Space Station - Why?

Originally posted by humy
Knowing long term effects of zero gravity on people will not be important for a long time assuming the governments aren't stupid enough to waste billions of dollars sending loads of people in space long term when, right now, we need as much money spend on problems here on Earth such as world poverty.

Fortunately, we can easily muster the means to send people to space and solve world poverty at the same time.

Originally posted by Soothfast
Uh huh. To paraphrase, "Microgravity research is a giant waste that could be done cheaper on Earth." Whatever you say. So, pharmaceutical companies (always concerned about the bottom line and making profits) are paying BIG bucks to have experiments conducted in space just for "politicians" and to "gain votes". Here, just read this random article I foun ...[text shortened]... ssinfo.ch/eng/science_technology/Space_firms_team_up_for_zero-gravity_research.html?cid=37012994

"Microgravity research is a giant waste that could be done cheaper on Earth." Whatever you say.

can't you read? I neither said nor implied anything of the sort. I said “space station”. I said nothing about microgravity.

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/science_technology/Space_firms_team_up_for_zero-gravity_research.html?cid=37012994

Have your read this? I said nor implied anything about satellites but it still appears to firms my general claim that these experiments could be done by other more cost-effective means other than the space station:

“(Until now) it was complicated to go into a real micro-gravity environment – the only real option was to use the International Space Station (ISS), which is related to problems like cost“

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Fortunately, we can easily muster the means to send people to space and solve world poverty at the same time.

But, with our finite resources, we would do the important stuff, like eliminate things like poverty, faster if we concentrate as much of our finite resources on such things and as little at possible on less important stuff that can wait a few years without people dying or suffering in the mean time.
Then, once we done the important stuff as soon as possible, I would not object to us doing less important stuff like sending loads of people to space and have space stations etc because then doing that would not indirectly have harmful consequences via competing with resources for the really important stuff.

Originally posted by humy
But, with our finite resources, we would do the important stuff, like eliminate things like poverty, faster if we concentrate as much of our finite resources on such things and as little at possible on less important stuff that can wait a few years without people dying or suffering in the mean time.
Then, once we done the important stuff as soon as possible, ...[text shortened]... ndirectly have harmful consequences via competing with resources for the really important stuff.

The resources we have available are far beyond what we need to solve world poverty. World poverty is not a result of a lack of resources, but simply a result of choices made by societies and governments locally.

Originally posted by humy
Knowing long term effects of zero gravity on people will not be important for a long time assuming the governments aren't stupid enough to waste billions of dollars sending loads of people in space long term when, right now, we need as much money spend on problems here on Earth such as world poverty.

Prove to me that the key discovery to curing cancer, or alzheimer's, or arthritis, won't be
discovered by people trying to solve the problem of how people can survive long term in space.


It's often been the case that the right collection of specialities and people came together to
solve a problem, only because they were brought together to try to solve some other problem.

Because you don't know where the breakthrough will come from you often don't know in advance
which specialities will be needed, and dedicated efforts to solve the particular problem failed
because nobody realised that the missing breakthrough would come from some other seemingly
unrelated field.

This is why the new medical research lab being built in the UK in partnership with the Royal Institution
is putting such heavy design emphasis on making sure that people from different disciplines are
mixed up together to promote and facilitate collaboration.


We need blue sky research, Just as much as directed research. We need hard problems to solve
to explore new ideas and push back boundaries. We need science to inspire.
We need a space program, and a manned one and we need it now.

And it has done nothing to make people poorer... In fact the opposite is true.


We have way way more than enough resources to solve poverty worldwide while massively increasing
science and space research.


It's not an either / or situation. In fact, you are not going to solve poverty WITHOUT science and
inspiration.


Also, until you can prove to me that the decades (minimum) it would take with even a massive diplomatic
effort to solve all the problems on this planet wont use up all the time we have before an asteroid comes
to wipe us out... I don't know how you can claim that we do have the time to wait.


And lastly. It might well take a generation, or more, to solve these problems to your satisfaction.
During which time those alive now will no longer be eligible for space travel.

How do you tell them that they cannot fulfil their dreams, and inspire others to do the same?

