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by timehastoldme
3535 days ago
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I agree, for the most part. But can you explain why this is a valid equivalence? On the surface, sure, but exploration-for-it's-own-sake isn't a good enough reason. Also, some would argue that the disadvantages (e.g. disruption of local cultures, ambiguity of meaning in modern life) have outweighed the advantages. |
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We'll start to know some of the benefit of getting there almost immediately. We'll know the benefit of Mars itself only decades or centuries later.
> but exploration-for-it's-own-sake isn't a good enough reason
Yes, it IS. Really.
In choosing to do something difficult we focus on something that will need answers to questions we don't even know to ask yet. Some will produce answers that seem so specialised to have no reuse.
Give it 5 years and some will be commercial successes. Others will lead to new ideas, branches of science, tech or products, and a steady stream of improvements to earthly things. Some will only be utilised years later, or ignored.
Just as exploring the ocean's surface made it clear we needed marine chronometers (a life's work) and an understanding of scurvy. Those would take years to answer. Scurvy led to the first clinical trial, that the Navy ignored for 40 years. Or from the golden age of aircraft: SR-71[1], Concorde, XB-70 Valkyrie[1]. Just 3 examples, of dozens, each of which led to enough advances to fill a book. Two military, one prestige. Doesn't matter that the B-52 is still flying and the XB-70 was a dead end, we learnt lots of stuff, and it almost gave the US their own SST (Concorde). Aviation is mostly drilled out now.
I'm a big believer in prestige projects - whether they work or not. Governments don't like that sort of thing any more. So unless other rich cashed out founders want to take the place of government and give us magic thing of the future...
We're left with exploration and major wars (cold or hot) to hurl technology forward. With current mil tech I'd rather not have major wars, so, exploration it must be. Oh, why haven't we properly explored under the seas yet?
Or, for a longer and far more eloquent version of this, see http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html written in 1970 by NASA Director of Science.
Mars, Tesla, Solar, Hyperloop. That's a lot on Mr Musk. I hope he crosses roads carefully. We need a few more crazy engineering imaginations.
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[1] If anyone is interested in aircraft, and can get to Dayton, Ohio, go to the USAF museum - they have the only Valkyrie, many of the X planes, a Blackbird and a huge inventory. Decent space and missile area too.