Is it just me, or does space exploration seem to be a massive waste of resources? I can’t think of many useful facts discovered in space, or experiments done in zero gravity, or drugs that were created. The whole point now seems to be PR for high school math and science, or simply bigger missions (eg, Mars).
I think it’s all a pitifull extrapolation of the PR from the moon landing, and also Columbus. Unfortunately, the analogies are poor: Columbus found resources people coveted, and the moon landing was exciting because we were all under the misconception that this portended some change in our lives.
In addition to the fundamental science that gets done, the space program is a massive technology driver. A lot of modern technology was directly or indirectly driven by the Apollo program. You could probably point to any device in your home which was developed in the last thirty years and find that it was made possible or made use of technology developed as part of the space program. While this may be less true today, that doesn’t make it untrue. The fundamental and applied research that gets done for the space program may seem irrelevant to you, but it can have great consequences.
This may seem like GD material, but I think there is a factual answer. There are useful products resulting from NASA funding.
Not an economic point necessarily, but just going into space was caused a massive change in our outlook. Remember the first picture of the Earth from space? Most of us hadn’t consider what our own planet looked like. If you find that hard to believe, look at any pre-1968 sci-fi (early Star Trek will do) - anything above Earth sees the land and the seas - but no cloud at all. Imagine that! A blue-green planet, not the swirling mass of white ribbons that we now know.
And then, the Christmas picture of Earth from Apollo 8 - a tiny blue/white ball in the dark. THAT more than anything made me realise that we live on a little ball in space, and if we foul up here, there’s nowhere else to go.
The space program/race was worth it for that alone.
You’re committing the fallacy of ignoring the fact that there’s inherent utility just in exploring space. Humans, or a lot of them, WANT space explored. The act of exploration is itself something that people desire.
The notion that “we’re not getting anything out of it” betrays a misunderstanding of what getting something out of something else entails. I bought a TV recently, for $700. What do I get out of that? Nothing tangible; it doesn’t create spinoff products, it doesn’t help me make money, it doesn’t grow food. The only thing I get out of my TV is pure enjoyment. Does that make the TV worthless? Of course not; enjoyment is itself worth something. Enjoyment has utility. That’s why people will pay for it.
So even if there is absolutely NO economic or survival benefit to space exploration, there IS value in it just because humans just want to do it. I just want to watch TV, and that’s why it’s worth something. Humans just want to be able to say we went to Mars, and so by definition, that’s worth something. Even if you can show me that the only good thing about space exploration is the “It’s Really Cool” factor, things being cool IS valuable. We’re supposed to enjoy our lives, not live as ants, and we place value on enjoyable things.
Anything is worth what other people will give up for it. Many people are happy to pay tax dollars for space exploration, so by definition, the space program is in fact worth something, to the exact extent that people will pay for it. Personally, I’d happily kick in money towards a manned Mars mission. So it’s WORTH something to me, just like my TV or my groceries.
For me, space exploration is something that is valuable to humanity on a much greater philosophical level than anything else. It just amazes me the stuff I read about the Universe. To often we get caught up in the troubles of this world and forget about how small everything is and how wonderful the Universe is. For instance they discovered that planet with an Iron atmosphere. Wow, that amazes me. The space program also offers hope, to me at least, that we can at least partially transcend some or all of our divisiveness and problems to work for something inspiring and worthwhile.
And its less than 1% of the Federal budget, with many companies often fitting the bill.
That’s a microcomputer you’re sitting at, right? You do realize that the microcomputer was specifically invented so that we’d have onboard computers in our spacecraft, right?
Rick Jay, you make a good point. But the question is if people realize what it is that they are (or are not) getting out of all this space exploration. I would bet that a good number of people support it because they believe that all sorts of important scientific work is being done there. If people would realize that this is not the case, support might drop off considerably.
