The problem is to be perfectly blunt that you are uninformed. I mean, the original thread described a result by a European group, getting no funding at all from the US.
Even beyond that, you say you want to understand where your tax money is going. Ok, so where is it going? How does the US federal budget (and state budgets) look like? How is social security and medicare spent exactly? Have you really put work into understanding this or are you merely thinking: "I wish we had better health care and I don't care about space so we should use the space science money for health care."
On a less antagonistic note, if you really try to understand these issues you'll realize that more resources don't necessarily lead to better results. A lot of the problems in health care and education are organizational. How do we incentivise doctors to prescribe the most cost effective medicines, tests and procedures?
Are standardized tests a good way to estimate teacher performance or are they just hindering good teachers. If we get rid of them how do we know which teachers and teaching methods are effective and which ones are ineffective?
When we have a decent idea of what should be done what can we do as citizens?
I understand the idea of having an opinion and changing it based on new information. But why not go a step further and only form an opinion after you already know the most basic facts?
On October 19 2012 00:07 Twinkle Toes wrote: The choice to "attack" space is accidental, and is only a product of the recent astronomy threads. I would also attack military and other senseless stuff our government is wasting its money on if I had the time. I just want to focus the discussion on space for now.
It seems like the only things you're actually complaining about is observatories and telescopes looking at objects far away, even if they have a couple of then, that isnt exactly NASA's main field and heavy spending points.
However i also disagree that putting money into that is a waste. Stuff like hubble deep field is fascinating.
Slightly offtopic, but would you know if Hubble can point its lenses to the moon?
Here is a picture taken by the Hubble of the moon, along with an explanation of why they did it:
On October 19 2012 00:34 hypercube wrote: The problem is to be perfectly blunt that you are uninformed. I mean, the original thread described a result by a European group, getting no funding at all from the US.
Even beyond that, you say you want to understand where your tax money is going. Ok, so where is it going? How does the US federal budget (and state budgets) look like? How is social security and medicare spent exactly? Have you really put work into understanding this or are you merely thinking: "I wish we had better health care and I don't care about space so we should use the space science money for health care."
On a less antagonistic note, if you really try to understand these issues you'll realize that more resources don't necessarily lead to better results. A lot of the problems in health care and education are organizational. How do we incentivise doctors to prescribe the most cost effective medicines, tests and procedures?
Are standardized tests a good way to estimate teacher performance or are they just hindering good teachers. If we get rid of them how do we know which teachers and teaching methods are effective and which ones are ineffective?
When we have a decent idea of what should be done what can we do as citizens?
I understand the idea of having an opinion and changing it based on new information. But why not go a step further and only form an opinion after you already know the most basic facts?
I agree with your post and might change some of my stand based on what you said, but it is normal to have an opinion. I am not some Buddhist monk who operates on emptiness. Posts like yours are the reason I created this thread.
But I disagree on some points. Mainly, I just used the Alpha Centaury is just an example, I am sure that hundreds of labs are silently at work now receiving funding from the US whose purpose it is is to look for planets or some chemical signature in outer space. We hear only about them once the make some "discoveries". But honestly, they are pure mineral drains.
you should be more concerned about technology displacing labor. sure, you've got a job now, but what's that worth when you'll be struggling to pay rent and food in a couple decades
How do you expect technology to advance to a point where space missions are less wasteful, dangerous, and more rewarding without investing money to get there? Nobody's going to do the work/research if they don't get paid.
I want to add that scientific research is perhaps the only thing that my tax dollars could be used on that I feel 100% comfortable with.
Since you're never done science, let me explain how it actually works.
Most scientists aren't making a lot of money, but some of these people are the brightest minds on this planet. Moreover if we are speaking about fundamental sciences like fundamental space research, most of the results that these really smart people are getting are utterly useless and irrelevant to real life. So why are these people with so much potential doing something that doesn't pay well and doesn't even solve any earthly problems?
