images of the entire planet. Here's the Curiosity rover seen from Mars orbit.[1] If there was anything living on Mars as big as a patch of lichen, it would have been found by now. [1] http://mars.nasa.gov/mro/multimedia/images/?ImageID=7131 http://mars.nasa.gov/mro/multimedia/images/?ImageID=7131
  - exDM69 11y ago
    This statement is ridiculous. Evidence of life on Earth millions of years ago is buried deep in the Earth soil. Mars exploration has literally only scratched the surface of the planet, a few inches deep.
zaphoyd 11y ago
The author mentioned that performing basic research indirectly has benefits. People can be inspired and motivated by the idea of photographing Pluto or colonizing Mars and develop the incremental technologies needed to get there with a determination that they might not have if they had been hired to perform more mundane basic research.
HCIdivision17 11y ago
It's certainly enormously expensive. But... most things are. Waste is an extremely relative thing, even when it seems obvious. Basic research discovers things that normal iterative research never does. And space tech discovers things through scale, overcoming myopic outlooks in the way an Access database doesn't illuminate how distributed multi-region databases scale. For example, what do you do with all that captured coal dust and slag we get from power plants scrubbing their exhaust? We could throw it away, but it turns out there are industries that would love to pay to take that garbage away and use it as a filler their process. We could have stuck with the argument that scrubbing is too expensive to be worth the trouble, and that it would never be practical. Or we can just do the engineering and try it out, and maybe new markets open up. Or not; at least we got some cleaner air. There's a lot of risk, like any venture. Possibly garbage is just garbage. Possibly there's no reasonable return on investment. Possibly entire industrial supply chains shift to a new technology for the marginal improvement. Possibly a new process for extracting carbon nanotubes is discovered. Or we simply find a cool new color of black for our sports cars. Maybe the data collected from the moon tells us that it's really just some fairly boring rock not worth our time. Maybe we learn that crystals grown in space can have a perfect crystal structure useful in manufacturing stable q-bits. Maybe we find an asteroid made of platinum and all energy markets brace for a massive tech change, or parhaps it's made of iron and we move on. Or... not; at least we got some pictures for the philosophers and the next generation is inspired to try harder. The wins from basic research come from the unknown unknowns, and as such can be disruptive like an outside-context-problem [0]. Or are trivial duds; you can't tell at the start, but you can hope. Transistors and lasers are pretty useful! They alone are likely worth all the money we've ever thrown (or ever will) at basic research. Likewise satellites also changed the world, allowing us to do things that likely make all the money we spend on space easily worth it. <insert some comment about Y Combinator startups maybe becoming billion dollar enterprises... but many fail.> [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excession#Outside_Context_Problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excession#Outside_Context_Prob...
- alooPotato 11y ago
  I think I phrased my statement wrong. I totally understand the benefit of basic research. We should do more agreed. My question is, is space exploration the most cost effective form of basic research? We could be doing basic research in any number of areas. Is it just because space captures our imagination that we choose to spend $ there, or is there something fundamentally better about the basic research in space as opposed to, say, the bottom of the ocean.
unclebucknasty 11y ago
>Opponents would argue that space research (specifically exploring other planets) is a very expensive way to do basic research I'd agree with that. Generally, it would seem that the most efficient way to research something is to research it, not to pursue some other scientific endeavor and hope that it throws off some ancillary benefit. So, I actually think that argument for space exploration is sometimes a bit of a short-sighted ruse to sell space exploration. It should instead be sold on its merits and a broader vision.
rm445 11y ago
So you claim that a many-stranded argument can be reduced only to its "basic argument" and argue against that. The letter SPECIFICALLY states two cases that don't fall within your "basic argument", viz: - Technological breakthroughs that specifically pertain to space, i.e. survey satellites. - Breakthroughs in international co-operation driven by space travel bringing a scope to the world far beyond national boundaries.

aggie 11y ago

You're leaving out part of his argument which justifies space exploration as inherently valuable beyond its technical and scientific contributions: a paradigm shift of the human condition, brought on by our increased awareness of our place in the universe. "Although our space program seems to lead us away from our Earth and out toward the moon, the sun, the planets, and the stars, I believe that none of these celestial objects will find as much attention and study by space scientists as our Earth. It will become a better Earth, not only because of all the new technological and scientific knowledge which we will apply to the betterment of life, but also because we are developing a far deeper appreciation of our Earth, of life, and of man." Imagine if we found evidence of past life on Mars or Europa. It would change our understanding of life on Earth. You can't make that discovery in a lab.

