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Re:SpaceshipTwo crashes shortly after Mojave test flight by 7952 on Friday October 31, 2014 @04:42PM (#8541018)
To be fair space flight has some significant advantages from an environmental perspective. Earth observation satellites are essential for understanding how the atmosphere works and how the planet is changing. Also, the unique constraints of space have lead to the development of sustainable technology such as solar panels, fuel cells, and better water purification.
Re:SpaceshipTwo crashes shortly after Mojave test flight by jedmeyers on Friday October 31, 2014 @05:33PM (#8541234)
Who cares? Let's feed the poor first and worry about bigger stuff later. Reminds me of a story about a letter written by Sister Mary Jucunda from Zambia to Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger, then-associate director of science at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. (http://www.meaus.com/whyExplore.html)
Re:SpaceshipTwo crashes shortly after Mojave test flight by 7952 on Friday October 31, 2014 @06:56PM (#8541501)
Well feeding the world is a more challenging problem than space flight ever will be. It is not like you can just sign a massive check and deploy some engineers and suddenly poor people in Africa will have enough to eat. But the comparatively trivial challenge of space flight can provide real benefits. Weather satellites can let farmers and governments plan ahead. A single remote sensing satellite can map desertification (which destroy farm land), and track floods (which destroy crops).
Re:SpaceshipTwo crashes shortly after Mojave test flight by JabavuAdams on Saturday November 01, 2014 @11:31AM (#8543369)
There are so many structural / societal problems in the way of feeding the poor that it's not a very interesting problem. You would have to re-engineer our society and power-structures.

Better to make incremental progress on poverty, without constraining the innovators to work on problems that don't interest them, or that seem even more intractable than e.g. space travel or AI.