Justify it

[Kertech]

When you are asked by someone (or just rambling on about something...) how do you justify space programs, is it the doomseer, is it science, is it exploration or is it the cool rockets etc... got asked the other day why we fund space research when people are starving on earth!

[WinkAllKerb'']

the sun will explode, iss is like noah ark as metaphor, there tons of stuff to solve until it happen (dna + no gravity, orbit transfer and energy cost, ecosystem long period of time backcrossing inter beings, etc.), religions are book or like old sort of school equivalence before the internet and satelites ages, just concept not more, just something that was important and helped and not helped at some point in history, my own religion and school is i attempt to take all existing one and mix them keeping only what they all share.

i totally don't care if that religion is followed by 12 people in the amazonian forest, or if it's jesus or allah or anubis or quezatcoal ...

n dimmensionnal correlation approach

i can eventually call time god if that please some to use a word i can call it dog as well, it's nothing but a concept and a part of earth history to me and no disrespect.

But i m not dogme "and the feel of power" friendly - asimoov"

You & Vince & You - cc licence share alike

Edited April 22, 2016 by WinkAllKerb''

[hms_warrior]

Because, even if we don't go to space, people will still starve.

To think that the money "saved" by canceling space exploration is invested into feeding people is very illusionary.

In the meantime the few % of the Global Production invested into spaceflight gives us tonns of new technology.

 

Or, on a more personal aproach: "Oh is that a iphone you have there? that's 500$, you could buy food for several dotzend children in africa whit that! why do you have a iPhone?"

Edited April 22, 2016 by hms_warrior

[Spaceception]

The MRI, Firefighter breathing apparatus, The potential to preserve priceless art, A possible end to water shortages, and Hydraulic rescue cutters, among many more things, space exploration is one of the most important things humanity has ever done, not only has it given us so many new technologies that makes life on Earth easier, but it has helped us to find our place in the universe.

[p1t1o]

I don't really think the "Because the Earth won't last forever, humanity must escape its clutches to survive." explanation holds much water - its not like the sun is going to explode in the next 50 years. Humanity must eventually leave the solar system if it is to continue to be successful, but we have literally billions of years to do that.

We might wreck our own planet far quicker of course, and we are rapidly reproducing beyond the planets current capacity to support us, but colonising other planets won't solve that problem either, unless you can think of an easy way to move a billion people at a time, and the colossal infrastructure that they would need to survive of course.

 

I think the easiest and simplest justification is: the same reason Columbus sailed over the horizon.

Once space travel gets an order of magnitude safer and space tourism really takes off, and of course as new technologies and techniques make things easier, the money thing will be a much less significant hurdle anyway, so I don't think the question is going to be around for much longer.

[Gojira1000]

You have to keep it simple for bean counters:

"Because any program that advances consumer and industrial engineering and technologies generates more money and benefits than you put into it, in the long run."

The end.

Don't bother explaining how it's also the most noble possible use of cash.

Edited April 22, 2016 by Gojira1000

[WinkAllKerb'']

18 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

I don't really think the "Because the Earth won't last forever, humanity must escape its clutches to survive."

it's a matter of lifespan approach related to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe, ego & ego sum, and gardening

you can be a gardener for all life form, or you can disapear (notice that i consider computer, rock as lifeforms as well, anithing with moving atoms is a lifefrom to me)

Edited April 22, 2016 by WinkAllKerb''

[tater]

1 hour ago, Kertech said:

When you are asked by someone (or just rambling on about something...) how do you justify space programs, is it the doomseer, is it science, is it exploration or is it the cool rockets etc... got asked the other day why we fund space research when people are starving on earth!

You can't solve everyone's problems. You spend money on what you want to spend money on, and anyone with a different set of priorities is welcome to spend their own money on whatever they like.

[WinkAllKerb'']

money is about redistribution and reinvest for everithing,  not dumb childish teenager accumulation

- accumulating female and spreading spermatozoid (male version)
- shining eyes and die a'monde and offer and demand, testicule capitalism , stuck in loop until men'oh'pause (female version)

the circle (ovum world first at genocid pick one, because well must do it no choices) and the line (world first at spreading whatever everywhere without discontinuities, because well the same ...)

now if you ask what happen when a socio model reach it's own limit, well that's simple it end - Cesar, Cleopatre and consor-

Edited April 22, 2016 by WinkAllKerb''

[Tex_NL]

Anybody that has the audacity to ask you "why we fund space research when people are starving on earth?" Should first answer a similar question first: Why waste even more money on senseless wars over petty fairy tails like religion when people are starving on earth?

