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?

  • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
    4·
    12 days ago

    There are so many reason we do these things as engineers. For me, it used to be about having all our marbles in one basket on Earth. But, as I get older, I find the science and engineering are just the better parts of humanity. There’s so much nasty stuff happening in the world out there

    We launched The Nancy Grace Roman Telescope at the end of August, and I literally cried watching it separate from the rocket. 5 years of my life, and a president who tried to cancel the program, not once, not twice, but three times. All of the work we did at the end of last year under duress of the OMB crap, and NASA cutting 25% of the workforce, trying go defund Goddard.

    So, yeah, this stuff isn’t just something I do for money, or the challenge. I do it bcz it’s my life, it’s what makes the bestof humanity, all of the knowledge and hope we have as a species.

    Edit: To answer your actual question, the moon is a great jumping point to other parts of the solar system. Launching from the moon has so many benefits over the earth due to our gravity well being so large. As for why we’d do any of this at all. It’s a great place to test out living in space, and the technologies we need to do it. If we stay on this rock, we are dooming ourselves eventually. (Whether it’s climate change, or a cosmic event, or something else). Right or wrong, people want to go into space, and this is the best way to test out our ability to do that. All the politics aside, we have the technology to go to Mars now. The issue is logistics, and political will stopping us.