Comment by 🚀 stack
Re: "speaking of space, we just had a launch"
Yeah. The first time it meant something. Fifty years later -- there had better be a good reason to blow a trillion.
Apr 04 · 5 weeks ago
7 Later Comments ↓
🌲 Half_Elf_Monk · Apr 09 at 15:10:
Y'all make some good points about the costs, which I hadn't thought of. This couldn't have been cheap. I too object to being taxed to support causes I find immoral or imprudent. That's something every side of the political spectrum in the US seems to agree on, just not the specifics.
That said, it occurs to me though that there are both national and human-scale interests involved in space exploration, which benefit everyone, and seem to make it worth it in the long run.
Nationally, space exploration could be a way to instigate interest in the sciences. Maybe the focus fosters a patriotism or esprit-de-corps as humanity. Maybe (maybe) elevate our attention beyond the banal, or the partisan and Cultural ForeverWar that lives rent-free in too many minds. Some generations had an Apollo 11 moment... others had a September 11 moment. Which do you think was better for the souls of the people watching?
Now, I don't think that a hope in technological progress is going to make wicked people into good ones (it hasn't ever historically), but that seems like a better place to turn your attention. It seems like... the extent to which a person interprets Artemis II as political ... is the extent to which they don't like it. Does that come from interest in the space-science axis, or one's relationship to political narratives?
Worldwide, I'd like us to be a more capable in our local space at least. Those capabilities might come in really useful someday. For example if there was a massive meteor that needed deflecting. You can't just scramble shuttle launches right now. We'd be better off having the equipment, sensors, thrusters, etc to detect/deflect extinction-level events. Heck, even the sentient AGI and lizard people running the goverments and people wearing tinfoil hats have a vested interest in planetary defense.
What did this mission actually teach us? Incremental bits of knowledge about the moon, testing equipment and flight paths. I hope they make the landing work. Whatever the casee, I doubt this thing will come back empty-handed, so to speak. I bet there are lots of places you could look that would present a case to justify this mission, scientifically speaking.
You know what I found really cool? The timing of it all. Two of those astronauts are Christian, and celebrated Easter... in space... pretty near L1 lagrange point. That's gotta be one of the more human things we've ever done.
Those are weak arguments for blowing trillions of dollars and bringing us closer to the end of the dollar and likely a new stone age.
Inspiring young people? That is just foolishness.
All this is about is putting military crap up there.
We are learning nothing usable.
Asteroid defense sounds reasonable, but the probability of an asteroid we can deflect in the next 50 years or so is negligible. 50 years is optimistic if we keep blowing money at this rate.
👻 darkghost · Apr 09 at 21:06:
I think the inspiration of young people is undervalued. I've had a scientific mind for as long as I can remember, but my intensity for it can be owed to Shuttle work and the intensity for which those folks work. It's hard to say how I might have personally turned out without that influence but I *think* I can credit it as an influence. But I'm a special case. I am one of those hideous mutants of a human being that actually READS the scientific papers that come out of work in space. My name might even be on a few proposals out there, though I never got anything off the ground.
I am being a bit harsh, but if you were to put a price tag on inspiration, for every scientist inspired by the space program, it's millions per head...
There must be a better way.
👻 darkghost · Apr 10 at 00:03:
Fair point. For all the documentaries with a French horn accompaniment I am not blind to the militaristic applications of the endeavor. Look how big my missiles are. I can put nukes on the moon and launch em anytime. Oh boy will you be in trouble 4 days from now when they finally arrive. Look at my space plane, I can pluck your satellites right out of orbit.
🚀 lars_the_bear · Apr 10 at 13:56:
@stack : doing good things for unworthy motives still amounts, in the end, to doing good things.
Sometimes, in their rush to do evil, our political leaders inadvertently do something noble.
@lars_the_bear: yes, sometimes it happens. Would probably be cheaper to decide policy with a coin toss. Come to think of it, current leadership seems very much a random walk.
I have a hard time coming up with anyithing actually useful that came out of the space program. Everything I can think of could have been reached with at least an order of magnitude less spending, often many orders of magnitude.
Again, I am a great fan of space science fiction, and I was definitely inspired by the Soyuz missions as a kid. But I was even more inspired by Stanislaw Lem and the Strugatsky brothers. And now I am a grown-up, and can see how wasteful and damaging the space program was.
Original Post
speaking of space, we just had a launch