I just started thinking about it. Why is space exploration even that necessary? They're spending so much money on it when we have so much problems in our own planet..
Yes. Space exploration and further colonization is the only possibility for humankind to survive after politicians and military will nuke the Earth to stone age, so we need to preserve our species.
Yes. Space exploration pushes science and technology forward, which benefits humanity as a whole.
Yes, but capitalists should not do it. And actually space exploration on today's scale cost literal pennies compared to military or shareholders loot.
Yes, realizing that Earth is the only home we have really makes you think twice.There is no other planet for us to conquer. Mess this one up, and we’re a doomed species.
we've already blown past 2 degrees so it's clear that we've already messed it up. the true question is how much longer we're going to keep letting the epsteins manipulate us into messing it up further instead of buying cheap & scalable green tech from china.
Yes, we need to do things like space exploration because these are the endeavours that advance humanity. Even in practical terms, plenty of discoveries that are useful here come from technologies developed for space exploration. If you're really worried about unproductive use of resouces, maybe worry about how we deal with the pedo elites that rule over us and hoard resources on unimaginable scale.
Do you rather propose we stop producing movies, adult content and series and use that $$$ to space exploration?
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/etimes/trending/chandrayaan-3-lands-successfully-isros-moon-mission-budget-less-than-christopher-nolans-interstellar-elon-musk-responds/articleshow/102988184.cms
Strictly, no. The human spirit yearns for it though, and I think it shoukd be given a treat from time to time.
Space exploration falls into the category of "luxury spending" for me. Only when every human on Earth is fed, clothed and housed should we be looking out to the heavens.
The spending on space exploration isn't what is stopping us on satisfying the basic needs of everyone. It's political will that stops us there. It's the fact that our governments do not see their populations as their priority. They see their corporations as their priority.
not strictly necessary, no. but so is a lot of what we do today.
it'd be cool.
Well… short term no it’s not necessary (although as other folks have said on the thread it does give some technology advancements, and gives humanity a warm fuzzy sense of achievement)
Long term, it depends on the eval criteria
- If we want the human race to live as long as possible, then I would say yes - to diversify, distribute and minimise the risk of planetary (Earth) failure
- If we don’t give a toss about the human race then no, the Universe will be just fine without us
All attempts to discover how the universe works benefits us. Even a lot of really esoteric stuff has proven useful in fields like medicine and civil engineering.
Honestly if we can pivot our high tech innovation efforts from being mainly driven by military needs to being driven by basic research (basic in this case meaning researching the natural world directly without any particular goal other than learning), we'd be a lot better off.
Not really, it's more like a childhood dream that nobody investing will see IF it will give any results and/or is just a over expensive hobby, for the sake of have the knowledge of guessing of what is the planet that is over 5000 years light away from us might be made of. Who knows! It might have some form of H2O!
yes. there's two branching discussions here:
- Space as a scientific topic, it needs to be understood. Our observation of reality is very local, and although we can prove that some of our assumptions about physics, life and civilization work on our neighborhood, it doesn't mean that they're the same everywhere. That alone is sufficient reason for me, to explore.
- Space as the new frontier. Many if not all exploration done on planet Earth has been, in some shape or form, resource-motivated. Lands, food, medicine, minerals, routes, are all found through exploration and normally through people spending money looking for a return over investment. Space is no different.
I think the interesting part is where this two branches touch: If we ever plan on capturing an asteroid for mining, the technology needs to be there to do it, and hopefully the technology is about the benefit of all humankind. This kind of development is showing us the way to move forward and solve problems. Imagine a world when we don't need to destroy ecosystems in order to get iron because all iron comes from off-world.
I used to think this, but here's the problem: new resources to extract mean absolutely fuck all under the current global paradigm.
There's enough iron out there to make several tons of it available to every human in existence for whatever they need or want to do. Will that happen? No. It's not profitable for the owner class to do that. Instead, they will fight amongst themselves until someone has an effective monopoly on asteroid mining, and then limit the supply so they can generate maximal profit (De Beers, anyone?)
We have the capability, right now, to feed everyone on Earth. To clothe everyone. To house everyone. We don't. Any resources out there that we might find useful will be gated behind the same greedy, psychopathic group of leeches that currently control everything else.
The planet isn't being destroyed because we had no choice. The planet is being destroyed so a bunch of MBAs could show off a nice graph at the quaterly meeting. It is very much delibrate. Any resource extraction in space will solely be done in that it is more profitable than doing it on Earth, climate be damned. We need to fix that problem before asteroid mining for the good of Earth and humanity is even an option.
