So on a Certain Other Forum that in a surprising shock to me seemed to abandon its usually high standards for debate and discussion the thread regarding Moon Missions and NASA and other stuff rapidly degenerated into being extremely terrible due to the onslaught of Concern Trolls.
The same points were more or less brought up again and again by the same people constructing their elaborate strawmen are more or less as follows:
1) The Concern Troll Argument:
"We should not waste money on manned missions, or NASA at all, because instead of researching space which has no utility for humanity in the short term we instead could cure malaria in millions of african children in under a generation."
2) Semi-Concern Troll Argument: "Manned missions are a complete waste of money, we will learn nothing from them that couldn't be accomplished by focusing on robots."
(2) Couuuuuuuld be valid position, but in the thread in question it was overwhelmingly clear that there was very little good faith positions to be had there.
There's a vague (3) that's basically (2) but focuses more on the vague impression that manned missions should be delayed until we learn more/are safer,etc. Or that with NASA's current level of funding they should focus on Unmanned missions.
There's a (4) that's basically (1) but not obviously being trolls like people who feel that Humanity shouldn't be spreading its oppression around.
So should NASA's funding be increased to allow for both more manned and unmanned missions including full on efforts to get a presence on the moon and on Mars? Should we focus on one or the other (I believe its actually easier to get to Mars than to the Moon due to MATHS), if NASA's current budget remains the same adjusted for inflation should it focus on unmanned until increased or should it stick a finger in the pie so we don't lose too many experienced personal and practice with manned missions?
Or should we abandon NASA and space entirely, let China and Russia do what it wants there and then use the money to "feed the poor starvin' marvins' in Africa".
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
The entire premise of the argument is off, because it assumes that every dollar spent on NASA goes into a black hole never to be seen again, and entirely ignores the fact that billions of dollars of economic activity have resulted from commercial applications derived from research done by NASA that could not have been foreseen when the projects were undertaken. It's also a ridiculous push question. "Why go to space when we could spend that money on starving orphans?" You're asking a zero sum question, that dollars for one thing must come from dollars for another, and ignores the entire rest of the US budget or the idea of raising taxes by creating this bizarre false dichotomy that pits Mars against poor African children.
If you want to talk about just NASA, and what it's goals and what not should be, that's excellent and worthy, but drop the "feed the poor" argument, because it's useless. I won't even go into the mass of literature out there that talks about the severe problems with Western aid to Africa and how it often causes as many long term problems as it solves.
If you want to talk about NASA, then talk about NASA.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
I think all of those reasons are short-sighted and ignorant.
Plenty of experts have said (including Stephen Hawking and many other scientists) that if human beings don't get out into the galaxy and start colonizing, we're going to die off. Here are the various possibilities of why this will (not might) happen:
1. Resources. Fossil fuels are getting close to depletion. Granted, there's still a lot left to dig up, but this stuff isn't made of trees or plants or water; it's made of dead things from millions of years ago. You can't just grow them in your back yard, not unless you've invented time travel and you have a bunch of dead bodies lying around (although, traveling back in time to get rid of the evidence would make for a pretty hilarious episode of CSI). We're also going to run out of other stuff, too, if we keep mass-consuming the way we are. There's only so much of this stuff on the Earth, which means we're going to have to go get it from somewhere else. Of course, this all stems from another growing issue, which is....
2.Overpopulation. The world's population is almost at seven billion people. That's roughly one billion more than it was thirty years ago. Fast-forward a hundred years and we'll be looking at approximately 12 billion people, possibly more. Go even farther out, and we'll be looking at so many people, even with population control laws, that it will be nearly unmanageable. But, naturally, none of this will even matter in the long run, simply because of the next problem on this list...
3. The sun is eventually going to die. In about 4 billion years or so, if somehow humanity makes it that far without dying off, the sun is going to expand and completely absorb the Earth. I think it goes without saying that this would pretty much end all life on Earth as well as the solar system. If we don't get off this rock, at some point in the distant future, our race will pretty much just die and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. Of course, way before this happens, we'll be faced with a large number of other issues, the least of which is...
