― Mel Brooks
No. There is an argument to be made that in the absence of drama occurring up there (space, theistic mythology, etc), people will invent and create drama down here (Earth), except with more dire consequences. Considering alternative timelines, therefore, there is a decent chance that there is a real, though indirect, human cost associated with choosing not to explore. What is the human cost, for example, of boys and girls not being inspired by daring feats accomplished at the edge of possible? Nobody is quantifying it, no research grants are given to study it, but I have almost no doubt that it exists.
In this book humans have at some point invented time travel. Subsequently an organization ('Eternity') is born out of it to regulate and protect humans accross centuries. But, because of it, Humanity never left Earth. The main protagonist stops time travel from being invented and kickstarts the nuclear age, this is supposed to start robots and later Foundation.
At least that's what I remember, I tried to summarize without reading Wikipedia for a change.
The key of the story is that either humans invent space travel and have a chance to thrive, or stay on Earth and are guaranteed to become extinct.
The keepers keep disasters from happening, thus humanity is kept in a generally mediocre state, no major struggles, etc.
By the time humanity, with no struggle, reach the ability to travel the stars, the stars are occupied, we're late.
The future eternity (eternity itself has a timeline independent of the original) realized this and decided to let humans fend for themselves and thus fix the long term problem.
"is it good for humankind to be ruled by an invisible technocratic elite?"
"are we unknowingly increasing long-term existential risk by concerning ourselves first with short-term safety?"
I think in some defintion I could argue either side of the Eternity.
Consider why sports exist. They are also a (cultural) byproduct of military endeavors. Sports bring us a variety of benefits, including things like giving people meaning, making them bond with each other, helping maintain a healthy lifestyle, and lifting many kids out of poverty. There is a role for something like that---for exploring places like space. Consider also human (primate) psychology and how team sports can satisfy urges we would otherwise want to unleash in more destructive way on each other---and do so in a positive, constructive way. I wouldn't be surprised that in an alternative timeline where sports don't exist our newspapers would be filled with a lot more grizzly headlines on a daily basis. Consider now that we're living in an alternative/dystopian timeline where one of the most fascinating sports (exploring the unknown) had mysteriously nearly disappeared. Purely as sport, space exploration would have been of a sufficient benefit to pursue in my opinion. But of course, it is a lot more than just a sport.
One actually could argue such. Being able to permanently and self-sustainably inhabit space means being able to reduce the strain on Earth's own resources, thus reducing the need to compete for said resources (said need being a major contributor to plenty of wars, both current and historical).
It's a stretch, sure, but it's still an argument one could make.
Going to into space and making something of yourself rather than grabbing a gun and killing each other like rats in a cage?
I think it's something that came out of industrialization in the late 19th century. Look at the famous football clubs, they're all founded late 1800s/early 1900s, in cities. Basically guys who needed some entertainment on the one day off that many countries had instituted by then.
People deciding to sit at home, live sensibly, and peacefully for a chance?
Not a good argument, since all of the examples of what you call "drama up there" that have ever existed have simply been projections of "drama down here", rather than alternatives to such drama.
Society has accomplished a ton due to the space race. Furthermore, just because we haven't put humans anywhere doesn't mean we haven't explored anywhere. We have a robot on Mars, had a robot on Venus. We have ships nearing the end of our solar system and sending data back. We have learned tons, and keep learning tons, and have used all of this knowledge to make life on earth better. GPS alone is worth it, let alone everything we've done.
Putting more men on the moon does us absolutely no good besides letting a country puff its chest out more.
Water and food are indeed trickier; the Moon does have some trace amounts of carbon (deposited by solar wind) and hydrogen (at the poles), but extracting enough of those elements to sustainably support living there is unlikely unless we make some major discoveries or figure out a more reasonable way to import such things (one idea is to capture hydrocarbon-rich asteroids and park them in lunar orbit, but that ain't exactly my idea of "reasonable").
As for profitability, the Moon happens to be rich in silicon; a far-fetched idea might be to build a whole bunch of lunar microchip factories. The Moon is also full of raw materials in general, and getting them into space (e.g. to build spacecraft or to import to Earth) is a lot easier than getting such material into space from Earth. This makes the Moon a potentially-valuable staging point for missions to Mars and elsewhere.
If there is indeed water (or some other hydrogen source) on the Moon in sufficiently-abundant quantities, lunar fuel depots would actually be feasible; there's been quite a bit of work in recent decades around using silanes (hydrosilicons) as a useful fuel, replacing the need for hydrocarbon-based fuels (or using hydrogen directly).
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/11/high-temperature-rock...
You're correct in that large, (comparatively) easily mined water ice deposits are located in permanent shadow at the poles, but there is likely water available in most locations, if you dig down below the surface.
Also, why is a metaphor needed here?
A metaphor compares two things similar from a certain aspect -- they could still differ in every other way. One could use a metaphor from agriculture to clarify their point on a political issue, for example.
>Also, why is a metaphor needed here?
For the same reasons that it's needed elsewhere. To get the point across in a simplified way, because people can understand a phenomenon better in one domain than they can in another (aka "domain dependence").