[WinkAllKerb'']

and on a more optimistic funny non sense note:

that's why i like Levi's Strauss, it's a good photograph that picked a lot of Andrew Gene's picture in africa between 1829 and 1902 ... : ) i do recommand you ll get the luck to see thoose pictures from him once in your life ; )

Edited April 22, 2016 by WinkAllKerb''

[adsii1970]

These types of questions can really identify the philosophies of individuals, but I must first state that not all wars are fought over religion. Religion is simply the low-hanging fruit everyone wants to banter around. With that said, there are many reasons people are starving on earth and the biggest one is not global climate change but the action of governments. During the Cold War, the United Nations reported that nearly 1/2 of all food aid being sent to Africa was being redirected to certain nations by the nations it was intended to help feed - the reason was to use the foodstuffs to pay for more weapons. Nigeria, the People's Democratic Republic of the Congo, etc. Unfortunately there is money, power, and prestige in war - and let us not forget glory.

Then there are those of the other side of the coin - the explorers. We are driven to find out, to discover, to explore the unknown, to understand. While there is some glory attached to it, for the most part, it is to fulfill our own sense of wanting to understand the greater and larger picture. What else is out there? Is human life possible there? What can we discover that will benefit humankind on the macro level?

Why explore space and spend the resources to fund it while there are starving people on Earth? Because no matter how many people we are able to feed by scrapping just one launch, there will always be more to feed. No matter how many nations try to fight hunger and poverty, the results are always the same - the element that wants to use such relief efforts and create a way to where someone else's indented donations get used to increase their own personal standing.

I honestly believe space exploration will benefit more than those who are driven to explore and discover.

[p1t1o]

10 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

Because no matter how many people we are able to feed by scrapping just one launch, there will always be more to feed.

I really agree with most of what you, and others, are saying - I am pro-space (mostly, with some caveats, but thats another story).

But the sentiment above cannot hold. You cannot think that helping one person is pointless because you can't help everyone.

Right now, here in the UK, the government is in trouble for this exact reasoning, to do with refugees from the middle-east. We can't help them all so why should we help even a single child? Come on.

 

That fact is ALOT of people could be helped with the money from a single mission.

The counterpoint is that there is an even GREATER amount wasted on other things for no benefit whatsoever (whereas at least that single mission, whilst perhaps not bringing many benefits that would be obvious to a layperson, would certainly be worth a lot).

Edited April 22, 2016 by p1t1o

[peadar1987]

https://xkcd.com/1232/

 

But yeah, also, there are far bigger sinks for money, with far fewer benefits. 

[WinkAllKerb'']

i , personnaly, don't see any sort of challenge in the exchange market mechanics...

each time i played a massive one line multiplayer games (using only fictive currency inside the game), i took the whole control of a large part of the market totally wiping (at first) people in place before i started a caracter, and then re-allowing them to get feed selling some stuff too (notice that most of my own profit were reinvested for others with various items gift and time spent managing large group activities)

why i don't play exchange market in real life:

simple, real currencies attract all feces lovers flies all around, if i found the animal being usefull in the natural ecosystem, when it come to reproduce the same comportemental behaviour as a human(?), sorry but i laugh a litl'

Edited April 22, 2016 by WinkAllKerb''

[adsii1970]

5 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

I really agree with most of what you, and others, are saying - I am pro-space (mostly, with some caveats, but thats another story).

But the sentiment above cannot hold. You cannot think that helping one person is pointless because you can't help everyone.

Right now, here in the UK, the government is in trouble for this exact reasoning, to do with refugees from the middle-east. We can't help them all so why should we help even a single child? Come on.

That fact is ALOT of people could be helped with the money from a single mission.

The counterpoint is that there is an even GREATER amount wasted on other things for no benefit whatsoever (whereas at least that single mission, whilst perhaps not bringing many benefits that would be obvious to a layperson, would certainly be worth a lot).

