[crazypyro]

Because it has huge benefits and one could argue that the money that was funneled into NASA during the moon landings gave tax payers much more bang for their buck than all kinds of other research, social programs, bank bailouts, etc. These sorts of human achievement defining missions are really hundreds of thousands of hours of engineering dedicated to solving some of the hardest problems we can dream up.

You are way too short sighted if you cannot imagine the enormous benefits of having dedicated engineers, scientists and researchers working on difficult problems that don't have model-able, short-term returns. The exact types of problems that people only concerned with short-term balance sheets avoid like the plague. The exact types of problems that propel our entire civilization into new ages of discovery and technology.

[throwit99]

So effectively, you want to subsidise scientists working on some arbitrary aim (Space exploration), in the hope they'll invent cool stuff you can spin off...

I don't think you need to subsidise science like this.

Did we really get "propelled" into new age of technology half a century ago? Did the moon landing really change anything here on earth? Technology would have advanced just fine without it.

[thenmar]

It really sounds like you're trolling. If you're actually trying to have a debate in good faith, please read back over your posts and edit them to reflect that. Using dismissive language such as calling space probes "toys", or space exploration "some arbitrary aim" doesn't help your cause - it makes you sound juvenile, defensive, and bitter.

[bennyg]

What other arbitrary aims would you rather scientists work on, since all aims are arbitrary anyways? I don't think you really understand how scientific research works at all.

The engineering effort of NASA took a bunch of disparate scientific discoveries and pieced them together to land humans on the moon. Don't tell me you don't think that sparked major economic development in this country for decades. One of the largest reasons America is an international economic powerhouse is the space race and the need for technological innovation during the cold war.

The entirety of humanity has been involved with exploring our curiosities. Exploring our curiosities tends to lead towards societal/scientific progress. Space is one of those.

[tedks]

Well, presumably if NASA is good because it produces things that can be spun off, you could just put the money into directly producing the spinoffs (somehow) and be more efficient.

>The entirety of humanity has been involved with exploring our curiosities. Exploring our curiosities tends to lead towards societal/scientific progress. Space is one of those.

I think this is almost certainly false. Very little of humanity has been involved with exploring any curiosity. Go to a third-world village and see how much curiosity is being explored.

It's also disingenuous to claim that NASA is some grand scientific curiosity mission. NASA is part of the military-industrial complex and operates as a slightly more palatable alternative to designing ICBM's directly. This is sort of like how mathematicians work for the NSA studying problems that are sanitized to be unrelated to the actual problem the NSA is trying to solve. It's a modern, scientific equivalent of a blank round in the firing squad.

Personally, I think that space exploration is a good thing because having all your species-level eggs in one planetary basket is a bad idea, but these are not compelling arguments in favor of space exploration, and they don't stand up to very easy to form arguments.

[adrianN]

> I think this is almost certainly false. Very little of humanity has been involved with exploring any curiosity. Go to a third-world village and see how much curiosity is being explored.

Throughout human history the vast majority of the population did nothing to contribute to the progress of society, except doing their job to keep their current society running. Eventually we figured out how to produce enough food without having everyone work all the time. The new free time could be used for arts and science; progress became possible.

But I think it's wrong to dismiss all the people who produce neither art nor knowledge. Without them, humanity couldn't afford to feed poets and scientists.

[pjmorris]

You should check out 'The Secret History of Silicon Valley'

Steve Blank (its author) did a nice job marshaling evidence for just how much the Silicon Valley of today has depended on technology advanced through big government programs.

[1] http://steveblank.com/secret-history/

[frapandolf]

How toxic an existence do you have to lead to put your own petty greed over one of the few great frontiers of human scientific progress?

[testing3212]

Cultural progress too!

I'm an American, and I'm fascinated by space exploration. These kind of endeavors bring people together and make us look at the Earth as one entity that we all need to live on. It brings people together by strengthening trust through a common goal and achievement.

Now, as far as the "hur-dur my tax monies..." argument. I wonder if he has heard of the asteroid mining company in the US. Planetary resources speculats that a single 30 meter diameter asteroid could have over $50 billion[1] worth in platinum. Developing technology like ESA has done obviously helps advance a companies that can bring these resources back to Earth. So, I feel like he has to be trolling unless he really just hasn't had ANY interest in space exploration from the start. But, if he is going to out-right dismiss the program, he needs to have done some searching to at least form an opinion for why it is bad. Very untactful.

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/24/us-space-asteroid-...

[Cthulhu_]

I hope this mission (and hopefully future missions like this) will either confirm or deny a claim like that - TBH, large claims like that kinda sound like space mining companies trying to get people to invest large amounts of money into their business.

[pron]

I think this is part of a bigger question: should you only spend on basic survival? Individuals in developed countries now spend most of their resources on things that go beyond basic survival: education, entertainment, arts. Shouldn't we spend our collective resources the same way? If as individuals we want to expand our existence beyond survival, I think as groups we should, too, and fund pure science, history research and the arts, even if no material benefits come out of it.

[charonn0]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies

[akmiller]

I don't think your comment really deserves a response but here I am anyhow. It doesn't take much research to see the amazing discoveries that originated from NASA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies

Subsidizing research, no matter what that research is, offers tremendous value to society, and we've benefited immensely from it!

[rip747]

would rather governments subsidies science then 95% of the other crap they throw money at.

science benefits us as a whole while most subsidies programs benefit a particular group or interest.