Because it's fun! This is the main driver of science! For some people it's tremendous amount of fun to spend their lives unraveling mysteries of the universe, searching for the answer on existential questions such as "are we alone?", studying galaxies billions of light years away...
And when some of the smartest people are working together, excited by a grand useless fun idea, their genius gets multiplied by quadrillion times, and amassing things happen! ! Some of these amassing things end up as extremely useful technologies that benefit the rest of humanity immensely. This is how real fundamental silence works.
On October 19 2012 00:43 oneofthem wrote: you should be more concerned about technology displacing labor. sure, you've got a job now, but what's that worth when you'll be struggling to pay rent and food in a couple decades
Damn tractor took all those farming jobs away. Did you know that 90% of people used to be farmers? Now its less than 1%. All those lost jobs, its damn criminal if you ask me.
that's not what i meant. technology shifts can be good long term but still have severe short term costs, as well as distributive shifts.
a big problem right now is looking at the economy some years down the road and wonder where the low skilled and automata replaceable worker will be. there's no mass industrialization right now that can absorb the workforce.
On October 19 2012 00:43 oneofthem wrote: you should be more concerned about technology displacing labor. sure, you've got a job now, but what's that worth when you'll be struggling to pay rent and food in a couple decades
The thing about science is that most of the important uses for certain technological advancements weren't even dreamed of by the first person who discovered the scientific principles behind it. So to ask what benefit we're going to get from research is a question where the only true answer is "I don't know, but I'm sure it will be important later". Granted there are exceptions, like biomed research etc. but even then some innovator can always take your scientific technique and apply it to something so outrageous it changes humanity.
When Ben Franklin flew his kite he wasn't thinking about the light bulb edison (or tesla depending on who you want to believe) would power from that same electricity.
overpopulation? migrate to another planet.or even to space stations. Energy cirisiss? do you know what star is? foor problems? we can grow food in space. resources? in Solar system alone you have recources for thousand of years. heathcare? Yes space is actualy great place to treat various illness. not enought job(more like not enough money in fright place)? well space industry could create bilions of job positions.
problems solved.
But tell me, how are you going to fight hunger,poverty,heatlhcare,lack of education and unemploynment?i told you how i am going to solve it.Tell me how you are going to solve it.
On October 19 2012 00:43 oneofthem wrote: you should be more concerned about technology displacing labor. sure, you've got a job now, but what's that worth when you'll be struggling to pay rent and food in a couple decades
that's why you get a job in technology...
and thus invest in technology. hence basic research and stuff.
On October 19 2012 00:58 oneofthem wrote: that's not what i meant. technology shifts can be good long term but still have severe short term costs, as well as distributive shifts.
a big problem right now is looking at the economy some years down the road and wonder where the low skilled and automata replaceable worker will be. there's no mass industrialization right now that can absorb the workforce.
There are severe short term costs for certain individuals, there is still a net gain averaged across everyone in both the short and long term. The low skilled worker who lost his manufacturing job can still get a minimum wage services job, make less money, but have an increased standard of living because the machines that took the jobs of him and his buddies reduced costs so drastically. Just admit reardon metal is good.
On October 19 2012 00:34 hypercube wrote: The problem is to be perfectly blunt that you are uninformed. I mean, the original thread described a result by a European group, getting no funding at all from the US.
Even beyond that, you say you want to understand where your tax money is going. Ok, so where is it going? How does the US federal budget (and state budgets) look like? How is social security and medicare spent exactly? Have you really put work into understanding this or are you merely thinking: "I wish we had better health care and I don't care about space so we should use the space science money for health care."
On a less antagonistic note, if you really try to understand these issues you'll realize that more resources don't necessarily lead to better results. A lot of the problems in health care and education are organizational. How do we incentivise doctors to prescribe the most cost effective medicines, tests and procedures?
Are standardized tests a good way to estimate teacher performance or are they just hindering good teachers. If we get rid of them how do we know which teachers and teaching methods are effective and which ones are ineffective?
When we have a decent idea of what should be done what can we do as citizens?
