Comment by cultofmetatron
6 days ago
Hard disagree. some of our best technologies came about to solve problems related to space travel which we later found useful for mundane problems at home. gps, digital cameras immediately come to mind. The only other phenomena I can think of with similar effects on human progress is war... I'll take a space race thanks
Have you heard of opportunity costs?
About war: in our universe we got the first digital computers because of military efforts during the second world war. However, without a war IBM and Konrad Zuse and others would have gotten there, too. With much less human suffering.
It's unlikely computing would have developed as quickly as it did without the Cold War. IBM's Sage and MIT's TX0 were both Cold War projects - one for a national early warning system, the other as an R&D platform for flight simulators.
Most US investment in associated tech - including the Internet - came through DARPA.
Not pointing this out because I support war, but to underline that the US doesn't have a culture of aggressive government investment in non-military R&D.
NASA and the NSF both get pocket money in budget terms. And at its height Apollo was a Cold War PR battle with the USSR that happened to funnel a lot of of money to defence contractors.
The original moon landings were not primarily motivated by science.
Why does it have to be government R&D?
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I believe you are making the same argument: the GP prefers space race over war for large technological development at less or no human suffering.
I have a hunch that space race is not for "peaceful technological progress of human race at large", or "let's see how this behaves in 0G, it might be useful for some global problems" anymore.
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Well, getting your toes cut off is better than losing your whole foot, yes.
Now do the opportunity cost of AI model virtue signalling to investors for several years
As long as they mostly spend VC money, who am I to judge? It's no worse than rich people buying yachts.
Just don't spend tax payer money.
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Firstly how is this related to opportunity costs. Secondly, no one said that to create digital computer you should start a war. It's just that war is already present, regardless of you invent digital computers or space travel.
What opportunity is being lost out on because of space exploration?
Whatever you can imagine they could spend the money on, including leaving it with the tax payer or taking on less debt.
(And, if you don't like the monetary framing: just look at the real resources spend instead.)
However I'm not nearly as harsh on unmanned space exploration.
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You are serious? Up until this point I thought you're writing in jest, because all the things you mention are actually good ideas - including especially funding manned space flight from entertainment budget, because:
1) It's better aligned with mission profile (inspirational, emotional, but not strictly necessary;
2) There's much more of it to go than NASA gets;
3) It would be a better use of that money than what it's currently used for.
I'm saying manned spaceflight is a waste of money and resources.
We'd get more and better science by spending it on unmanned space stuff. Or you could even just leave the money with the taxpayer.
Space spinoffs are grossly exaggerated.
Broken window fallacy much? The amount of money spent on space race could have been spent somewhere else and you have no idea how to evaluate of this was a valid set of outcomes.