Is the invention of rockets a good thing?

[Slam_Jones]

Okay thank you for proving me wrong because I was pretty share I was wrong

please excuse while I go make a fareagate cage

Nothing wrong with being wrong! That's how we learn

The problem comes when folks refuse to listen to the other side.

Glad to see you're at least reasonable enough to listen

[adsii1970]

Call me crazy but is the invention of space flight a good thing. I know that we have gotten excellent technology out of it like cellphones and such but the main reason for rockets was in ww2 to bomb places without planes saving your country lives while costing the foes thousands and we as a world perfected it now with icbm missiles we can basically end the world with a touch of a button. So wouldn't it have been better is rockets were never invented costing is most of today's tech but saving the world from something straight out of fallout?

In all reality, most of mankind's inventions have happened as the result of violence/war. From the crafting of the first flint arrowheads, flint knives, to rockets, technology always increases exponentially as a result of war/violence.

The "peaceful" and useful microwave oven was a product of World War II - the Americans discovered by accident that high concentrated radio waves at the narrow spectrum - "microwaves" actually causes particles to move rapidly within solids and liquids; this generates a significant quantity of heat. German scientists discovered this too and was trying to harness the power of the microwave for use against Allied aircraft and armor. The Japanese had discovered microwaves nearly the same time and were developing its use as a military weapon to repel an American invasion (think of using a highly concentrated burst of microwaves against soldiers on the battlefield...)

Most all of our life-saving medical advances - antibiotics, anesthesia, blood transfusions, arterial grafting, and even life-flights (helicopters being used to evacuate extreme medical cases to regional trauma centers) all come as the results of war. (We gained a vast about of understanding of human anatomy from Herophilus and Erasistratus who conducted vivisections on people to understand how the circulatory and respiratory system worked; both German and Japanese scientists did extremely inhumane experiments that became the basis for the science behind organ transplants and blood transfusions). Should we not use any of these practices simply because of where the concepts originated?

What I am saying is simply this - do not throw out the results of the research simply because of where their concepts originate...

Edited April 15, 2015 by adsii1970

[Nuke]

i kind of think the cold war was a neccisary lesson in national discipline. to have nukes and then prove yourself to have the restraint to not use them. i see it as a neccisary step in the maturation of the species. because i have a feeling that in the distant future our lives may come to depend on the wise use of such high energy devices.

space travel is also a very useful spin off of that experience.

Edited April 15, 2015 by Nuke

[Greenfire32]

the main reason for rockets was in ww2 to bomb places without planes saving your country lives while costing the foes thousands and we as a world perfected it now with icbm missiles we can basically end the world with a touch of a button.

The silver lining here is that most people generally don't want to die. If you have the power to end everyone else at once, and everyone else has the power to end you all at once, then the likelihood of actual nuclear war that ends everybody everywhere start to fall.

It's really only when a few possess the power that said power gets abused.

/opinionz

[Fel]

The "worst case scenario" should NEVER prevent scientific advance.

Technology is, at it's core, neither good nor evil. It's all about how it's used...

Breaking news! I discovered a way to save anyone's life you want... of course it can also take anyone's life you want; and it can do so without contact from any point in the globe. Setting up the system is fairly cheap, and even a third world country with no access to modern technology could do it. I am hereby releasing documentation on how to do this, in hopes that it helps save people's lives. Clicky

Arguments like this tend to be more libertarian under the surface than an actual plea about technology not being good or evil. Consider, if science was advanced "in secret" and the law prevented individuals from "advancing science" without close supervision; we could very well still get to the same level we are now... but I can feel the bile rising about "effectiveness of advancing science" or other retorts that mask the true argument.

This touches on the notions that if we had the ability to kill Hitler, it would set us several hundred years back. The atomic bomb fueled the cold war and our silly space-race... which then gave us GPS, cellphones, global internet... and not even talking about how much technological and bio-medical development occurred during the war. People are very quick to say "we don't need those things" kill him, but often mention "but we have the technology now, so who cares how we got it"

[Lukaszenko]

Call me crazy but is the invention of space flight a good thing.

Since "space flight" was a spinoff of military technology, it IS a good thing. Without space flight we would still have military rockets and atomic bombs...but without the civil stuff.

Even if it was the other way around where space flight led to military applications, it's still a technology and, as others have said, a double edged sword. You can use it nicely or not. That said, why did you get stuck on space flight? Why not question pretty much every other technology out there? If it's because space flight can deliver a weapon of mass destruction, why not question the technology of the actual weapon (nuclear power) instead of shooting the messenger (space flight)? If it's about the amount of damage that can be done, why not focus on chemical technology? or biological? Those can be arguably equally destructive.

[Norcalplanner]

Ethanadams, have you been to college? There's an awful lot of material out there in terms of philosophy classes, journal articles, and books which would help inform your opinions on the matter. Speaking for myself, one of my favorite courses in college was "The Philosophy of Human Conflict" which explored why we as a race keep fighting ourselves in an organized manner. Just war theory, gang warfare, and Mutual Assured Destruction were all discussed in detail.

Speaking more generally, anything created by man can be used for good or evil. Humanity is the wild card, not the technology.

[Xannari Ferrows]

There's a difference here... The invention of rockets is, quite literally, and astronomical invention. What we do with it does not make it good or bad. It is an amazing invention, and we need to use it right.

[Wesreidau]

Are people good things?

[razark]

Are people good things?

No.

Persons are, though.

[Robotengineer]

Are people good things?

We're just another technology...