4. An asteroid or comet or something else equally terrifying. This isn't as unimaginable as it sounds. It's already happened a few times before, a fact that the dinosaurs could attest to if they were still around (but I suppose that's the whole point here). And there are plenty of giant asteroids and the like floating around out there that might hit our planet at some point. We can't say with any true certainty if they will or not (not yet, anyway). So what happens if, in a thousand years, we get smashed to bits by one? How would we survive? Would we pull a Deep Impact and move underground? If we don't have a massive space program in place, we wouldn't have any other choice.
In my opinion, I seriously don't know what the benefits would be in NOT furthering our space program. We should be funneling every available dollar we have into it, rather than investing in two wars, a dozen "conflicts", and so on, none of which are actually benefiting humanity in the long run. There's always going to be people out there who hate America; there's always going to be terrorists; there's always going to be some dictator somewhere who's just being a jackass bully to his people; and there will always be diseases and starving children in the world. I know it's a very pessimistic and nasty way to look at the world, but if you really think about it, humanity as a race can't afford to think in the short term. We have to look to the future, and not just the next ten or so years; we need to look at the next step our species is going to take. The fact that NASA has almost been shut down twice in the past eight years is mind-boggling to me, as is the fact that their funding is so low. We're all so concerned with the here and now that we don't know how to think about the future anymore. We look at our lives and we think about, well, what can I do to fix my problems, or how can my country help me. Most of us are just trying to make it through the day, or the week, or the next couple of years; we aren't looking past our own retirement. Who cares if our children's children have no food? Who cares if seafood as we know it is gone by 2048? It doesn't affect me right now, so what's the use in worrying about it?
I think Larry Niven said it best: "The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!"
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Man. I knew lawns were dumb.
Right also overpopulation, upcoming fertilizer crash, seafood crash, inevitable crushing famine, yadda
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
That said, it seems to me that colonizing our oceans would be easier, more profitable, and even more scientifically rewarding in the immediate term.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
It'd be an important first step in how to create a sustainable colony as well. I mean, we're probably a good 200 years away from being able to either 1. Get humans to an earth-like planet in another solar system or 2. terraforming Mars for human colonization (assuming we can get around that whole lack of a magnetosphere thing).
So we're going to be living in domes for the foreseeable future if we actually get to either the moon or Mars. Makes sense to start learning how to support large numbers of people in an enclosure without help from the outside.
Plus, you know, oceans are the last place on earth that have yet to really be fully explored.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Also, the deeper you go, the more they are populated by nightmarish creatures that rival any fictional alien representation! So that's pretty cool.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: It'd be an important first step in how to create a sustainable colony as well. I mean, we're probably a good 200 years away from being able to either 1. Get humans to an earth-like planet in another solar system or 2. terraforming Mars for human colonization (assuming we can get around that whole lack of a magnetosphere thing).
So we're going to be living in domes for the foreseeable future if we actually get to either the moon or Mars. Makes sense to start learning how to support large numbers of people in an enclosure without help from the outside.
Plus, you know, oceans are the last place on earth that have yet to really be fully explored.
This seems logical to me, too. In order to venture out into space, there needs to be some kind of transitional period.
My main concern, though, is the fact that these two things involve very different kinds of research. With the ocean, it's much more realistic and a lot less science fiction for the politicians.
Traveling to distant worlds is also a bit hard to do right now because of the laws of physics. We can't travel past the speed of light, or, at least, we don't know how to do it yet. We've got to learn how to get around all of that if we want our scientists to make it there without dying of old age, otherwise we'll be looking at ships that are multi-generational. I think the terraforming of other planets (or even just building domes and colonizing those) is the next step. You know, work our way out, as they say.
Honestly, all of this is entirely possible, but whether or not we do it is entirely up to people who are more concerned with votes than what's best for our species.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: The entire premise of the argument is off, because it assumes that every dollar spent on NASA goes into a black hole never to be seen again, and entirely ignores the fact that billions of dollars of economic activity have resulted from commercial applications derived from research done by NASA that could not have been foreseen when the projects were undertaken. It's also a ridiculous push question. "Why go to space when we could spend that money on starving orphans?" You're asking a zero sum question, that dollars for one thing must come from dollars for another, and ignores the entire rest of the US budget or the idea of raising taxes by creating this bizarre false dichotomy that pits Mars against poor African children.
If you want to talk about just NASA, and what it's goals and what not should be, that's excellent and worthy, but drop the "feed the poor" argument, because it's useless. I won't even go into the mass of literature out there that talks about the severe problems with Western aid to Africa and how it often causes as many long term problems as it solves.
