Should billions be spent on 'space travel'?

L

liát'dano

Registered Member
Just finished typing my thread and Windows decided to érror' grrrrr!

Anyway, I am a newie here and I must debate the topic below for the negative team. First reaction was 'for' the statement, but now I'm not so sure.

"Spending billions on 'space travel' is wrong, while millions of people on earth lack adequate food and water"

There is so much I could possibly discuss - how would the money be spent anyway? foreign aid does not seem to be working to well. Then, should the quest for knowledge be hindered in the face of urgent issues that need addressing? Then again, how much is the gov't actually spending on space travel/exploration/quest for knowledge? If it is a substantial amount (seems over the top, which I'm guessing it is) then is it really necessary, when so many are suffering? I am a strong advocate for human/environmental rights but I can't justify cutting scientific budgets if the money is not going to be put to best practical use. Sorry!, so many questions and no answers :confused: , so I look forward to a response.
 
Should we keep on spending billions on useless wars?
Should we keep on spending billions on useless toys?
Should we keep on spending billions on junk food?
And on & on you could go

As for foreign aid, it has always been a scam!
 
Just a point, Food and Water being a problem isn't down to money being absent, it's down to Corrupt people in corrupted lands.

Those people don't have to sit round starving, they could grow crops or dig wells, but they might suffer from Warlords or War Ministers starving them on purpose to try and kill them off or lessen their resolve for opposing like they were some sort of pest infestation.

When money is spent on researching into how to travel in one of the harshest conditions (A vacuum), it's not just a challenge for science, it's a step closer towards mankind actually wants to eventually head.

We could probably pump all are money in, to trying to liberate some small countries and end up with all of them turned into Military policed states like Iraq (Where the people still haven't reasoned with what people have tried to established, freedom and democracy) however it's reasons just like that which means it would be a waste of time.

Anyway the sooner we get off this rock the better at the current escalation of problems.
 
I agree that we need to get out of this gravity well and get some of our eggs in other baskets but I'm not for just throwing money at something such as manned presence on Mars when it would be more fruitful to approach getting industries going at the Lagrange points. As it stands, if you get a chance to see John Glenn's assesment at the commision hearings concerning the moon to Mars project http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=33665 , I believe you can see some hard core evidence that Bush's desires result in squelching the most fruitful science for an exercise in vanity and distraction from his grossly inadequate policies in virtually every field.
 
I think money spend on space exploration is worth it, but not space travel. It costs way too much money to send a living human body into space, and it is unnecessary. Exploration of space can be done with robotic probes. The recent mars missions prove the value of this approach. If the debate is wether the money should better be spend on poor people, as opposed to any space program at all, I think the case can be made that space programs provide jobs. Sometimes this research spawns whole new industries.
 
Not just industries, but whole new inventions, for instance Vacuum packing food is "space age", and that means the food can store longer at locations like places that are suffering famines. So you could say that the space race potentially fed them (Otherwise the food would have spoiled)
 
Robotics into space exploration is the best way to go for now. Perhaps in the future we will attain more speed and better radiation guards for humans to travel and cheaper ways to do so. The Earth needs more help and that is where all efforts should be focused for the time being. More nations should also be given the opportunity to help put together a voyage to Mars and beyond for one nation can't do it alone, the costs are staggering.
 
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Having people in space was a political goal, not a scientific one. These days our senses can be sent to inhospidable environments- not only space, but the depths of the largely unexplored oceans. This technique of remote exploration is the wave of the future, many more missions can be accomplished with less cost, and less or no risk to human life. It was the risk of death that made the astronauts of early space missions heros. We should get over this ego trip, and spend our money more wisely. Even the military is moving in this direction with unmanned aircraft. Armchair explorers are now the real explorers. Communications technology is creating a paradigm shift in many areas. Surgery is now being done remotely, with the specialist operating instruments from any place in the world. Is this "armchair" surgery or real surgery?
 
Not billions. Trillions.

Once private enterprise gets a firm hold and SSTO gets cheap, we're there, dudes. Until then NASA can have their fun, I suppose, but as with most things the government (any government) really isn't the best way to go about it, as the waste inherent in bureaucracy is a significant impediment.
 
Humans are in space and are prepairing to journey to Mars one day. You need to crawl before you walk when going out into space safely and that is what we are doing now. We already have a ISS space station that will house 8 people one day when it gets built completly. Going to Mars will take almost 2 years. Many problems are ahead to solve for that journey.
 
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Yes, we should spend money on space travel. It's the next step in discovery and life, period -- the Space Age. To be against space travel is no different than being against all the other major discoveries of the past. Many may not feel ready to advance into that next Age, but it's been no different in the past. Life is about surival of the fittest so those not ready are left behind just as the millions of people in the world lacking food and water are. Not everyone can be saved. Harsh, but true.