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
The resources we have available are far beyond what we need to solve world poverty. World poverty is not a result of a lack of resources, but simply a result of choices made by societies and governments locally.

I agree totally with that. But, given the possibly (and I am not saying it necessarily is ) unwise choice that is made and will be continually made by societies and governments to make insufficient resources and money available for, say, for example, BOTH a space station AND to eliminate all poverty, we have to live and adapt to that unwise choice by at least prioritizing the more important one over the other to hopefully achieve the more important one as soon as possible and that means temporarily dumping the less important one.

Possibly (and I am not saying it necessarily is ) the ideal solution would be to convince everyone to commit enough resources to both. But I guess that will not happen for a very long time anyway so, in the mean time, we need to prioritize.

Originally posted by humy
I agree totally with that. But, given the unwise choice that is made and will be continually made by societies and governments to make insufficient resources and money available for, say, for example, BOTH a space station AND to eliminate all poverty, we have to live and adapt to that unwise choice by at least prioritizing the more important one over the ...[text shortened]... ore important one as soon as possible and that means temporarily dumping the less important one.

Nope. Bad reasoning.


Poverty is not going unsolved because we have space programs.

That's like arguing that if America cut it's defence spending they could solve poverty.

What would actually happen is that they would reduce the deficit a bit and give more
tax breaks to the wealthy.

You can solve poverty WITH the huge defence spending you have.

Cutting that wont solve poverty... Solving poverty will solve that.


That requires dedicated political will.

Which you will not get by scrapping space programs, or anything else.

All you will get is a scrapped space program and a lost generation of science.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Nope. Bad reasoning.


Poverty is not going unsolved because we have space programs.

That's like arguing that if America cut it's defence spending they could solve poverty.

What would actually happen is that they would reduce the deficit a bit and give more
tax breaks to the wealthy.

You can solve poverty WITH the huge defence spending you ...[text shortened]... anything else.

All you will get is a scrapped space program and a lost generation of science.

Poverty is not going unsolved because we have space programs.

whether that is true or false depends on how much resources are committed to each and how much can be diverted from one to the other. Anyway, I wasn't talking about “space programs” in particular but rather the space station -I would say we need weather satellites for example to give us early warning of hurricanes to save lives etc.

That's like arguing that if America cut it's defence spending they could solve poverty.

No, it is not. Without defense spending, there could be harmful consequences like a rouge nation taking advantage and starting a war with you and thus some (probably many ) people die. This compares with not building a space station where it is far from obvious what the harmful consequences, if any, would be. Certainly it seems unlikely that anyone will die as a direct result of NOT building a space station!

Which you will not get by scrapping space programs, or anything else.

I wasn't talking about space programs. Would you concede that if a government has X FINITE amount of money available (presumably through taxation ) and the government spends more of that FINITE amount on one thing then it would have less to spend on other things? -point, different things that require resources spent on them compete for those resources so the more you spend one one, the less you spend on the other. Why should this be any different for spending on, say, the space station versus poverty?

All you will get is a scrapped space program and a lost generation of science

I wasn't talking about scrapping either science nor space programs.

Originally posted by humy
I agree totally with that. But, given the possibly (and I am not saying it necessarily is ) unwise choice that is made and will be continually made by societies and governments to make insufficient resources and money available for, say, for example, BOTH a space station AND to eliminate all poverty, we have to live and adapt to that unwise choice by at ...[text shortened]... ss that will not happen for a very long time anyway so, in the mean time, we need to prioritize.

If we want to really prioritize, then top of the list is this: Overpopulation.

If the world population was say, 1 billion instead of 8, there would be less poverty automatically because there would be a lot more of everything, for instance we would not need to stress the worlds resources to the limit like we are now, constantly pushing for more crops per acre and so forth, drilling for oil all over the world, fracking for natural gas, destroying ecologies, rainforests and all that. All due to overpopulation. You are blaming the wrong sector for poverty. There are simply WAY too many people on the planet for this planet to support.

Originally posted by sonhouse
If we want to really prioritize, then top of the list is this: Overpopulation.