Animats 11y ago
"Imagine if we found evidence of past life on Mars or Europa." In the past, one could imagine. But there are Mars orbiters returning Google Earth quality images of the entire planet. Here's the Curiosity rover seen from Mars orbit.[1] If there was anything living on Mars as big as a patch of lichen, it would have been found by now. [1] http://mars.nasa.gov/mro/multimedia/images/?ImageID=7131 http://mars.nasa.gov/mro/multimedia/images/?ImageID=7131
- exDM69 11y ago
  This statement is ridiculous. Evidence of life on Earth millions of years ago is buried deep in the Earth soil. Mars exploration has literally only scratched the surface of the planet, a few inches deep.

zaphoyd 11y ago

The author mentioned that performing basic research indirectly has benefits. People can be inspired and motivated by the idea of photographing Pluto or colonizing Mars and develop the incremental technologies needed to get there with a determination that they might not have if they had been hired to perform more mundane basic research.

HCIdivision17 11y ago

It's certainly enormously expensive. But... most things are. Waste is an extremely relative thing, even when it seems obvious. Basic research discovers things that normal iterative research never does. And space tech discovers things through scale, overcoming myopic outlooks in the way an Access database doesn't illuminate how distributed multi-region databases scale. For example, what do you do with all that captured coal dust and slag we get from power plants scrubbing their exhaust? We could throw it away, but it turns out there are industries that would love to pay to take that garbage away and use it as a filler their process. We could have stuck with the argument that scrubbing is too expensive to be worth the trouble, and that it would never be practical. Or we can just do the engineering and try it out, and maybe new markets open up. Or not; at least we got some cleaner air. There's a lot of risk, like any venture. Possibly garbage is just garbage. Possibly there's no reasonable return on investment. Possibly entire industrial supply chains shift to a new technology for the marginal improvement. Possibly a new process for extracting carbon nanotubes is discovered. Or we simply find a cool new color of black for our sports cars. Maybe the data collected from the moon tells us that it's really just some fairly boring rock not worth our time. Maybe we learn that crystals grown in space can have a perfect crystal structure useful in manufacturing stable q-bits. Maybe we find an asteroid made of platinum and all energy markets brace for a massive tech change, or parhaps it's made of iron and we move on. Or... not; at least we got some pictures for the philosophers and the next generation is inspired to try harder. The wins from basic research come from the unknown unknowns, and as such can be disruptive like an outside-context-problem [0]. Or are trivial duds; you can't tell at the start, but you can hope. Transistors and lasers are pretty useful! They alone are likely worth all the money we've ever thrown (or ever will) at basic research. Likewise satellites also changed the world, allowing us to do things that likely make all the money we spend on space easily worth it. <insert some comment about Y Combinator startups maybe becoming billion dollar enterprises... but many fail.> [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excession#Outside_Context_Problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excession#Outside_Context_Prob...

alooPotato 11y ago
I think I phrased my statement wrong. I totally understand the benefit of basic research. We should do more agreed. My question is, is space exploration the most cost effective form of basic research? We could be doing basic research in any number of areas. Is it just because space captures our imagination that we choose to spend $ there, or is there something fundamentally better about the basic research in space as opposed to, say, the bottom of the ocean.

unclebucknasty 11y ago

>Opponents would argue that space research (specifically exploring other planets) is a very expensive way to do basic research I'd agree with that. Generally, it would seem that the most efficient way to research something is to research it, not to pursue some other scientific endeavor and hope that it throws off some ancillary benefit. So, I actually think that argument for space exploration is sometimes a bit of a short-sighted ruse to sell space exploration. It should instead be sold on its merits and a broader vision.

rm445 11y ago

So you claim that a many-stranded argument can be reduced only to its "basic argument" and argue against that. The letter SPECIFICALLY states two cases that don't fall within your "basic argument", viz: - Technological breakthroughs that specifically pertain to space, i.e. survey satellites. - Breakthroughs in international co-operation driven by space travel bringing a scope to the world far beyond national boundaries.