I understand the idea of having an opinion and changing it based on new information. But why not go a step further and only form an opinion after you already know the most basic facts?
I agree with your post and might change some of my stand based on what you said, but it is normal to have an opinion. I am not some Buddhist monk who operates on emptiness. Posts like yours are the reason I created this thread.
But I disagree on some points. Mainly, I just used the Alpha Centaury is just an example, I am sure that hundreds of labs are silently at work now receiving funding from the US whose purpose it is is to look for planets or some chemical signature in outer space. We hear only about them once the make some "discoveries". But honestly, they are pure mineral drains.
The main problem I have with your position is that you seem to be operating under the impression that we are just literally throwing our money into space. NASA provides good middle class jobs. Even in missions with not immediately apparent benefits, we are still paying people to develop technology, and produce equipment which also is good for the economy, especially if it's local. We are attracting smart people to work in our country. In congress there was a discussion about spending billions to repair unused tanks which the army didn't want because it would help keep parts suppliers etc in good business. I don't really see the difference, except that scientific research produces all of the great things alread listed.
If you wanted to be really frugal, you could I after expenditures on art etc too. Who does that help? (Somewhat rhetorical question)
On October 19 2012 00:39 Twinkle Toes wrote: But I disagree on some points. Mainly, I just used the Alpha Centaury is just an example, I am sure that hundreds of labs are silently at work now receiving funding from the US whose purpose it is is to look for planets or some chemical signature in outer space. We hear only about them once the make some "discoveries". But honestly, they are pure mineral drains.
I was just using it as an example of forming opinions without having all the relevant facts. For the record, I doubt there are hundreds of teams receiving US tax money for this kind of purpose.
Extrasolar planets is just a small part of space science. Most of it is done either part time on general purpose telescopes or on low budget purpose built telescopes.
I could give you an estimate of how much is spent yearly on this kind of research in the US but I don't feel comfortable doing that without a significant amount of research. Just as an example though, the Kepler Space Telescope, which is by far the largest extrasolar planet program, cost $600 million for its 4 year nominal program.
Space science as a whole costs much more than that. NASA's yearly budget is $18bn, although a large part of it is Earth observation, human spaceflight (which I wouldn't consider space science, though some do) or general purpose development. There's some money spent through NSF grants and possibly other sources too. But most of the money comes through NASA or private universities.
Sapce science is huge though. It includes stuff with direct benefits like asteroid tracking or space weather. Also fundamental science like cosmology and the searches for dark matter. And of course "traditional" astronomy topics like the study of stars and galxies.
I don't think it's fair to describe the whole of space science as "mineral drains". Some of it has direct benefits, some of it promises benefits in the mid or long term (like asteroid mining), while some is "only" useful in increasing our understing of the universe as a whole.
I think even those parts that promise no immediate benefits are ultimately useful. But to start debating that we'd need to have a decent idea of what kind of money we're talking about.
On October 19 2012 00:34 hypercube wrote: The problem is to be perfectly blunt that you are uninformed. I mean, the original thread described a result by a European group, getting no funding at all from the US.
Even beyond that, you say you want to understand where your tax money is going. Ok, so where is it going? How does the US federal budget (and state budgets) look like? How is social security and medicare spent exactly? Have you really put work into understanding this or are you merely thinking: "I wish we had better health care and I don't care about space so we should use the space science money for health care."
On a less antagonistic note, if you really try to understand these issues you'll realize that more resources don't necessarily lead to better results. A lot of the problems in health care and education are organizational. How do we incentivise doctors to prescribe the most cost effective medicines, tests and procedures?
Are standardized tests a good way to estimate teacher performance or are they just hindering good teachers. If we get rid of them how do we know which teachers and teaching methods are effective and which ones are ineffective?
When we have a decent idea of what should be done what can we do as citizens?
I understand the idea of having an opinion and changing it based on new information. But why not go a step further and only form an opinion after you already know the most basic facts?