Consider this possibility then. Right now, the political situation around the globe is worsening. There’s at least a reasonable chance that various countries will go to war in the next few years. There’s probably a good chance it won’t come to anything permanently Earth-shattering… but somewhere down the road, who knows? We have sufficient weaponry to render the Earth all but uninhabitable.
Beyond the pure explorative joy of seeing new places and just proving we can do it (get out there), the question remains:
Should mankind have all its eggs in one basket?
Earth is rapidly becoming a very very small basket…
I don’t like using this as an argument. I much prefer using the idea that exploration and expansion of knowledge and expansion of experience and pushing ourselves to our intellectual and technological limits has its own rewards and virtue. Heck, if I had the money, I’d go take a peek at what’s out there myself. It gives us something new and exciting to shoot for. Obviously other people with a lot more money agree, or we wouldn’t be doing it!
However, from a pragmatic point of view, I’ll use the more depressing angle of attack on the problem.
Just because you can’t think of anything useful does not mean that space exploration hasn’t resulted in tangible benefits. No offense but, you sound like an arrogant high school student who’s pissed off about his science final.
Do weather, GPS, and communication satellites not serve a tangible purpose? None of this would have been possible without space exploration.
Spacecraft must operate in extreme environments within narrow engineering parameters. Because of this, space exploration has accelerated development of advanced materials and miniturized electronics used in ordinary mundane items like aircraft and automobiles.
And don’t even get me started about muthafuckin Tang!
Our exploration of space right now is the equivalent of Columbus trying to discover the New World in an old washtub. The technology has not advanced to the point where it is cost effective or practical to explore very far beyond the moon. That doesn’t mean there isn’t anything worth exploring.
The point is that you don’t know what benefits will come from exploration and invention. 50 years ago when the laser was invented, nobody thought it had a useful purpose. If you find something new, someone will find a use for it.
That’s entirely possible - I don’t know if it’s true or not, nor am I convinced there ISN’T valuable scientific work being done. (I sincerely doubt anyone in this thread could even name 10% of the scientific research topics the space program has tackled in the last ten years.) So if you were convince everyone the space program should not be valued, support for it would vanish and it would not have value.
But, okay. So? At present, it IS supported. So it does have value, and the OP’s claims are illogical, since they ignore the real utility of enjoyment and excitement derived from the space program.
Our unmanned exploration is slow and under powered. Imagine the information that could be gathered with large ground penetrating radar and high powered antennas placed on our probes. Transmission rates that could handle floods of data. The fact that the people currently doing this exploration can glean so much is a testament to their skill and perseverance.
Our manned exploration is more akin to the Portuguese explorers moving slowly and steadily down the coast of Africa. The initial pay off looks the same too.
It is believed that one day artificial moons or “satelites” will become commonplace. Imagine being able to send a radio broadcast to one of these satelites. The satelite would be able to relay that broadcast to any place on earth. This would make instantaneous communication between continents a possibility, all without cables or rebroadcasting stations.
So the next time someone dismisses our egghead rocket engineers, remind them of the potential future of OUR SPACE PROGRAM!
True - I can’t say for certain that it isn’t valuable. But the reasons for my skepticism are that although you frequently read about important scientific discoveries or new theories in the popular media, you rarely if ever hear of anything of that magnitude learned from the space program. Nor do I recall any great principles of science from studying it in school as having been derived from the space program. The only things you seem to get out of it are more knowledge of outer space and distant planets, which seem to be of limited value at best - at least to this point.
Not sure what you mean here. It sounds like you are saying that makes no difference if the people are supporting it based on a false premise or a true one. A rather cynical view. It makes no difference if you keep buying Enron stock because you think they’re making tons of money - meanwhile you’re happy thinking of all the money you’re making…
The problem is that the OP is only looking at short-term benefits from the space program, of which there are few significant ones.
The benefit of launching many space experiment missions now is that we’ll be better suited for a greater expansion of space ten, twenty, fifty or even a hundred years from now.
