[astazangasta]

Space enthusiasts are always trying to sell their fetish with this line, but the fact is that technology development is not some generic facility; if you develop technology devoted to getting things up into orbit, it will basically give you the expertise to do that. It doesn't, say, develop your semiconductor design, biochemistry, medicine, agriculture, or whatever else your country might need. It basically helps you build weapons, the main reason people get so excited about rocketry. This is the last thing India needs.

[technofiend]

if you develop technology devoted to getting things up into orbit, it will basically give you the expertise to do that.

The key word being devoted of course. If you fail to acknowledge any benefits from the space program other than getting things into orbit, then yes it'll be hard to see any value in space exploration beyond doing it for its own sake, which you may or may not see any value in since you yourself label it a fetish.

However the larger benefits of technology yielded by the space program are undeniable, including in some of the same fields you mentioned. From wikipedia

>NASA reports that 444,000 lives have been saved, 14,000 jobs have been created, 5 billion dollars in revenue has been generated, and there has been 6.2 billion dollars in cost reduction due to spin-off programs from NASA research in collaboration with various companies. Of the many beneficial NASA spinoff technologies there has been advancements in the fields of health and medicine, transportation, public safety, consumer goods, energy and environment, information technology, and industrial productivity. Multiple products and innovations used in the daily life are results of space generated research. Solar panels, water-purification systems, dietary formulas and supplements, space suit materials in clothing, and global search and rescue systems are but a few examples of the beneficiary spinoffs that have been produced.

You may hand wave and say "oh but that could have been all discovered without going to space." Perhaps, but your thesis seems to be space exploration is a fetish with no benefits beyond making space exploration more efficient, which is patently untrue.

[astazangasta]

It's not a hand wave - my argument is that those things could all be better developed, and indeed have been, by programs that are directly focused on that kind of technology development. Ancillary technologies are nice, but why settle for ancillary development that MIGHT yield things that are useful, instead of directly focusing your technology development on those useful things in the first place?

[technofiend]

Because you get the benefits of space exploration and the secondary benefits as well. For those that support space exploration that's enough. For those that view space exploration as a fetishistic waste of money I don't know what could possibly convince them otherwise. It'd be interesting to know.

[_bfhp]

NASA's yearly budget is over $20 billion

[dahart]

I wish this comment was less baited. If your argument is true and strong, then you don’t need to dismiss it as fan behavior or call it a fetish.

Your argument is also demonstrably weak. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies

[astazangasta]

Yeah, where would we be without LASIK? I'll also note that that article notably elides things like ICBMs and the other myriad military applications, since it is clearly intended as a puff piece to make us view space technologies as benevolent and positive.

As for my tone, perhaps you are right that I don't need to employ ridicule; but I wish to, because I feel contempt for this position so strongly I want to make it known. Space fetishism is a diversion that exists to bilk engineers into careers and positions that are in aid of the military.

[dang]

Would you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? That includes name-calling like "fetish", which the site guidelines also ask you specifically to avoid.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: alas, your comment history indicates that you've been using this site primarily for ideological battle rather than curiosity. We ban accounts that do that regardless of what they're battling for, because these two things aren't compatible, the one drowns out the other, and HN is for curiosity. If you'd please review the guidelines and use the site as intended, we'd be grateful.

You might also find these links helpful for getting the original spirit of the site:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html

http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html

http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html

[astazangasta]

Actually, would you please ban me? I'm not sure i agree with you about ideology vs. curiosity, I'd say rather that ideology is one of the primary things I am curious about and something I appreciate about HN is that there are smart people here willing to discuss it.

But I do think my comments suffer from a meanness I'd like to avoid, and that my use of this site is something like a nicotine habit; I'd appreciate the nudge towards quitting.

[dahart]

Ahhh, you're commenting on your contempt for the military, I see that now. I didn't get that at first, from your apparent comment about economics. ("the fact is that technology development is not some generic facility; if you develop technology devoted to getting things up into orbit, it will basically give you the expertise to do that. It doesn't, say, develop your semiconductor design, biochemistry, medicine, agriculture, or whatever else your country might need.")

Both the space programs and the military have well documented positive direct and indirect effects on private business, and both have many spinoff technologies that do benefit society. That is in addition to some well documented negative impacts, not to mention wars and death. But you didn't really want to talk about the economics, right?

If you just don't want to build weapons and don't think we should as a society, that's a reasonable view to hold, I can certainly find some ground to agree with you. Personally, I'll just suggest choosing clarity and not ridicule might help get that point across and convince more people. The sarcasm and ridicule tend to alienate, especially if you're talking directly to people who might enjoy space topics and would otherwise agree with you that weapon building is ugly business. You're choosing to ridicule innocent bystanders, rather than the people making weapons.

> Space fetishism is a diversion that exists to bilk engineers into careers and positions that are in aid of the military.

That makes it sound like a conspiracy theory, as if nobody would be interested in space were it not for the sneaky military. Isaac Newton had a space fetish and died before NASA or the US military industrial complex began. You didn't get tricked into a NASA career, right? I know a few engineers that have worked in space & military applications, and all the ones I know participated knowingly.

[throwawayover9k]

Well, at least in the case of India, most of what you pointed out has been directly benefitted by the space industry. India has its first major semiconductor foundry operated under the Department of Space. And the space agency spends a significant part of its on-ground budget on developing outreach programs for farmers to teach them how to use meteorological and soil data to get a better, more reliable harvest. Also, India is one of the few countries to have a civilian space agency led solely by engineers. The only time it rubs shoulders with the military is when it sources spacecraft and launch vehicle parts from the national defence supplier or when it shares data with the military in order to satisfy the government's political mandate.

[ip26]

FWIW, the very first application & customer for semiconductors was guided missiles. Literally what got the industry started.

[astazangasta]

Most industries get their start in the military because that is where the money always is; however, semiconductors have definitely moved on to other applications, whereas rocketry remains mostly about making missiles.