Why don't we pump more money into space exploration?

Not with our current technology, not in a massive grandiose way in any case. Saying that, you can only expand technology by moving to the next frontier, which is, space. Sending robots seems to be the best we can do right now. Doesn't mean we cannot explore the scientific merits (space station, moon base). Be sure that if there is a tangible threat from outer space (meteorite), we'll get there in a hurry.

Would be nice to get a handle on our current social and economical problems though. Like overpopulation, education, technology, health, corruption, greed, resource management. We could spend our wealth better. It seems that indeed we're going backwards on several fronts.
 
Castiel said:
Because the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few.

In other words, putting vast amounts of resources into space exploration when there are millions of people starving or dying of easily curable disease and poor living conditions is pretty irresponsible.

Until which time that the needs of the many require space exploration for whatever reason, resources or it becomes truly economically viable then it should remain something that we fund but not at the expense of more important projects a little closer to home.
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i agree.

i think humanity needs some form of event to make us pool our talents.

something like those sci-fi movies or natural disaster movies.

i just cant see us all moving on from this stupid land grab BS for a few more decades. energy wars will be next :( then possibly food... we need to all work together. unfortunately arms manufacturers are too powerful to even contemplate world peace.
 
Castiel said:
Because the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few.

In other words, putting vast amounts of resources into space exploration when there are millions of people starving or dying of easily curable disease and poor living conditions is pretty irresponsible.
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The needs of the many are served by decreasing the strain on Earth. The medium to long term goal should be colonization of the nearby planets, i.e. the Moon, Mars, and perhaps the Galilean moons (obviously not IO though!). These can all provide water and other resources to maintain independence. A lower population on Earth solves the starvation issue, probably helps reduce the wars and also with people off world the human race survives if homeworld is destroyed.

Of course with the narrow, blinkered thinking of "Don't spend money on space when people are starving" is exactly that. Narrow-minded thinking. And we cannot do any of what I listed above with heavily investing in space. It would be clumsy steps at first but at least it would be progress. Instead we spend trillions on killing people. That's not looking after the many, is it?

Also, some diseases such as cancer can only really be studied properly in space (the cells don't grow correctly in a dish) plus a lot of research can be done into bone wasting conditions and radiation related illness. A lot of technology we use everyday has its roots in the space industry.
 
The Earth is more than capable of sustaining man as long as we live sustainably, we need to push billions into:-

Irrigation
Desalination
Renewable Power
etc.

I think we need to learn how live sustainably before we start flying off into space and repeating all the mistakes we've made on Earth again ;)

HEADRAT
 
kwerk said:
How could anyone even think about wasting money on space exploration when there are still starving people in the world?
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I really hope that is a poor joke, as the technology and systems to come out of space exploration have done a massive amount of good to help the starving people of the world. Take away space exploration and we would have a lot more starving people.
 
Sleeve88 said:
See this is what I don't understand.

Why do people have no interest? How close minded have you got to be...

We are so keen to traverse our own planet and explore as much of that as we can, but we have a vast expense surrounding us which we haven't even scratched the surface of.
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It's hardly rocket science (pun mildly intentional). Space exploration will probably reap no tangible benefits for mankind for generations yet... other than some technology advances we haven't found any mineable resources or have the tech to extract them, and there is nowhere habitable within umpteen light years. What exactly is the "average person" going to get out of funding space exploration, and why should the "average person" who has trouble enough making ends meet on Earth care? Advances in space exploration on the scale you are talking about (grand betterment of mankind) will likely only be possible when the world isn't a fractured set of governments that can pool resources together, and when the many problems affecting the many populaces are no longer such a huge concern.

Seems like you haven't actually thought much through logically beyond: "OMG COOL SPACE EXPLORATION LOL". :p
 
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Richdog said:
It's hardly rocket science (pun mildly intentional). Space exploration will probably reap no tangible benefits for mankind for generations yet... other than some technology advances we haven't found any mineable resources or have the tech to extract them, and there is nowhere habitable within umpteen light years. What exactly is the "average person" going to get out of funding space exploration, and why should the "average person" who has trouble enough making ends meet on Earth care? Advances in space exploration on the scale you are talking about (grand betterment of mankind) will likely only be possible when the world isn't a fractured set of governments that can pool resources together, and when the many problems affecting the many populaces are no longer such a huge concern.

Seems like you haven't actually thought much through logically beyond: "OMG COOL SPACE EXPLORATION LOL". :p
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Possibly.

But the fact that we exist in an endless universe and know practically nothing about it is a very scary thought for me.

How do we know what benefits the universe holds if we never explore it?

I dont get why the human race just accepts we are what we are and has no real care for what surrounds us.
 
Sleeve88 said:
Possibly.

But the fact that we exist in an endless universe and know practically nothing about it is a very scary thought for me.

How do we know what benefits the universe holds if we never explore it?

I dont get why the human race just accepts we are what we are and has no real care for what surrounds us.
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But we are exploring it. NASA and Russia etc pump billions into doing so. We have only been exploring space for a paltry 50 years, what do you expect... teleporters and warp drives? :confused:

People do care about space exploration, but it's hardly going to occupy their waking thought in the face of everyday life on this planet, is it? If something special happens like a rocket launch on TV, or something newsworthy, then the average public will take interest. Otherwise, what do you expect from the average Joe? :confused:

As you can tell, im a little confused as to what parts of that logic don't make sense to you.
 
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Sleeve88 said:
Possibly.

