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Comment by blancheneige | Hacker News Reader

rest assured the millions of taxpayer money are gone

Not really, they didn't take the money to mars, the green papers we created to symbolize value are still hanging on here on earth, on the hands of the people that one way or another helped to create this probe.

I'm not particularly talking about NASA, but the green papers created to symbolize value don't mean anything. Thousands of man-hours that could have been spent on something else are gone.

I am a bit worried that I might be feeding a troll... but in case I am not: How is studying the universe, and in particular a prospective second home for humans, not virtuous?

I didn't say anything about what the money was spent on (in fact, I specifically said I'm not talking about NASA), I was addressing the fallacy that because the little pieces of paper are still on earth, that means that nothing of value could have been lost.

as a physics PhD who spent 5 five years working with top cosmologists from around the world, I think I can provide a good answer: "studying the universe" today amounts to endlessly churning out rehashed fairy tale theories on arxiv in hopes of getting a publication no one will ever read only to obtain a grant that will let you do the exact same thing for another year.

As a physics PhD student this answer of yours mystifies me. Even in the last ten years there has been exciting progress (even when restricting oneself to a subset of the field like cosmology or high energy or astronomy or the intersection of these three). Better knowledge of CMB, exciting new neutrino measurements, gravitational waves to name the stuff off the top of my head.

But you were specifically complaining about studying Mars: if the goal is to give up and just live the most boring, safe and stagnated existence there is, then yes, we should stop exploring the solar system. Economic and cultural progress will slow down to a craw, but some people are content with that.

what you are referring to are the top 1% of researchers in their fields from whom you constantly hear about. the other 99% which account for the majority of grant money just keeps peddling nonsense for a living just so you can hear about their brand new idea of a dark cosmic gluon that could be produced by a yet unforeseen backreaction 10^18 ms after the big bang. give me a break. not that it's entirely their fault, given that it's either that or they'll be shunned by their "scientific" peers.

I'm all for space exploration and pushing the boundaries of humanity. which is why I'm rooting for companies like Space X or Virgin Galactic, not a relic of the cold war that keeps sending over-funded space junks in orbit so a bunch of cowboys can study how the respiratory cycle of frogs are affected in zero g.

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