Is Space flight worth it?

[Eagle]

I've never met one, beside in the internet only. "Oh, you're intersted in space flight, so you're a big Star Treck fan?". That's what you mostly get...

And you're not a fan?

I'll admit true love is spaceflight is rare but I would say its far from rare. Maybe only 5% or 1% of people I've met (for many it was a hidden love). If only .1% of people love spaceflight that's 67 million. A small country.

Now a spaceflight enthusiast who heard of Orbiter is extremely rare. I've met one so far, and created about 3.

Edit:Statistics Disclosure-There are at least 500 (non internet) people I feel I know well enough I can think of about 30 that are at least pro spaceflight. That's 6% and I add pessimism to avoid overestimation based upon my selection bias (I know 25 pilots, but only 4 of them I know would love to be an astronaut, weird huh?).

 

[Ark]

That "its up to smart people" stuff stinks of power grabbing. This is the USA. If your country does something differently have at it but here you don't just ignore the population.

And right now the population wants healthcare and education.

Can we not do both? We've spent a hundred years of NASA's budget just fighting these stupid wars in the Middle East, why should NASA be in the crosshairs when we're wasting exponentially greater money on other things?

 

[T.Neo]

why should NASA be in the crosshairs when we're wasting exponentially greater money on other things?

Because unfortunately the US has put itself in a situation in the middle east that isn't very easy to get out of.

 

[Ghostrider]

Because unfortunately the US has put itself in a situation in the middle east that isn't very easy to get out of.

That ain't no excuse. If there were no "situation" in the ME someone would bring up the old story about how the money spent on space exploration could be better employed to improve the living conditions of the middle-aged albino mountain hippo of High Valais.

 

[T.Neo]

That ain't no excuse.

I'm not the USA, I don't have to excuse anything....

 

[Ark]

Because unfortunately the US has put itself in a situation in the middle east that isn't very easy to get out of.

The wars are just one example, one could probably salvage multiple NASA budgets just by taking measures against Medicare waste, or eliminating no-bid government contracts.

 

[insanity]

I absolutely agree that this question needs to be brought to full debate. The implications of the decision need to be made clear.

On one hand there is the expansion of man throughout the solar system and perhaps beyond. We are limited by what what we may find and how we choose to use it.

On the other is to live only on Earth, expanding until its resources exhaust us, then stagnating until the end of the Earth.

One choice leads to life without a clear bound, the other leads to a certain death.

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Then again, we are not a hive; and certain individuals will make our brighter future certain.

Okay, one one hand we can spend billions of dollars trying to make this planet a better place or we could spend billion of dollars trying to do something that makes no sense.

Where could human beings go? There's a giant universe out there, but most of it we will probably not be able to reach. We can continue doing science in space (something I'm massively supportive of), but I just really don't buy the need for human presence in space.

 

[T.Neo]

Okay, one one hand we can spend billions of dollars trying to make this planet a better place or we could spend billion of dollars trying to do something that makes no sense.

It makes all sense. It means ensuring the survival of the human species.

And NASA already recieves very little money compared to other things...

 

[reject]

It makes all sense. It means ensuring the survival of the human species.

And NASA already recieves very little money compared to other things...

Well I think that's the point that is being made here. Notions of saving the species and colonizing the stars sound great but the science and technology to achieve it do not yet exist. So what is the better investment right *now* to make that happen? X billion bucks put into putting footprints on the moon or X billion put into education to teach the scientists and engineers of the future?

 

[Ghostrider]

X billion put into education to teach the scientists and engineers of the future?

And why should anyone want to be a scientist of engineer if there's no high-profile program out there? To be the smartest burger-flipper on the block?

 

[T.Neo]

Notions of saving the species and colonizing the stars sound great but the science and technology to achieve it do not yet exist.

...Yeah. Which is why we have to develop it.

X billion put into education to teach the scientists and engineers of the future?

As Ghostrider said, there really isn't any purpose of giving children that education if there isn't any meaningful program for them to work on.

 

[agentgonzo]

So what is the better investment right *now* to make that happen? X billion bucks put into putting footprints on the moon or X billion put into education to teach the scientists and engineers of the future?

So you don't think that the voyage into outerspace teaches us nothing and everything that we learn is done so in the classroom?