But the fact that we exist in an endless universe and know practically nothing about it is a very scary thought for me.

How do we know what benefits the universe holds if we never explore it?

I dont get why the human race just accepts we are what we are and has no real care for what surrounds us.
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we care, but is it worth blowing all our cash when the world economy is ****ed?

as we keep saying, people are working on warp (lightspeed) tech but it needs massive energy supply and its still only theoretical. unless we can travel at multiple times the speed of light we cant get anywhere interesting really (maybe worm holes but do they actually exist?). its not like mars etc is a great place to setup a new world. we need something like earth. until we can send off probes (and recieve the signals back) would you want to sit in a sleep unit for 100 years or so to explore and find there isnt anything?
 
Richdog said:
But we are exploring it. NASA and Russia etc pump billions into doing so. We have only been exploring space for a paltry 50 years, what do you expect... teleporters and warp drives? :confused:

People do care about space exploration, but it's hardly going to occupy their waking thought in the face of everyday life on this planet, is it? If something special happens like a rocket launch on TV, or something newsworthy, then the average public will take interest. Otherwise, what do you expect from the average public? :confused:

As you can tell, confused as to what parts of that logic don't make sense to you.
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true, i cannot see people on min. wage being too happy about being taxed more just for something that they wont see any benefit from in their lifetime.
 
Castiel said:
Because the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few.

In other words, putting vast amounts of resources into space exploration when there are millions of people starving or dying of easily curable disease and poor living conditions is pretty irresponsible.

Until which time that the needs of the many require space exploration for whatever reason, resources or it becomes truly economically viable then it should remain something that we fund but not at the expense of more important projects a little closer to home.
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To paraphrase Hank Green, there's two things that make the world a better place. Decreasing suck and increasing awesome. You can't do one without the other. The general proposition isn't to take funding away from relief or medical efforts, but to refocus our priorities away from military operations, for one.
 
The answer is both simple and also pretty complex.

There are two space programs; the 'tin-pot, giant firework display "special" edition' that we mere mortals get to see, and then there's the real good stuff. Often described as 'black' - with the real big budgets - these are never disclosed or reported in official budgets, or just scratch the surface.

I don't know, there might actually be quite a few people at NASA who actually think they're at the pinacle of space exploration, but their main function is to keep the public happy and in the dark: "Get back to eating, working and watching TV!". :)

Doesn't it strike you as odd that we're basically using the same delivery methods as when we went to the moon? Seriously? The whole 'budget/apathy/more pressing concerns' explanations don't cut it to show the complete lack of progress; mankind is too obsessed with exploration to let those things stand in the way.

At this stage they've probably got to a point where revealing it would lead to far too many uncomfortable questions that they'd rather not answer.

I'm not going to do people's homework for them, but do a little digging and have an open mind. Those that cry 'tin-foil hat conspiracy' at every opportunity seem to be happy enough with what's been presented to them but many others aren't. :)
 
Raoh said:
The answer is both simple and also pretty complex.

There are two space programs; the 'tin-pot, giant firework display "special" edition' that we mere mortals get to see, and then there's the real good stuff. Often described as 'black' - with the real big budgets - these are never disclosed or reported in official budgets, or just scratch the surface.

I don't know, there might actually be quite a few people at NASA who actually think they're at the pinacle of space exploration, but their main function is to keep the public happy and in the dark: "Get back to eating, working and watching TV!". :)

Doesn't it strike you as odd that we're basically using the same delivery methods as when we went to the moon? Seriously? The whole 'budget/apathy/more pressing concerns' explanations don't cut it to show the complete lack of progress; mankind is too obsessed with exploration to let those things stand in the way.

At this stage they've probably got to a point where revealing it would lead to far too many uncomfortable questions that they'd rather not answer.

I'm not going to do people's homework for them, but do a little digging and have an open mind. Those that cry 'tin-foil hat conspiracy' at every opportunity seem to be happy enough with what's been presented to them but many others aren't. :)
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These sort of things are of a great interest to me, so if you could help point me in the right direction it would be massively appreciated. Either on here or via trust. up to you :)
 
We should be spending it on alternative energy r&d to free ourselves from the middle east intervention cycles.

No point investing heavily in a space program without a way of generating sustainable power on the ships we build...
 
LordSplodge said:
The needs of the many are served by decreasing the strain on Earth. The medium to long term goal should be colonization of the nearby planets, i.e. the Moon, Mars, and perhaps the Galilean moons (obviously not IO though!). These can all provide water and other resources to maintain independence. A lower population on Earth solves the starvation issue, probably helps reduce the wars and also with people off world the human race survives if homeworld is destroyed.
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Aren't there issues with inhabiting the Jovian system, though, in terms of radiation from Jupiter itself? I'll, uh, let you be the first to go up there and you can tell me whether or not it's safe! :p
 
We haven't finished exploring the Earth yet.

We all know we're alone in this hostile universe. There is nothing out there awaiting us but death. Seriously, it's too big and we're doomed. We're just a bag of cells, a prolonged chemical reaction, a virus, animals feeding off other animals - don't hold yourself in such high regard, self serving scum. All progress is an illusion, all systems are chaos, all of human perception is a biological mechanism. The truth is, there are no answers, there is no way out of this mess. You will suffer, horribly.
 
2012 Olympics 10Bn, send a rover to mars - 6.1 Bn. I know what id rather spend the money on and it isnt a load of people running around a track in lycra !
 
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