- N
 
Man needs a frontier. It's a safety valve. Even though the vast majority of people, even highly dissatisfied people, never actually kiss off civilization and go live on the frontier, the fact that it is there makes everyone feel better. "Well, I can put up with this a little longer. If it gets bad enough I can always go to. . . ."

In ancient times the frontier was merely out past the far edge of civilization, where the "barbarians" lived. Eventually the boundaries of civilization expanded pretty far. People had to go all the way to the boondocks of Africa, Malayo-Polynesia, Australia, or the aboriginal areas of the New World to "get away from it all."

Now those boondocks have practically disappeared. There are cities of 15 million people in Africa. Indonesia's population hit 300 million. Someone told me that São Paulo is now the world's largest metropolitan area, although I don't know if that is true. More than a million people inhabit both Phoenix and Las Vegas.

I imagine the Aussies already know this, but secretly, every American man has always said deep down inside, "If it gets to the point that it really sucks here, I'll just go to Australia." Since the Bali bombing, we've had to face up to the fact that no matter how much we want it not to be true, Australia is now, officially, part of the "modern world" with all that that implies. Not only did we weep for you Australians, we also had to weep for the death of a fantasy that kept many of us sane. That was one hell of an outrage. I think to many American males it was almost as bad as 9/11, albeit in a different way. You were the us that we wish we were, if that makes any sense.

The only real outback left is Alaska/Siberia, and that is one hell of a frontier. Being a disgruntled city dweller was perhaps never enough qualification to ensure survival on the frontier, but now you can't even lie to yourself about it.

Gene Roddenberry was right. Space is the final frontier. We'd better make it possible to treat it as such. A world with six billion inhabitants and no escape valve is a pretty dangerous place.

And yes, I did say that it was "man" who needs a frontier. Historically it's always been men who say "shove this place" and move away. Historically, women have always been much more willing to try to make a good life where they are.
 
we piss cash away everywhere, space exploration IMO is a better place than most to do it.

Fraggle Rocker,

I agree space is an important frontier but hardly the final one. We know almost nothing about the 2/3's of the planet currently under water. I'm not saying don't explore space, just don't ignore our planet either. We've learned a lot about earth but not nearly everything, not even a tenth of whats here.
 
buffys said:
I agree space is an important frontier but hardly the final one. We know almost nothing about the 2/3's of the planet currently under water. I'm not saying don't explore space, just don't ignore our planet either. We've learned a lot about earth but not nearly everything, not even a tenth of whats here.
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Absolutely agree. This being sciforums, where we talk about all variants of science, I doubt you're going to find anybody who disagrees.

The catch is, of course, what priority we afford each discipline. ;)
 
Stokes Pennwalt said:
The catch is, of course, what priority we afford each discipline. ;)
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true enough, that's really where the debate begins.
 
Stokes Pennwalt said:
Once private enterprise gets a firm hold and SSTO gets cheap, we're there, dudes.
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Is that ever going to happen though?

Is launching a ship out into the void ever going to afford some attractive profitability to investors?

That's the only possible stimulus I see for this business.


Man does not live on glory alone, after all.
Where's the pay off going to enter the scheme?


EDIT:

This article, written on events relevant to the topic, is rather interesting.

It reads sensibly enough.
... today, the "win, win" sectors are those with applications that can be used on Earth such as telecommunications, GPS navigation systems and broadband.

The other sectors that require more risk include rocket building and remote sensing.
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(What is "remote sensing"?)

That's all understandable, but I'm certainly not going to believe that the business community is head-over-heels excited about less practical applications, like space travel.

A recent poll by Zogby International found that 7% of wealthy Americans would pay $20m for a two-week space vacation, while 19% would spend $100,000 for a 15 minute sub-orbital flight.

The $64,000 question, however, is whether or not the venture capital industry is willing to get on board.
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I honestly don't see how 7% 'of wealthy Americans' or even 19% thereof is a very wise target group.

Besides, they may talk now, but will they fly later? It seems very frivolous to me, and rich people aren't known to stay rich doing frivolous things.
 
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we must inhabit mars if we are to save the animal species of earth, in 20 years 1,500 species of animal will be extinct due to pollution, global warming, deforestation, the only solution is to move humans to mars where we can on;ly harm ourselves, is it fair that the animals should suffer for us
 
I think we should occupy mars too but I'm afraid it'd take centuries if it's even possible to make mars habitable to all but a handfull of people/animals. The best we could do in the near (or mid) term is store their genetics and hope. It's way, way cheaper as well and we're not even doing that much so don't get your hopes up.
 
All the money that the American and other governments are dumping into space research is not going to get us into space. It will make it possible for some entrepreneur to succeed. The return of resources on this investment should be on the same order as that little trip to India that Spain financed in 1642.
 
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