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?

  • half_built_pyramids@lemmy.world
    34·
    5 hours ago

    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

    • Soggy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      2 hours ago

      Or in the words of Stephen Jay Gould,

      “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”

    • Cousin Mose@lemmy.hogru.ch
      1·
      2 hours ago

      getting 10,000 Einsteins in the future by expanding in the solar system

      This is incredibly random but I’ve been wondering lately what might happen if we colonized a place where comparatively speaking time moves much faster than on Earth.

      In theory you could bring back years of advancement in a shorter timespan, but this is obviously just a pipe dream.

      • pulsewidth@lemmy.world
        1·
        2 minutes ago

        Interstellar is just a movie, mate. There is no such planet, time passes at the same rate everywhere - ie the caesium standard.

        Time dilation is a thing, but as far as I’m aware it’s not possible to travel someplace, pass any greater amount of time, and then return as though less time had passed - that’s time travel. It’s theoretically impossible, at least with current technology and understanding of relativity. Great movie though.