I did not say it was pointless to help one person because we could not help everyone. What I simply said is there is no point in helping people when it is their national government that is in the way. For example, the people of North Korea are starving. Should the U.S. or U.K. send foodstuffs to that nation when we know that the government will use such donations to purchase weapons and military gear?

Although unfortunate, the refugee situation in Western Europe and North America is one of our own doing. Have you seen any Middle Eastern nation stepping up to the plate? Where is Saudi Arabia - a nation that has a lot of petro-wealth that could easily afford a few hundred thousand refugees? What about Iran, a nation that has funded terrorism for nearly a generation - they have more than enough resources to help with the refugee crisis yet nothing is done with the exception of sending in more weapons to various factions. There is virtually no decent amount of participation in the refugee crisis from nations within the Middle East  - and as someone that studies foreign policy for a living, it is time the western world begins to ask the most obvious question: why?

Any government that is just and honorable has an obligation to it own citizenry first - for Great Britain, how many British citizens could benefit from the amount of money being spent on refugees? What about what is going on in some places in Europe with the Middle Eastern refugees demanding more money, Christian and Jew free zones, etc? What about France? What about the United States? There is an expression that goes "charity begins at home" so any nation did give up the space program in favor of humanitarian efforts, that money should be spent on its own people FIRST before its national wealth is sent outside its borders.

[WinkAllKerb'']

born here not there

here ; where ?

there ; where ?

do you play lotery ... such wow much fun ... *grumpf*

[tater]

People can help themselves, and in fact, that's the only long-term solution to whatever their problems are. Enabling their continued failure (as people, cultures, nations, whatever) is worse than pointless. I'd personally rather spend money on space exploration than most "helping people" nonsense.

[p1t1o]

There are some things, that spacey and rocketey people say, that make me understand why non-spacey-rocketey people get all worked up...

I don't support the non-spacey-rocketey's views on space and rocketry, but I can understand sometimes, their reactions. (no pun intended)

I think that the spacey-rocketey group needs a few more diplomats in its ranks...

Edited April 22, 2016 by p1t1o

[KSK]

Caution - sweeping generalisations ahead.

Because people starving on Earth has less to do with agriculture than it does economics. Half the people on Earth are starving, the other half are worried about obesity and diabetes. I think something's wrong with that picture somewhere.

I can't link to it from work but go ahead and do a search for Debtris. Watch the video.

We spend ludicrous amounts of money on some equally ludicrous things, including finding ever more expensive and unnecessary (from many different angles) ways of killing each other and fixing the global economy from a meltdown caused by the greedy, short-sighted, 'this time our infinite money making scheme really will work - honest' point-one-percenters. In that context we shouldn't even have to justify space flight. Enough people think it's cool and exciting, so lets just get on with it.

Sadly that argument doesn't seem to wash.

[tater]

All modern famines (last 100 years or more) are 100% political. People are starving because of their own choice of government. 

 

[p1t1o]

1 minute ago, tater said:

All modern famines (last 100 years or more) are 100% political. People are starving because of their own choice of government. 

Right. There aren't any governments that are in power against the wishes of its people...

And all large groups of people are capable of making coherent, rational decisions...

And I suppose if your government harmed you, you'd have them out of there in a jiffy?

 

Not doing space exploration any favours.

[tater]

12 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Right. There aren't any governments that are in power against the wishes of its people...

All government functions with the implicit consent of the governed. That's an observation, not a theory. Revolutions have happened, and will happen to demonstrate that this is true.

Quote

And all large groups of people are capable of making coherent, rational decisions...

I'm not terribly concerned about the affairs of large groups of irrational people.

Quote

And I suppose if your government harmed you, you'd have them out of there in a jiffy?

My ancestors did, so I would like to think I would do likewise.

Quote

 

Not doing space exploration any favours.

The favor I do to space exploration is paying taxes in the country that does the vast majority of space exploration. What people are doing in places where they can't even make technology from 100 years ago themselves... has no bearing on space exploration, anyway.

Edited April 22, 2016 by tater

[PB666]

1 hour ago, Kertech said:

When you are asked by someone (or just rambling on about something...) how do you justify space programs, is it the doomseer, is it science, is it exploration or is it the cool rockets etc... got asked the other day why we fund space research when people are starving on earth!

