I just started thinking about it. Why is space exploration even that necessary? They’re spending so much money on it when we have so much problems in our own planet…

  • MeetMeAtTheMovies [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    2·
    2 hours ago
    1. The amount of money spent on NASA is negligible compared to the MIC
    2. Human intuition about what STEM stuff is useful is very poor. The basis for your ability to securely do online banking is a quirky little number theory equation that was useless for centuries. Or think about the reactionary complaints about “they’re paying scientists to study cat urine” or whatever. Those studies typically have a practical reason for getting some and practical implications once they’re finished. Even the stuff that is practical looks impractical to the layperson. Space travel is very similar in that the technology it enables can have other uses.
    3. Whoever figures out asteroid mining first is going to make a lot of fucking money
    • happybadger [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      1·
      2 hours ago

      Human intuition about what STEM stuff is useful is very poor.

      Funding streams are my big concern here. Government research is mostly toward non-profitable things. I like that NASA takes a decade to develop a robot and cancels the launch repeatedly to make it as safe as possible. Plenty of derived consumer tech will come out of that project and it has the least chance of exploding over my head. Corporate research is mostly toward profitable things. It further enshrines corporate power, limits more technology behind patents, and creates exploitative technologies to generate the most profit for their time. Our intuition goes so haywire with things like tech industry hope-ium, in the opposite direction of NASA considering lots of problems in its slower public research. The best version of an organisation like that is a slow trickle of good data for every field and products for consumer use without restrictions.