Originally posted by humy
This isn't a good reason to put people into space now! Antarctica is actually a more hospitable place than outer space because at least there is breathable air there so why not use the same reasoning to justify putting colonies of people in deep underground disaster bunkers in the ice sheets right in the middle of Antarctica? Actually, I have a better idea: don ...[text shortened]... ing the ones we cannot prevent ) and ended world poverty, start putting people in space, simple.
No no no no.
First off... you cannot know how long we have before we MUST become a space faring
species or go extinct. ANY delay MIGHT be too long, We spotted the two mile wide
comet that just hurtled into the sun 1 year ago and that was unusual.
If it had been on a direct Earth impacting trajectory what would we have done?
The dinosaurs might well still be around if they had a working 'dinosaur'd' space program.
Second... As I said before, the reason we have not eradicated poverty is not because
we are short of the money or resources to do so.
We have VASTLY more resources than are needed to eradicate poverty.
The problem is one of distribution, those resources are concentrated in a few at the
expense of others... which actually hurts everyone.
Solving this problem is ENTIRELY independent on whether or not we have a manned space program.
We could solve it with a manned space program, or without one...
So it would thus be idiotic to scrap the manned space program to solve world poverty as the
two have NOTHING to do with each other.
The manned space program inspires people in a way that robots don't and can't.
And fundamentally WE need to leave the planet in numbers if we want to survive.
And achieving that requires learning how to send people into space.
And finally. I WANT TO GO INTO SPACE. Along with a great many others.
And barring a miracle I will die before all your problems get solved.
I am not giving up my dream because the worlds politicians can't get their act together to solve
these problems. I vote for change, I argue for change, I support and advocate for change.
But I neither will, nor should give up on any other dream just so I can spend my one and only
short existence fighting this long battle to the exclusion of all else.
Particularly as building full on space habitats and gaining access to the vast resources in space
as well as developing the technologies needed to do so, could very well help bring about the changes
we want to see.