If you want to talk about NASA, then talk about NASA.
Just to double check here, and to be clear, I am not making the above argument, those are the arguments I've seen and yes, I am against those arguments for the same reasons you have outlined, thus why I called them the "Concern Troll Argument" Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
The only good thing about a Gingrich presidency that I can see is that Gingrich is a NASA/Astronomy fanboy, and has stated that he'd pour money into the program.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Yeah, he did, but he says a lot of things.
Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :
Kristy and I were talking the other day about whether, if we really believed that Gingrich would reignite the US space program, that would be enough to get us to vote for him. I mean, he's an utter scoundrel, but a thousand years from now, all that would matter is that someone had the drive to actually get us off this rock and onto other rocks.
Kristy said that she couldn't do it. I'm not sure whether I could or not; I come kind of close to being a single issue voter on this one. I'm saved from having to worry about it, though, by the fact that I don't trust a word that comes out of Gingrich's mouth.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Why is everyone arguing that money spent on a space program could not be spent on starving children, or whatever? The reinvestment argument is bogus; it applies equally to giving children proper nutrition so they grow up to be engineers or whatever. Why not straightforwardly say that, on the current margins, space travel is more important than transfers to the poor? It is not as though there are many people actively starving in the US; eating McDonalds rather than healthy stuff, perhaps, but it's quite hard to starve to death. (As for Africa, realistically that money will not go there, so it's not really a relevant basis of comparison.)
A program should not have to have absolutely zero downside before you'll admit to favouring it. Just admit that yes, we'd rather spend this money on a manned Mars mission than on whatever photogenic orphan someone can drag out of wherever, and be done. There's such a thing as a priority.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: There's such a thing as a priority.
I agree. Unfortunately, the majority of Americans don't think NASA is as important to the future of mankind as a sad photograph on TV.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
We need a photograph of a crying astronaut.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Re: Jake's question, hmm. I find Newt so objectionable that I'd have to have confidence the reignition would be on the level of decades of active government and national interest in the space program, yknow? One or two (heh) terms wouldn't be enough.
Posted by Dobbie (Member # 3881) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: We need a photograph of a crying astronaut.
In space!
. . . wait . . .
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jake: Kristy and I were talking the other day about whether, if we really believed that Gingrich would reignite the US space program, that would be enough to get us to vote for him. I mean, he's an utter scoundrel, but a thousand years from now, all that would matter is that someone had the drive to actually get us off this rock and onto other rocks.
Kristy said that she couldn't do it. I'm not sure whether I could or not; I come kind of close to being a single issue voter on this one. I'm saved from having to worry about it, though, by the fact that I don't trust a word that comes out of Gingrich's mouth.
Actually, the space program is one of the few things I actually believe him about. He's been talking about putting bases on the moon since the early 90s. He's been beating this drum for like two decades. If he was trying to suck up to Florida 20 years ago thinking that one day he might run for president and kept up that message all through Congress, after he left Congress in disgrace, when he was a private citizen up until now all as part of some convoluted scheme just to pander, well, hell, that's more dedication than he's shown to any of the women he's married. It's hard to believe he's been yammering on about space for 20 years as part of a false campaign promise for a non-existent run for the presidency.
I don't believe much of what he says, but I'm willing to buy this one.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
There's no crying in astronomy!
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Ha!
Hobbes Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: There's no crying in astronomy!
That's my favorite line from An Observatory of their Own.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
In space, no one can see you cry...
Posted by iglee (Member # 12455) on :
I would agree that we need a strong space program. As I see it, there is at least one very good, immediate, and practical reason why we do. Stuff like Lunar or Mars bases and such are nice dreams, but they are long range goals.
But for right now, do we really want to weaken or even shut down our space program and then outsource all of our information and communications industries (like we are doing with so many others)? Do we really want other countries like, say, China to control those things for us? Think about that nightmare scenario next time you reach for your IPhone or go online.
It seems to me that we would do well to make sure that we can always build, launch, control and maintain our communications and other satellites ourselves.
Of course, if it gets to the point where so much of our wealth is getting outsourced away that we can no longer fulfill our self-imposed responsibility to feed the starving children of the world, then I’m sure those other countries will take their new-found wealth to take over that responsibility for us.
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