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Comment by eliaspro | Hacker News Reader

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 :)

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