** The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond **

Soldato
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@stockhausen
I remember very similar views in 1969 before and after a successful moon landing.

Climate change did not appear a huge issue back then but world hunger, poverty and disease all got an airing. Not a lot changes which is why it's aspirational to do these things, climb Everest (first), explore the sea bed, go to the moon and Mars.
 
Associate
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Yeah. I guess you'd have to be of a certain age to instantly recognise that horrible 1980's front bumper of a Rover 216.

Made me chuckle anyways.
 
Soldato
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Such a sad state of affairs that there are more of these people repeating this on virtually every NASA tweet now :rolleyes:

Sadly these folks have always existed, modern tech just gives us the ability to see how many are out there. I would also wager that the overwhelming vast majority have zero idea how much net benefit the world gets from the tech that goes into space travel, nor are they likely to be the people at the forefront of actually fixing any of the issues they raise, instead just being happy just to use SM to virtue signal because thats far easier than actually putting in any effort themselves.

Even if we lived in a Star Trek style utopia, free of sickness & poverty etc, they'd still be the type of people to complain!
 
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I for one applaud NASA for their achievements, and think it is crucial that we endeavour to widen our horizons as much as we can.

The nay sayers won't be complaining if the tech being developed and our ventures out into space one day save the Earth from an extinction event.

The alternative is to bury our heads in the sand and stay inward looking, and we all know where that will eventually lead.
 
Capodecina
Soldato
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Such a sad state of affairs that there are more of these people repeating this on virtually every NASA tweet now :rolleyes:
I suspect that the views in that tweet are probably quite commonly held.

Many Americans probably feel proud of a remarkable achievement, right up until they realise just how pointless it is.
Most of the rest of the world is likely bewildered at the selfishness of financing an extravagant vanity project intended to discover if single celled life forms died out on a distant planet billions of years ago when a lake dried up.

Two thoughts occur to me:
  • Thomas Aquinas, Angels and pins
  • "Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall"
Perhaps I am wrong, perhaps everybody on the planet would sell a kidney to subscribe to crowd funding this foolishness?
 
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+1

I am actually surprised anyone even feels this way. Even the small bit of research would show that it is a silly thing to think and say.

What's silly about it?

I don't agree with them but I don't think it's silly to suggest that there are far more pressing matters all that money could go towards.
 

mrk

mrk

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What's silly about it?

I don't agree with them but I don't think it's silly to suggest that there are far more pressing matters all that money could go towards.

But as has been mentioned already here and in pretty much every other platform where this comes up as a topic, there are countless organisation dedicated to the pressing local matters already. NASA's objective is to do science and in that path they research and develop new technologies that trickle down to local pressing matters too which otherwise would never have existed like clean water and air filtration for parts of the world that are suffering, robotic surgery and many other things. The vast majority of things that the naysayers take for granted day in day out came about thanks to past space exploration R&D, but they wouldn't know that because lifting a finger to type anything but negative comments instead of doing a bit of self research to be better informed is all they are capable of!
 
Soldato
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.. just how pointless it is.
Most of the rest of the world is likely bewildered at the selfishness of financing an extravagant vanity project intended to discover if single celled life forms died out on a distant planet billions of years ago when a lake dried up.
you might want to google how much innovation has trickled down to day to day society thanks to space programs and how much ground-breaking research is done aboard the ISS for example that have and will help mankind in the future.
 

TNA

TNA

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But as has been mentioned already here and in pretty much every other platform where this comes up as a topic, there are countless organisation dedicated to the pressing local matters already. NASA's objective is to do science and in that path they research and develop new technologies that trickle down to local pressing matters too which otherwise would never have existed like clean water and air filtration for parts of the world that are suffering, robotic surgery and many other things. The vast majority of things that the naysayers take for granted day in day out came about thanks to past space exploration R&D, but they wouldn't know that because lifting a finger to type anything but negative comments instead of doing a bit of self research to be better informed is all they are capable of!
+1
 
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