Is it really necessary to send humans to those places just to get the knock-on benefits? Couldn’t we do those things directly, without going there?

It seems to me that, today, those who have the money to spend on these endeavors would only do so if there were perceived short-term benefits to themselves. That means they plan to exploit the resources, or increase their own power somehow.

I know the good engineers that make this happen are doing it for the challenge and in the pursuit of knowledge, and I know that’s why we poors support it, but that doesn’t “pay the bills.” What is the motivation behind the money? Why are they really doing this?

  • bitteroldcoot@piefed.social
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    2 个月前

    In the case of musk and his billionaire friends, they just want to escape the consequences of their actions and become above the law. Basically they want to be a king, with no laws restraining them.

    • half_built_pyramids@lemmy.world
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      2 个月前

      It’s also a good distraction, doubt they actually think people will live on the moon or Mars

      Someone else pointed out that you could set off every nuke that has ever existed and the earth would still be more hospitable than mars

      To repeat myself a little, it’s all a distraction from making things better here, like the bezoes quote about getting 10,000 Einsteins in the future by expanding in the solar system, and it’s like dude, you might have 100 Einsteins pissing in bottles in your warehouse right now but they can’t afford school or groceries or rent

    • stoy@lemmy.zip
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      2 个月前

      I just wished they got the fuck on with it and left earth already, so we can turn off their radio coms and start fixing things

    • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 个月前

      That already seems to be the case, I’m with the other commenters who think it’s a distraction and/or window dressing for their horrible actions here on earth.