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Comment by treydey | Hacker News Reader

A bit ironic that Yusaku Maezawa wants the mission to be about "World Peace" when the $200+ million he most likely spent could be better served on Earth. Just call it what it is, a wish to be part of something bigger.

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This letter, written by the former NASA director Stuhlinger answers this question IMHO perfectly:

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html?...

That's a remarkable letter. It would make a good standalone HN post.... Just checked - it's been posted twice previously and got a total of 6 upvotes.

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Stuhlinger&sort=byPopularity&p...

yeah that letter made me a little teary, maybe a time for another repost?

Thanks for this. It'll take me a while to digest it.

You asking man that job and paycheck depends on spending large amount of public money not to defend spending it on its projects?

Rockets dont feed people, a billion pounds or rice do! Otoh, great letter indeed!

Weather satellites, communications satellites, ground resource survey satellites, improved weather and climate models based on lessons learned by analysing the atmospheres of other planets. These have all boosted agricultural productivity on earth, putting more food into more mouths more cheaply.

In a matter of few days? Cause as far as I know human can survive without food for maximum of 10 days.

You argument make sense if we take human out of equation. Then we shouldn't be feeding poor AT ALL, given 1,000 years of founding tech with 100% budget would definitely save more lives.. eventually.

Edit: put it in other words: somebody is dying of hunger today so we can fund better technology for tomorrow, sure. Let's just hope its not me or you starving, if that kind of argument helps you sleep at night.

Nobody can grow a crop of rice from scratch in 10 days either. Agriculture intrinsically is a long term process requiring multi-year or multi-decade long investments. It's not a case of feeding people now OR investing in being able to feed them in the future. You have to balance both.

It's is entirely possible to fund agricultural development and space technology, and balance the two to complement each other. Space technology has a proven track record of massive technological and humanitarian benefits. Why are you complaining about it, instead of say people wasting hundreds of billions each year on Hollywood movies and TV shows, or many other unproductive activities which we spend more on than space.

Did you read the whole letter? It specifically answers how spending money on ambitious scientific and extploretory ventures leads to a lot of us inventing different stuff. The device you’re posting this comment was made with tech that was developed specifically for this exact space race :)

Where do you think that money is being spent? They don't just haul it into space and shovel it out an airlock.

Obviously it's being spent on developing the rocket. My issue is that he specifically states that the mission is about "inspiring world peace". There are clearly better ways to inspire world peace than taking a lap around the moon.

For $200 million? I can’t think of any. Remember the world economy is approximately half a million times bigger than the amount of money being spent on this. Even the most recent summer Olympics (which are, I think, supposed to be world peace promoting) was 655 times more expensive.

There are numerous ways to address world peace such as through education, technology, medicine etc. According to this paper by the WHO and UNICEF there was a shortage of about $11 billion for immunization. How many hundreds of thousands could be saved from a $200 million donation?

http://www.who.int/choice/publications/p_2007_Scaling-up_Imm...

How many? 2% of those who don’t.

Or it could be spent on mosquito nets. I’m told those are very cost-effective.

Or it could be spent on testing African-Americans for sickle-cell anaemia as children. I’ve been told that’s so cost-effective that it’s actually a negative cost per person once your account for necessary medical treatment as adults, as it’s much cheaper to provide effective treatment for those same people as children.

Or it could be spent replacing fossil fuels with solar power and electric cars so people don’t die from air pollution oh wait hang on…

Or we can make self driving cars so that distracted drivers don’t crash and kill so many people… hang on a minute, there’s a pattern here isn’t there?

So you don't think the headline, "Maezawa spends a quarter of a billion to save hundreds of thousands" would have a larger impact on world peace than the current one? Let me get this straight, I don't mind how he's spending his money. My entire issue is that he doesn't need to bring in world peace as a reasoning to go to the moon. He's helping advance technology which is a noble cause.

“Doesn’t need to”? No but he wants to, and he is justified in doing so.

Commoditizing space travel may save the human race.

That's Elon's point & goal.

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