It works like this.

You have a government that taxes based on marginal income, that is income above a certain line. Almost all of the people who are well above the marginal income are college educated and are engaged in some type of professional or higher end business activity.

So basically it works like this, the government feeds money into a space program. Then the question we ask is where that money goes. For most of the space program the materials and the labor are local to that country, particularly if you are the US. Hydrogen is made from methane, which comes local, kerosene is distilled from oil or from natural oils. Oxygen is made locally, the bauxite for the metal is regional. The people crafting the parts are local. Unlike most things, like building a car, the multiplyer effect is high. But the people who work for the space companies and their contractors are almost all super-marginal incomes, which means they pay money into the economy at a higher rate, and the business that develope around NASA and places the like almost all support higher wager earners that have super-marginal incomes. So the government gets alot of the money back in revenue. So much of the cost can be justified from the government income point of view. (I will get to the starving in a bit don't worry)

In addition to this, and even more importantly the space industry warrants education and training in high technology and engineering. When those people retire from that industry and go into the private sector they carry ideas and creativity with them that spawns whole new non-space industries. In addition the space industry warranted compacting and lightening of many technologies, and as part of this trend it has ultimately lowered the cost and increased the performance of many technology. Not just the space industry, the entire defense industry. The government realized during WWII that correct targeting of trajectories and ballistics required faster electronics, but because of the finite limit of light, only smaller things could go faster. So as a consequence the government was providing an additional impetus to make things go faster, and in particularly faster than our political competitors in the East bloc. So now we have a whole very productive sector of our economy based entirely on post WWII technologies.

The problem with our welfare system of the 70s is that it gave people money for having kids and doing effectively nothing, both leaders that increased funding pointed out the future failure, giving impoverished people food is not the answer (or simply a short term fix). You want to give them jobs, and those jobs should push their kids to get training. As a matter of fact we have more than enough food in the US to feed ourselves and alot of the world, we waste food on feeding cows and eating the rather unhealthy products. We have more than enough capacity to feed, what we need more of is the capacity to employ, not just employed but to create industry expanding and job-creating jobs.

This is were gov't funded Science and Space science comes in. We attract the people who want to work into industries that are an education in-and-of-themselves, but require some training. This demand for labor drives people from the non-elite economic sectors into the trade-schools, appreticeships, 2-year colleges, engineering, physics, computer science, biology, and Ph.Ds in programs that are socially productive. This then spurs.

You talk about miracle drugs like biologics, all these things you see advertised on T.V. and you think wow this just appeared. Nope, it didn't some of these biologics are now almost 30 years old, and we (that means I) were personally making similar things and the leaders 20 years prior to that, and so that our search for these miracle drugs in their current form began 50 years (not some rewriting of the form but in their current basic form a monoclonal antibody). Industry can do the same thing, but they are not quite as quick, infact alot of the miracle drugs, the prototypes specificities were created in university and paid for by the government, often for doing something other than killing cancer or fighting autoimmune disease. The only thing industry does is take a mouse antibody and humanize it, mass produce it and charge people 30,000$ per dose. Government research is finding new ways to diversify the reagent (so that it is non-proprietary, and new ways of making the reagent much more cheaply).

So you then argue that space has no immediate benefit, well it does, we have satellite commmunication, weather satellites (save millions of lives along the coasts), information satellites, going to have broadband arrays soon. Satellites stabilize the world by monitoring weapons programs (we haven't had a WWII like conflict in 70 years). But even if we ignore all of these things, you get an amazing benefit of new technologies and new observations over much longer periods of time. Space science right now is telling us exactly how fast the ice sheets are melting, how much ground water we are losing, were future crops are likely to fail, where deforestation has it greatest impacts. Space science tells us for instance exactly were around New Orleans that sea level rise and subsidence are most rapidly eroding defensive water works, can help to plan remedial measures. I know a guy right here in Houston that used satellites to determine how to best manage spoil banks (dredge from ship canals) so that they are a benifit to the enviroment, building estuaries from shrimp and fish, sea grasses, lowering sediment transfers, etc. Space will be offering people globally with limited access to the internet the ability to connect to the internet and learn even when the corruption of local governments interfere with education.