 

[T.Neo]

So you don't think that the voyage into outerspace teaches us nothing and everything that we learn is done so in the classroom?

Indeed. Most of life's real knowledge, is not learnt in a classroom.

 

[reject]

Okay, let me put it another way. Which is the easier sell:

1. We want your money to put dudes on the moon. Chances are you don't know them. Chances are even greater you won't be one of them. But you will feel good for a bit until the next economic results are published. It might inspire your kids to get involved but unfortunately the education system sucks so they will have a harder time to realize their dream. We might get new flavours of Tang as a fringe benefit.

2. We want your money to improve the education system so that your kids can build great things in the future.

If we had pots of money we could do both. But we don't. You have to prioritize one over the other. Which is why education is consistently above the space program in the grand scheme of things. This doesn't just apply to education which I am using as an example. It can apply to healthcare, national defence and so on. The general public have a real day-to-day stake in their kid's education, or their family's wellbeing or security etc. Only a small minority have a stake in human spaceflight. Justifying a big cash injection of public funds into it is not going to happen. Like most projects on this scale will be a commercial enterprise that can raise the necessary capital to realize it, and signs are that isn't going to be anytime soon. If you are expecting NASA to get enough money to make all this happen I'm afraid you are going to be waiting a long, long time.

Believe it or not I am not trying to beat on human spaceflight. But I am a realist. Yelling for more money isn't going to work. Somebody needs to figure out how to make a ton of cash out of it, start a company and then get people to invest in it. Once that happens you will see things take off (no pun intended).

 

[Ghostrider]

2. We want your money to improve the education system so that your kids can build great things in the future.

Again... What "great things" will they build if nobody funds them? Each and every great scientific/engineering project needs TONS of money and some farfetched idea to be meaningful, otherwise you'll end up with exactly what the private sector wants: the next iThing, only flashier and more expensive. Essentially a rehash of what's been already done.

Now what happens if you "improve" the education system? What do you mean by "improving" the education system? Pay teachers more? Hire new teachers? One laptop per kid? How comes the scientists and engineers that gave us radar, computers, jet engines and spaceships managed to do without them? Throwing money at a problem doesn't solve it.

And again, without some big project forget young people going into science: that will only make them the highest-qualifieds waiters ever. Chances are that your improved education systems will churn out a new generation of lawyers and managers - the careers guaranteed to make you a fast buck which, let's face it, it's why one gets into higher education in the first place - which will go on into messing up the world more than it is already.

 

[agentgonzo]

...

Spot on. I salute you.

 

[reject]

Again... What "great things" will they build if nobody funds them? Each and every great scientific/engineering project needs TONS of money and some farfetched idea to be meaningful, otherwise you'll end up with exactly what the private sector wants: the next iThing, only flashier and more expensive. Essentially a rehash of what's been already done.

Yes, and generally that ton of money is coming from the commercial sector, not the government one. And believe it or not people are able to get inspired to create things without being on some government gravy train.

Now what happens if you "improve" the education system? What do you mean by "improving" the education system? Pay teachers more? Hire new teachers? One laptop per kid? How comes the scientists and engineers that gave us radar, computers, jet engines and spaceships managed to do without them? Throwing money at a problem doesn't solve it.

Incidentally, throwing money at NASA doesn't solve the problem either. It hasn't for a number of decades at least. The majority of taxpayer money is wasted in all sorts of ways. The difference is that wasting it on something that benefits a select few rather than something that benefits all is liable to lose your seat in Congress. It's called the Real World. Sorry.

And again, without some big project forget young people going into science: that will only make them the highest-qualifieds waiters ever. Chances are that your improved education systems will churn out a new generation of lawyers and managers - the careers guaranteed to make you a fast buck which, let's face it, it's why one gets into higher education in the first place - which will go on into messing up the world more than it is already.

Again, I don't understand where you are coming from about only government funded projects can inspire young people going into science and getting "meaningful" employment (I won't even go into your denigration of lawyers and management ... there are plenty of useless scientists and engineers messing the world up too). Who do you suppose is going to give them a job when they graduate? A large workforce of government employees isn't very sustainable as far as I know.