When I said "the metaphor compares two similar thing" I didn't mean metaphors in general, I meant your metaphor specifically compares two things that are similar. The relevant differences between NY and the moon do not exist between NY and Illinois.
> For the same reasons that it's needed elsewhere
Metaphors are often of dubious value. They can be used to clarify unfamiliar situation, where the bounds of the metaphor are clear; or, perhaps as in this case, encourage similar thinking about two related concepts.
But you provided a metaphor here without providing clarity on what the point was. When I think "why would I build a city in Illinois, when there already one in NY", none of the answers I come up with apply equally to the moon. e.g. land is cheaper/convenient (not on the moon), the scenery is better (maybe true, but not to outweight other more pressing concerns) etc.
While that certainly would be awesome, I'm pretty sure you meant "solar system".
We actually have more than that; in addition to Curiosity, the Opportunity rover is (by some miracle) still in active service and fully operational.
I feel a lot of the return on spacefaring is as simple as making groups of humans, a long way from each other, work together because of shared interests.
Not really. Solving the propulsion and energy generation problems would have done that, but not merely sending a bunch more people to a space rock for a few days using chemical rockets. EMDrive is interesting if it works, but significantly more efficient energy generation still eludes us.
Which of these do you think would generate outrage? Axing the moonshot, or defunding an experimental thruster research program?
Doing cool stuff might not be the most efficient way to do research, but it's a hell of a lot better than nothing, and it inspires generations.
I mean, honestly I'm not so sure what the huge rush is to expand to another planet when we're having so much trouble with just one.
It's not that I don't want to see us move past the boundaries of this planet, but on the list of things I'd want to see before my time is up on this planet, there's plenty of things like the end of world hunger or bringing the poorest people in the world to an infinitely better standard of living that come way before us living on another planet.
In the very long term moving to another planet is a way to stave off the end of our species (amongst other positive things), but in the very very long term the odds are we won't live on indefinitely, I think improving the lives of those who come before now and that time is probably the most worthwhile thing we can do.
Some stuff is actually awesome and worthwhile (and cost effective) like the robotic exploration of the solar system, and a little supports SpaceX which uses the money to develop technology that enables cheap access to space.
But I think most of that money is a jobs program for high paying jobs congressmen want in their districts which help the economy tactically but might not be the best use of those people's effort. But, the provided jobs also support a skills base and supplier ecosystem that would allow shifting some of those people and parts suppliers into doing something more necessary to the government like defense stuff. The thinking is that if that money goes away and those people get laid off, they'll stop working in aerospace, move into finance or whatever, college kids will not study space engineering because they'll hear there are no jobs, and defense contractors will have a harder time hiring the next time a big defense program is funded.
SpaceX is doing what you feel NASA should have been doing in the 80s with 3 decades between then and now, with all that comes with 3 decades.
But you could be a woman. And it's more of a 2D scale.
That said, whatever you point to, you can always find greater tragedies. I don't think such comparisons would help much here.
If I'm shot, that hurts.
That these are different in scale and scope doesn't mean they can't share a (vague) label. Tragedy exists at many scales.
Apart from the first line, this quote doesn't apply here and frankly makes no sense. Yes, English may borrow (or steal forcefully, apparently) words from other languages, but that does not mean the language internally must not have its purity defended. Devaluating terms to have little meaning (awesome, terrible, fantastic) is not my idea of progress.
(Foreign languages on the other hand are a good source of new words which can be introduced, already inflated, into English.)
Awesome, terrible, and fantastic all have meaning. They have as much meaning as they ever have. They have different meanings, and the broadening and shifting of their meanings has allowed people to communicate with more effectiveness and nuance.
There is no inherent value in words having "strong" (as in forceful) meanings. If people do not use them that way it's because they do not need them that way.
King Arthur: "A scratch?! Your arm's off!"
Example:
- Jump on train tracks (when it's not your job) to save a complete stranger even though it might leave your own family without you: HERO!
- Fireman runs into burning building to save people? HERO! (Even though that is the job description).
See also 'badass' for special forces and 'brainy' for scientists. It's not wrong to describe them that way even if it's all in a day's work.
Those two things are not mutually exclusive. Saying "we make aggressive interior attacks and perform primary search" is fine, but you don't do that when you see signs of imminent structural collapse on arrival. All firefighters take risk, but it's a calculated risk. Now granted, the line is somewhat subjective and different departments do have different policies but still... I don't know of any department that preaches the idea that you display no judgment at all, and wantonly waste your life.
If you're in a town of 3,000 people, there are a very limited number of potential firemen you can have. If they die rescuing someone, dozens of others die because there is no one else to rescue them.
Around harvest time it was expected that the neighbors would have their tractors standing by hooked up with discs to till the crops and build fire lines.
Dedicated fire fighters aren't the only people who can put out fires.
We went to the moon. We were temporarily a space-fearing species.
Shit went down on earth.
We're now back to terrestrial only.
Hopefully one day we will be a multi-planetary species.
"Hope you got a backup plan"
-- Giant Space Rock