If the world population was say, 1 billion instead of 8, there would be less poverty automatically because there would be a lot more of everything, for instance we would not need to stress the worlds resources to the limit like we are now, constantly pushing for more crops per ...[text shortened]... ctor for poverty. There are simply WAY too many people on the planet for this planet to support.

That should certainly be one of the top priorities I think. Not sure how funding for that would work other than giving gentle advice and contraception which I fear may have very limited effect -I hope I am wrong about this and I could be but I fear it may be difficult to persuade sufficient numbers of people to have less children without some harsh laws (like those employed in China ) or, worse, mass sterilization, that most people and societies would find intolerable.

Originally posted by humy
I agree totally with that. But, given the possibly (and I am not saying it necessarily is ) unwise choice that is made and will be continually made by societies and governments to make insufficient resources and money available for, say, for example, BOTH a space station AND to eliminate all poverty, we have to live and adapt to that unwise choice by at ...[text shortened]... ss that will not happen for a very long time anyway so, in the mean time, we need to prioritize.

Since the appropriate "prioritization" is just as unlikely as good policies which would allow for both solving poverty and going to space, I will opt for the latter.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Since the appropriate "prioritization" is just as unlikely as good policies which would allow for both solving poverty and going to space, I will opt for the latter.

I could be wrong but I would guess "prioritization" is more likely than "good policies" because "good policies" in this context would require increases in income tax (so governments have enough money to spend on everything required and thus don't need to prioritize spending on anything ) and I have seen the ridiculous irrational opposition to that (they seem to not see the wider picture and just think about themselves and short term ) . But I would guess people would be less hostile to prioritizing how their tax money is spent because, put simply, that doesn't involve them paying more tax.

Originally posted by humy
That should certainly be one of the top priorities I think. Not sure how funding for that would work other than giving gentle advice and contraception which I fear may have very limited effect -I hope I am wrong about this and I could be but I fear it may be difficult to persuade sufficient numbers of people to have less children without some harsh laws (like t ...[text shortened]... in China ) or, worse, mass sterilization, that most people and societies would find intolerable.

You are both wrong.

Contraception advice coupled with economic growth and health care is doing
incredible work in reducing birth rates to replacement levels all over the world.

I will have to try to hunt down a statistic lecture that deals with exactly this.

This is why the world population is expected to stabilise at around 11 billion and
not just keep increasing exponentially.


Hah. here it is. they put it on youtube :-)

YouTube

Originally posted by humy
I could be wrong but I would guess "prioritization" is more likely than "good policies" because "good policies" in this context would require increases in income tax (so governments have enough money to spend on everything required and thus don't need to prioritize spending on anything ) and I have seen the ridiculous irrational opposition to that (they seem to ...[text shortened]... ing how their tax money is spent because, put simply, that doesn't involve them paying more tax.

Well, considering there are numerous societies where poverty has been eradicated, I suggest the rest of the world copies those societies.

Originally posted by humy

"Microgravity research is a giant waste that could be done cheaper on Earth." Whatever you say.

can't you read? I neither said nor implied anything of the sort. I said “space station”. I said nothing about microgravity.

[quote] http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/science_technology/Space_firms_team_up_for_zero-gravity_research.html?cid=37012 ...[text shortened]... was to use the International Space Station (ISS), which is related to problems like [b]cost“[/b]

The necessity of the ISS stems from the fact that many experiments in microgravity need a human present to conduct them properly. The option of using satellites does not cover all the bases -- and I might add that those private companies that are preparing to conduct experiments using automated satellites are using tons of data from the ISS project. It is precisely the experiences of the ISS project that will shed light on what is and isn't possible when considering cheaper options for doing microgravity research. Getting anything this monumental off the ground from scratch is going to bleed red for a long time before it turns a buck. It's called research and development, and you're just being extremely short-sighted to not recognize this. I thought the random article I linked to, which I did read, would connect the dots sufficiently, but all you zoomed in on was the one-liner about the ISS being expensive. You fail to grasp that the ISS was the trail-blazer that has shown that microgravity experiments are important, profitable, and worth pursuing by any and all means, including automated satellites.