While I don't disagree, I do wonder whether any of the money used for this would have made it to, let alone resolve/eliminate those issues. I can't help but wonder if the problem isn't more the ever-widening economic/income gap that exists not only in this country, but around the world. Wouldn't closing that gap do more to help remedy the food compromised, unemployed, homeless, etc.? Just wondering.Originally Posted by frugal-one
To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer." Mahatma Gandhi
Be nice whenever possible. It's always possible. HH Dalai Lama
In a world where you can be anything - be kind. Unknown
If I understand this recent trip... it is to see if life previous inhabited that planet. The reality is ... that it doesn’t matter but the money spent here WOULD help people here now. It may not eliminate or resolve the issue? Who knows? Just spending money on this seems frivolous when so many need help.
I could see putting all this project money directly into enhancing and expanding both existing and new social welfare programs across the country for housing, food, healthcare and employment projects for... say, anyone with an income at or below the national poverty level.
To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer." Mahatma Gandhi
Be nice whenever possible. It's always possible. HH Dalai Lama
In a world where you can be anything - be kind. Unknown
Why doesn't anyone understand that the money WAS spent here??? It paid salaries, bought material, funded research that resulted in a lot of the technology we now take for granted, and every dollar spent circulated through the economy as people bought things and the people who provided those goods and services used the money they made to buy things and on and on..... I've been listening to this same "the money should have been spent here" crap for 60 years and it's no more true now than is was in 1961.
Are there ways the money could have been targeted better to reduce the income gap or to fund infrastructure improvements or to give everyone free basic medical care or to create environmentally friendly agriculture and energy or any number of other worthy things? Of course it could! But as long as big corporations and rich people create all the rules and make all the decisions, none of that is going to happen. We're lucky that at least the space program has given us tangible technological advances and kept a lot of people employed for all these years.
If you want to defund science, defund the people who build giant colliders and underground labs trying to prove the existence of some elusive sub-atomic particle that may not even exist. Defund the people who spend huge sums building facilities and employing scientists trying to prove that gravity waves actually exist. Defund the people who build giant radio telescopes (SETI) and supply men and equipment to them decade after decade in hopes that maybe one day they'll hear a faint intelligent radio signal that left some distant planet 10,000 years ago.
I don't entirely disagree with the "the money would be better spent here" argument. However, it's hard not to credit the NASA scientists, whose robotic exploration of Mars has been a roaring success, vastly increasing human knowledge at a fraction of the cost of manned space exploration. And while I can't cite specific figures, I'm guessing that most of the scientists who worked on this project could have made much bigger salaries working in the private sector. They did what they did for love, so I'm loathe to split hairs about the cost.
The US is more than wealthy enough to feed its poor, rebuild its infrastructure and provide medical care for all citizens. Recently I read somewhere that Jeff Bezos could give $100,000 to every one of Amazon's 800,000+ global employees and still be richer than he was when the pandemic started. I think that's a much bigger problem than spending $2.7 billion for the kind of stunning accomplishment shown in that video.
All science is learned over decades or centuries of research. Economic inequality comes when wealth is stolen to benefit a few who gain either by birth, war or theft and fight to retain it. All humans, more often men, seem to do this to a greater or lesser degree.
I don't think that science and greed can be classed or evaluated for public benefit together.
As Cicero said, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”
This was not the time to do this. We have so many out of work and food insecurities. Why do we even need to know if there was life there? Who cares?
Something about how the planets were aligned that made this an attractive window.
I agree that space exploration often leads to new inventions/discoveries--which doesn't make acres of inhospitable red dirt any more attractive to me.
This is the kind of argument often made against pure science. It's not just whether or not there was ever life on Mars, or how subatomic particles behave, or the mating habits of some obscure insect. It's the discoveries that result from these kinds of explorations that advance human knowledge and very often benefit humankind in ways that aren't immediately apparent.
Who cares about the shapes of birds' beaks in the Galapagos Islands? Charles Darwin did, and laid the foundations of modern biology. But just think of how many poor people in England the cost of that voyage could have fed!
I am sure it did not cost much for Darwin AND we were not in the throws of a pandemic where masses of people were out of work and looking for help with basic necessities. What a waste.
DH says this exploration was done to figure out how to weaponize outer space. Money to be made there. Wouldn't surprise me.
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