I agree with your post and might change some of my stand based on what you said, but it is normal to have an opinion. I am not some Buddhist monk who operates on emptiness. Posts like yours are the reason I created this thread.
But I disagree on some points. Mainly, I just used the Alpha Centaury is just an example, I am sure that hundreds of labs are silently at work now receiving funding from the US whose purpose it is is to look for planets or some chemical signature in outer space. We hear only about them once the make some "discoveries". But honestly, they are pure mineral drains.
The main problem I have with your position is that you seem to be operating under the impression that we are just literally throwing our money into space. NASA provides good middle class jobs. Even in missions with not immediately apparent benefits, we are still paying people to develop technology, and produce equipment which also is good for the economy, especially if it's local. We are attracting smart people to work in our country. In congress there was a discussion about spending billions to repair unused tanks which the army didn't want because it would help keep parts suppliers etc in good business. I don't really see the difference, except that scientific research produces all of the great things alread listed.
If you wanted to be really frugal, you could I after expenditures on art etc too. Who does that help? (Somewhat rhetorical question)
Edit: Seeing government agencies as jobs programs rather than existing to fulfill their intended purpose sets a dangerous and wasteful precedent. Space exploration is for learning about space. Nothing else. It is not for giving people jobs. It is not for stumbling upon technologies with practical purposes. It is for learning about space. You need to persuade him that that end in and of itself is worthy.
May I ask the OP a question: why are you questioning where your goverment is spending 0.5% of its budget, and not where is it spending the remaining 99.5%? Also, planet finding is not a very expensive endeavour, after all all you need is a good telescope and a PhD student.
The benefits to planet searching are NOT only the planets that are found, but for instance all the software developed to track a 50 cm (20 inch for you americans) displacement of a star located 4 light yeras away. It could probably be used for improving things as diverse as autopiloted planes or tunnel building techniques.
I'd be much more worried about why do the US need to have TWICE as many aircraft carriers than the rest of the world combined.
On October 19 2012 00:58 oneofthem wrote: that's not what i meant. technology shifts can be good long term but still have severe short term costs, as well as distributive shifts.
a big problem right now is looking at the economy some years down the road and wonder where the low skilled and automata replaceable worker will be. there's no mass industrialization right now that can absorb the workforce.
There are severe short term costs for certain individuals, there is still a net gain averaged across everyone in both the short and long term. The low skilled worker who lost his manufacturing job can still get a minimum wage services job, make less money, but have an increased standard of living because the machines that took the jobs of him and his buddies reduced costs so drastically. Just admit reardon metal is good.
i don't know what reardon metal is.
but in general technology has two effects. increased capital productivity, which means additional labor input has a scaling effect of more value generated, and also a displacement effect, where machines displace tasks done by humans. it is not a rule that the scaling effect is greater than the displacement effect particularly in resource limited situations, which we are indeed confronting shortly. with unlimited resources, the same labor force can be employed at better machines and turn out greater wealth. however, with resource limitations, you'll get displacement of the labor force and capital owners having much more of the product.
the current problem is obviously not mechanization of farming, or even industrial production. it's mostly white collar automation of the administrative and IT kind.
btw, it is not automatic that greater production leads to quality of life improvements for everyone. circulation has to occur. an increase in the production of nigerian oil fields does not necessarily improve life for nigerians.
- supertldr: resources and time is limited, there are more urgent need for resources than learning about the universe, unless it results to important technologies like MRI, etc. etc.
You realize NASA helped progress the MRI like crazy, right?
Scientific research related to astronomy will always contribute to practical science, one way or another.
I argued on specific point, could you do that same? Spending money on the research to discover there is a planet in Alpha Century and god know where else somewhere in the universe leads to what practical benefits?
The choice to "attack" space is accidental, and is only a product of the recent astronomy threads. I would also attack military and other senseless stuff our government is wasting its money on if I had the time. I just want to focus the discussion on space for now.
Well don't need to go that far...just terraforming our neighbor planets will suffice. And terraforming technology will be useful in ecosystem and environmental control or something similar...
EPT
