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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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 Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 3:52 am Post subject: |
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| mack4289 wrote: |
To clarify again, I'm against the public funding of manned space exploration. As far as I know, the fashion industry doesn't receive any taxpayer money. As for criticizing war, why can't I criticize war and the space program?
Just because people criticized Columbus, that means all criticism of exploration is illegitimate? |
Criticism of any exploration is wrong. You can criticize how it's being done, but to stop expanding our knowledge is to surrender to eventual extinction. How do you plan on sending people to other solar systems without having studied how they live and work in space or on other planets first? Or do you think we should just stay here on this one planet? |
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ruffie
Joined: 11 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 5:18 am Post subject: |
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| One down, forty-nine million to go. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 5:20 am Post subject: |
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| mack4289 wrote: |
To clarify again, I'm against the public funding of manned space exploration. As far as I know, the fashion industry doesn't receive any taxpayer money. As for criticizing war, why can't I criticize war and the space program?
Just because people criticized Columbus, that means all criticism of exploration is illegitimate? |
Well, a strictly libertarian line would be there should be no public funding of science, roads, schools, welfare, healthcare. The only thing taxes should be spend on is military, police, and courts. Are you a pure libertarian then? No public funding of any science? Or do you think funding science is okay? If funding science is okay, then how do you determine what should be funded or not? |
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mack4289
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 5:26 am Post subject: |
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| Public funding for science is fine, as long as the science has obvious tangible benefits for society and couldn't attract funding otherwise. Manned space exploration doesn't meet either criteria. |
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pkang0202
Joined: 09 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 5:29 am Post subject: |
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In Total Recall, there was that one female alien with 3 breasts.
Enough said. |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 5:57 am Post subject: |
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| SPINOZA wrote: |
| mack4289 wrote: |
I never said money used to pay for space exploration is taking food away from poor people. Regardless of how that money would be used otherwise, I think manned space travel is a waste of money. There's a possibility that, when this planet becomes unihabitable, we go somewhere else. But where else do we go? I believe, that even in the most nightmarish environmental or nuclear war scenarios, that Earth is still by far the most inhabitable planet.
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Mars or Titan. Mars would still be mostly too cold even if it had Earth's atmosphere, so we'd have to all fit around perhaps between Mars' equivalents of our Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.....on a planet 50% of Earth's size.
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Or Ceres or Venus (the cloudtops, not the surface). Ceres is farther than Mars but as a result of that actually has a more frequent launch window. It also has only 3% of the gravity we do (that means less fuel for the trip back), lots of ice (apparently), and a perfect place to branch out into the asteroid belt.
This is what is going to change space travel as we know it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VASIMR |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 6:02 am Post subject: |
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| mack4289 wrote: |
To clarify, I'm talking about manned space exploration. I know there's plenty of benefits from having satellites and probes and whatnot. But why do we need to send people up there? It always seemed to me like a chance to drum up some hollow patriotism.
So to be more precise: what are the benefits from manned space exploration?
To respond to some of your arguments (I never thought this thread would get such a response, but only die a quiet death like most threads I start): if I had to guess, I'd say a large movement to go live in space would divide us much more than it will unite us. There's only going to be so much space to get up to those planets. No matter how we choose who goes, it's going to be exclusionary.
However, I don't think we'll ever actually go to space to live because the motivation to go there would make it impossible. We'd only be motivated to go to space in large numbers under dire circumstances. But it's those dire circumstances that would make pulling off something like the launch of a spacecraft impossible. That's my guess, anyway.
For the people who think protesting public funding for space travel is small minded, I would say that taxpayer money should go towards those things that either bring obvious benefits to a broad part of the population or have obvious potential to bring those benefits. No one has proved that manned space travel fits either of those criteria. So what would happen if funding for manned space travel was pulled? I imagine people like yourselves would find the funding to continue it. |
I'm not a huge fan of manned exploration compared to astronomy and solar system probes, but the amount of coverage of space it brings to the average person is certainly worth the money. There's also apparently quite a psychological change people undergo once they've gone into space and have seen the world from above without borders, and with nothing but the darkness all around.
If one person going into space inspires another thousand to become astronomers/astronauts (let's not forget that being an astronaut is a career that simply doesn't exist here), it's definitely worth the money. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 6:09 am Post subject: |
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| mack4289 wrote: |
| Public funding for science is fine, as long as the science has obvious tangible benefits for society and couldn't attract funding otherwise. Manned space exploration doesn't meet either criteria. |
Well, manned space flight has tangible benefits. However, as I've noted, in science it is not always easy to predict where the tangible benefits come from. That's not to say the National Science Foundation (the government org that hands our research money) simply hands out money to anyone with any cracker idea. ("I wanna research vaginal fisting and its effects on the emotional state of dutch prostitutes!") The NSF determines if any funding request has scientific plausibility. For example, my dad once was on a committee to decide if two time noble prize winner Linus Pauling should receive an NSF grant for a proposed research project. That he was twice a noble laureate didn't hold much sway. They turned him down because they didn't feel his research proposal had much biologic plausibility.
So are you saying the government should fund no pure science? |
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mack4289
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 6:17 am Post subject: |
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I'm not denying that there aren't already benefits to manned space travel and that those benefits couldn't be bigger in the future. But I think my view is a sensible one: the sort of disastrous circumstances that would necessitate large numbers of us going into space would make a space launch impossible.
