Fun fact: Michael Franti and Virgin Galactic pilot Peter Siebold went to the same high school.
Thanks for that, AnthonyC. It seems like most of the defenses here have been arguing about space exploration simply as a practical tool. That itās a way of investing in practical technology, or is about to allow rewarding access to resources, or provide wonderful news homes, or that the speed-of-light limit is something we can reasonably expect to break.
But the first of these is debatable since there are more direct ways to get technology, and I have to agree with Glitch, the others are not plausible for more than just the immediate future. Especially the last; really, betting against a law of physics is a bad choice. And it would be nice to have colonies in case something happened to the Earth, but I imagine if we started a hundred years from now weād only make up the difference that much faster.
I still support some space exploration, though, as part of pure research. It seems to me everything has been so financialized that nobody even wants to consider doing anything without a concrete ROI. But as problems only get worked on when someone can invent a direct benefit, the progress of science on the whole is slowly getting hamstrung.
Exploration without expected benefit is where all unexpected progress comes from. You can suppose that in our quest for positioning systems weād have ended up with satellites anyway; itās harder to say that weād guess investigating coherent photon bundles might someday be useful for treating cancer. But in any case, with or without this progress, pure research is also where all our understanding of the universe comes from.
It inspires, and that might sound trivial, but I canāt set it aside because it doesnāt just inspire contemporaries; itās what inspires people for all time. Itās easy to say we should just concentrate on ending war and poverty and the like; but without any dedication to understanding the world around us, Iām not sure weād have ever reached the point where we thought we could. Iām not convinced at all weāve got all we will need now.
The only question in my mind, then, is how we should best be balancing the two. And here is where Anthonyās point comes in: pure research, even expensive stuff like space, is not at all keeping us from making progress on these other things. Social parasites redirecting all our time and resources for their own greed and wrath are what do that; taking some of that way for exploration does not stop us from fighting them.
Ok, ok, this is probably arguing against a caricature of what Glitch is saying. For all he points out space has no benefits, he still mentions the best form of research, which are probes. Possibly both of us would be happy with a very similar type of program simply dedicated to investigating other planets and stars, without the pretense of doing more than learning about the amazing diversity of inanimate objects out there.
Even so, I think itās a mistake to present exploration as in real opposition to fixing problems here, just as it is to pretend one is the best path to the other. Theyāre orthogonal endeavors.
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It had an impact, but it really was only a goal because landing on the moon really drove home the accuracy and range of our German missiles.
Forget feeding the hungry, Iād be happy enought to avoid a runaway greenhouse effect. Dying to hear Virgin Galacticās plan for that stunt
We can accept mortality and explore at the same time.
Exploring the ways of avoiding mortality is also fun.
Right up until you blow yourself up, anyways.
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