[wolfram74]

If we'd put more efforts into settling space, the demand for photovoltaics would have been higher. That might have pushed us down the learning curve faster and PV might have started turning coal power plants into stranded assets in the aughts or even the 90's instead of the teens. It's a tough what-if to model.

[bumby]

I'm saying this as a former aerospace worker, but this logic was always lost on me. If something isn't worth doing for it's own sake, then I don't think it's worth doing. If we want better PV, we should prioritize developing PV irrespective of a space program. The idea of tangential benefits strikes me as just looking for a silver lining on otherwise indefensible reasoning.

[Miraste]

No one embarks on enterprises of this scale for their own sake, they do it because it's profitable. Sometimes the R&D needed to bootstrap new technology isn't profitable, even if it would be once developed. The only way to force organizational structures (e.g. the government) to do this development is to tie it to another goal, like beating the USSR. This was the case with a lot of other technologies we got out of the space program.

The hardest part of any progress is the social engineering.

[bumby]

>The only way to force organizational structures (e.g. the government) to do this development is to tie it to another goal

I’m usually pretty much against the “The ends justify the means” philosophy. It’s just too easy to rationalize doing bad things as a way to a potentially good result.

I don’t think the profit motive needs to always be aligned, but the value system does. In this case, the US valued “beating” the USSR for existential reasons. Whether it was profitable or not didn’t factor into the equation much.

[throwaway290]

I think the point is there would probably be many positive side effects and discoveries on the way somewhere that we should be going anyway. Some consider space and becoming interplanetary not just worth doing but completely imperative.

Sadly it would be such a long way no politician is incentivized to get behind it. Also people can be jerks so while you're busy with this someone could just start a war with you.

[bumby]

>I think the point is there would probably be many positive side effects and discoveries on the way

My issue with this is that it's so nebulous it can be used for practically anything. And that, in turn, makes it an argument of limited value.

[throwaway290]

Read the sentence to the end?

[bumby]

>I think the point is there would probably be many positive side effects and discoveries on the way somewhere that we should be going anyway

“Doing it for side effects” misses the whole point. Like I already said, if you can state the desired side effects, it’s better just to focus on developing them directly. If you can’t specify the desired side effects, it’s not a good goal. It’s just wishful, optimistic thinking and a bad strategy in a resource constrained environment.

Would you take a medication, not for its prescribed goal, but rather for its “potential” (yet undefined) side effects? Wouldn’t you rather just take a different medication that targets the desired outcome directly?

If you’re alluding to the idea of becoming an interplanetary species, I think the counter argument is that any risk that would mitigate would be more easily mitigated by other means. E.g., it would be much, much easier to “fix” the earth climate than terraform Mars. Redirecting an asteroid is potentially a good case, but the nature of the space program is mostly focused on human rated programs which aren’t needed for that.

[throwaway290]

Its not for side effects it's for direct effects. Side effects are bonuses. If you disagree that direct effects are useful and think we should never leave the planet then that's a different discussion.