 

[insanity]

And again, without some big project forget young people going into science: that will only make them the highest-qualifieds waiters ever. Chances are that your improved education systems will churn out a new generation of lawyers and managers - the careers guaranteed to make you a fast buck which, let's face it, it's why one gets into higher education in the first place - which will go on into messing up the world more than it is already.

My point is simply that we can't go anywhere meaningful for our species. If we need to leave Earth, then where do we go and how do we get there alive? I could see the use in minning minerals from other planets in the solar system- but we can build the technology to make them, put them there, and get resources back. It is far safer and economical then sending people who have to deal with the nagging concerns of life (being strong enough to eat, sleep, and reproduce viable offspring before they die).

There are lots of projects and problems for young scientists to tackle- I research cooperative politics (mostly European) to try and find pragmatic solutions to conflict. I have friends who do research on understanding and improving water quality. There is climate change, food distribution, social problems, and a host of other big problems on Earth that are going to require some major paradigm shifts- stuff that is not simply reinventing the iPhone and will lead us to having improved qualities of life.

There is also healthcare and education, systems that my country needs to invest in if we want to have a strong and viable future. Not simply throwing money at, but putting money into making changes that will actually yield quantifiable results (for instance, in education we could measure improvements in math and science, literacy and articulation, and ability to speak multiple languages).

 

[Ghostrider]

There is also healthcare and education, systems that my country needs to invest in if we want to have a strong and viable future. Not simply throwing money at, but putting money into making changes that will actually yield quantifiable results (for instance, in education we could measure improvements in math and science, literacy and articulation, and ability to speak multiple languages).

My country has great healthcare, great education, we all speak multiple languages. What are we known for, worldwide? Banks and chocolate. The only Swiss astronaut so far had practically to get into NASA on his own. Try pitching any advanced tech project here that isn't pharma-related and you'll get rebuffed with a polite chuckle.

If that's the wonderful future you long for, you can have it.

And again - NOBODY gets into science without the perspective of gain unless he's a saint or a visionary. Science takes a lot of time and effort to learn, and you cannot easily retrain a physicist into something else. You will end up spending money to train scientists who will then emigrate somewhere else, or adapt to menial jobs to survive (because they'll be "overqualified" for anything in between).

 

[insanity]

My country has great healthcare, great education, we all speak multiple languages. What are we known for, worldwide? Banks and chocolate. The only Swiss astronaut so far had practically to get into NASA on his own. Try pitching any advanced tech project here that isn't pharma-related and you'll get rebuffed with a polite chuckle. If that's the wonderful future you long for, you can have it.

And my country put a man on the moon and won two world wars (even dropped an a-bomb for the first time in the history of warfare), but we are largely known as ignorant and obese. Personally, I'd rather have people know me for banks and sweets, then for being dumb and fat (oddly enough, these two traits are quite similar anymore).

And again - NOBODY gets into science without the perspective of gain unless he's a saint or a visionary. Science takes a lot of time and effort to learn, and you cannot easily retrain a physicist into something else. You will end up spending money to train scientists who will then emigrate somewhere else, or adapt to menial jobs to survive (because they'll be "overqualified" for anything in between).

Nowhere did I say the scientists cannot be rewarded by the fruits of their research, nor did I say that I want to train everyone to become a scientist. I want to incentive science and research, and am okay with making it a hard community to enter because it eventually weeds out many of the people who are not capable of doing good science. I know that when I finally get my PhD, I hope to feel like my investment in my education was worth something tangible.

Because a lot of this countries scientific community are public-institution academics (or private-institution academics who receive public grants) we are protected against limited scope research. If I go tomorrow and talk with a P/I, we could draw up a study, and if we've designed a good or intriguing research question we can get funds to go and do the study while taking all of the credit (which in academia means money) that the study yielded (eventually delivering the result of the research in to the public domain).

I honestly don't see a shortage of research questions or good scientists unable to find prestigious enough work to create wealth. I do see a shortage of billions of dollars to go do that work that we spend on trying to do something that IMO makes no logical sense. The two questions that need to be answered are where would we go/how do we get there and then what would we do when we got there. We can still develop technology to put machines in space- technology that could lead us to answer both of those questions, but currently I'm not convinced of the benefits of people in space.