I'll pay tax dollars for satellites and probes because the benefits of those are clear to me. But why should I (or anyone else) pay for something that doesn't provide any obvious benefits to us? I still haven't heard anyone say, "If not for manned space travel, we wouldn't have this." The only argument I can think of for manned space travel is that it attracts more attention to space projects, greasing the wheels for funding for beneficial projects. Maybe so, but with all the benefits of unmanned exploration, we could probably figure out a way to sell it to the public without sending anyone into space. |
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mack4289
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 6:20 am Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| mack4289 wrote: |
| Public funding for science is fine, as long as the science has obvious tangible benefits for society and couldn't attract funding otherwise. Manned space exploration doesn't meet either criteria. |
Well, manned space flight has tangible benefits. However, as I've noted, in science it is not always easy to predict where the tangible benefits come from. That's not to say the National Science Foundation (the government org that hands our research money) simply hands out money to anyone with any cracker idea. ("I wanna research vaginal fisting and its effects on the emotional state of dutch prostitutes!") The NSF determines if any funding request has scientific plausibility. For example, my dad once was on a committee to decide if two time noble prize winner Linus Pauling should receive an NSF grant for a proposed research project. That he was twice a noble laureate didn't hold much sway. They turned him down because they didn't feel his research proposal had much biologic plausibility.
So are you saying the government should fund no pure science? |
What do you mean by pure science? |
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Juregen
Joined: 30 May 2006
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 6:23 am Post subject: |
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| mack4289 wrote: |
| So can someone tell me how we've benefited from space travel? Or how we will benefit? |
How come everyone forgets Velcro. |
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IncognitoHFX
Joined: 06 May 2007
Location: Yeongtong, Suwon
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 6:59 am Post subject: |
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| mack4289 wrote: |
| Public funding for science is fine, as long as the science has obvious tangible benefits for society and couldn't attract funding otherwise. Manned space exploration doesn't meet either criteria. |
*Jaw drops* WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAT?!
How do you know it won't have "tangible benefits"? All good knowledge is beneficiary, and often indirectly tangibly so. Did computers have tangible benefits at the very inception? No, but now they do. At the beginning you needed a computer the size of a small building just to play Tic-Tac-Toe.
So we should only fund science that has "tangible benefits" (ie: gets roads built faster)?
Oh sheesh Einstein, get lost. We don't need relativity! We need automobiles.
String theory? Bleeeeech!
I suppose Anthropology and Archeology are useless as well, because they have no practical benefits for the average person.
Most science starts off in the distant lands of abstract ideas, then through rigour and patience it falls into the melting pot with all sorts of other kinds of exploratory, "intangible" sciences to eventually have tangible results (some kind of practical application). Look at how much was discovered by accident, or by shooting in the dark.
No sciences are thoroughly planned out at the inception, its a naturally growing process. Its not something you can say: "here, invent this" and do it. A lot of it is hit or miss, trial and error, slow evolutions and alterations on principles or long-sighted goals that inadvertently make discoveries in seemingly random places (DNA was discovered by accident)...
That being said, science needs to be funded as a whole. Sometimes you have to take expensive risks because it can have great benefits in the long run. Its the price to pay for progress, insight and innovation.
I'd throw another Einstein quote in here but you've had enough already.
Man, you need to think before you talk. |
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mack4289
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 7:35 am Post subject: |
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Einstein was working in the patent office during his most productive period, therefore, as far as I can tell, his research was only indirectly funded by the government.
Something to consider: manned space exploration started over 46 years ago and still not one person on this forum has been able to say, "If we hadn't done manned space travel, we wouldn't have this." Judging by the enthusiastic backing manned space travel has received in this forum and elsewhere, I'm guessing it would have received funding without government help. If something valuable came of it, I'd be happy to pay tax dollars to support it. Until then, I only agree with paying for unmanned space exploration.
As for archaeology and anthropology, studying the past has obvious benefits for us because we can learn from the successes and failures of previous civilizations. Not a tangible benefit in itself, I know, but can easily be translated into a lot of tangible benefits.
Here's what I'd like to hear answered: what have we achieved through manned space exploration that we couldn't have achieved through the unmanned variety? |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 7:40 am Post subject: |
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| mack4289 wrote: |
Einstein was working in the patent office during his most productive period, therefore, as far as I can tell, his research was only indirectly funded by the government.
Something to consider: manned space exploration started over 46 years ago and still not one person on this forum has been able to say, "If we hadn't done manned space travel, we wouldn't have this." |
Is that all you're looking for? Okay. If we hadn't done manned space travel, we wouldn't have been able to deploy the Hubble Space Telescope, much less fix it. |
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Hellsmk2
Joined: 04 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 7:47 am Post subject: |
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[quote="mack4289"]So can someone tell me how we've benefited from space travel? Or how we will benefit?[/quote]
Many advancements in space technology have been, and continue to be, used in every day life - right down to those handy barcodes on almost every item in the world. The advancements brought from research into space/ space technology is phenomenal. Anyone who thinks it is a "waste of money" is downright uninformed. It is that simple... |
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