I can give you an example, the Texas Medical Center is the largest medical center in the world and is a huge boom for Houston, it would certainly be here without government funding, but it would be nowhere near as big, the gov't dime attracts the kind of thinkers that collaborate with the medical scientist. The fact that Rice university is right across the street and has facilities in the med center, and the fact you these swirl of ideas. Clinicians that treat exotic diseases don't often have the facilities to analyze the data they collect, but government and interested industries provide resources for detailed analysis that allow treatments to be made more effectively.

What about our neighbors, the attraction of NASA and TMC also attract laborers from other countries that come here to do jobs americans just don't want to do in the hot sweltering enviroment, These are not third world jobs, people can earn 10$/hour or more and work 60 hour weeks. These jobs result in remittances back to Mexico, Guatamala, Honduras, Salvador even places as far south as Brasil and Chile and boost those economies. They work in industries that build homes for people who work in the industries, they work in restaurants.

The answer is that the closer you are to government underwritten technology industries the more likely you are to have a better paying job with better benefits and that effect can transfer from local economies into the regional or continental economy.

One asks the basic question why is the US economy doing so well compared to the rest of the world after the economic meltdown of 2008. Since my reply might be considered political, go see what the world bank and the UN has to say about what the US did right and what other economies did wrong. Somewhere buried in their the US gov't spent money on energy technologies and infrastructure - and gee golly some of it was horrifically wasted - by for some odd reason we have better employment and faster growing economy. Now also take a look at the amount of money the US spends on NASA versus GDP and the amount the EU spends and Russia spends. 'Nough said. One of the benefits was not rocket science - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes#Second_World_War if you get no other benefit, during a time of recession you get a benifit out of technology industry investment (particularly research side since it does not compete with the private sector). On top of that benefit you benefit colleges and university with the demand for students who go into industries if they can get student loans in support of their education. Then on top of that you get the productivity gains when the economy improves.    

When you toss your pennies at NASA, NASA tosses those pennies back at your kids, your friends, your neighbors on the other side of the border. So now we have SpaceX in Boca Chica, and we have all those jobs in Brownsville that will follow, and the folks who build those homes commuting from Mexico, and the associated economic traffic that feeds commercial industry. How is SpaceX doing without government contracts? Think about something else, when those tech positions fill up and overemployment is a problem, we generate visas extensions so that people from outside the US can work here longer, learn more, take more expertise back to their home countries. Tech industry in the US is at saturated employment, alot of people in the US who work in those industries come from places like China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Philipines, Mexico, Brasil most of them are on Visas and will someday return.

And I have my own pitch, deep space science (telescopy, and deep field resolution) will be the big payback in 50 years, planetary resolution will be the big payback in 1000 years or more. In my opinion there is no amount of money that is too great to spend on space science, provided that broader science is properly funded (Its not). The telescopy offers potentially great rewards, but it also can potentially avert great risk (like asteroids, unstable stellar neighbors). These space science programs are expensive, but they can guide us whether physics is going the right or wrong direction. We have to look at the risk versus reward of these programs. I would have no problem what so ever with NASA returning to 1970$/GDP spending levels. Right now there is a push to discover how the Cannae drive works, and I can tell you that in its present form its likely a trivial technology, but it does not have to stay in its present form. 50 years from no you could have communication and information satellites 10,000s whizzing around at decay altitudes that are keeping orbits 1 meter apart from each other, and you would never have to worry about being out of a network again. Satellites that do not wear out, and cannae drivin bots that replace their solar panels every 50 years. Cannae can evolve and potentially create more efficient motors, generators, etc, not perpetual motion machines, but basically frictionless machines that do not waste, coupling that with better superconductors you could have generators in cars that perfectly capture breaking energy and give it back on acceleration. You could potentially create friction less motion of wind over cars.

Who is funding Cannaes research?

Then of course there is past research into Quantum mechanics, the connotations of which for engineering are still in its infancy.

Justified, heck yes, we need more of it, don't let the price tags fool you, its a big payback for societies willing to pick up the tab. The country that has a strong Space program is a country that has a strong future.

 

 

 

 

[Frybert]

This forum is not the place to be discussing politics, ideology or religion. This thread has all three of them going on. Locked.