Apollo 13 enhanced images reveal life on stricken spacecraft

Now think about when would we have GPS if there hasn't been rush to the space.

It helps put todays (communication) satellites into space.

> The US needs to adopt space policies that actually advance science and technology, not manned spaceflight just for feel-good PR shots.

I would guess that your man-in-the-street can identify much more readily with another human doing 'something' in space than they can some 'robot', even if the latter might be more more productive. And what's wrong with some 'entertainment', not every aspect of life needs to be optimised and tuned for full productivity / efficiency.

I agree to almost all points, but de-orbiting ISS would be a waste. Dozens of astronauts go there (and to Mir before that) every year for decades, and yet every day their work time is packed with scientific experiments. Sure, some of that work could be done by automatic labs, but humans can do a lot of things machines still can't. So, it's a valuable source of data and knowledge that we wouldn't get otherwise.

ISS is expected to function for another 10 years, and its lifetime is very likely to be extended further. Big part of ongoing expenses is transportation of materials and personnel, but it will be lowered over time due to competition.

The problem is not manned space exploration. The problem is a lack of focus on making space exploration cheaper, and a lack of investment.

Space Shuttle wasn't cheaper. It was ridiculously expensive, with designs decisions that shouldn't be made in the first place. If it was just a rocket that launched astronauts into space. That would be one thing. It's quite another to carry literal deadweight into space.

Look at SpaceX's starship program. It's much more ambitious than anything we have on the drawing board. It isn't just another super heavy lift rocket, but a mass manufacturable reusable launch system. Everyone else is still thinking about how they will make reusuable rockets. Meanwhile, SpaceX is making their own game, playing on their own level.

Manned flight isn't a burden. It has nothing to do with why we stagnated in rocket development. In fact, manned flight is the point of SpaceX, especially colonization.

I think that most space fanboys would agree with part of your argument. Just like the Shuttle did in the late 70's and 80's, Artemis and the Space Launch System are decimating NASA's budget to perform real science.

It's particularly galling that NASA is giving Boeing $2B/launch whereas Elon is targeting $2M/launch for a similar capability. Few people believe he'll reach that target, but a miss on such an audacious target will get us far more than spending much more on something that teaches us less even if it's more likely. (And given Boeing's performance lately, "more likely" is in doubt too).

> A good start would be de-orbiting the ISS ASAP - the final manned space flight should be to send somebody to the ISS with a chain saw.

This is the sunk cost fallacy in reverse. Yes, you may question the costs of ISS decisions in the past but right now the ISS is doing real science at a reasonable cost as long as you ignore the massive number of dollars wasted in the past. That money is spent, we can't get them back. Even NASA agrees that it's not worth the money to refurbish the ISS but they're going to continue using it as long as they can without spending real money on it.

PR matters because without PR people forget things exist or are worth spending money on. Without manned space flight I suspect you get roughly 36 hours before the first Senator proposes slashing NASA's budget.

You could have been better received if you didn't:

  * Use the pejorative "fanboi"
  * Propose a strawman that manned-spaceflight enthusiasts think it is all about entertainment

Now that we have the rude parts out of the way:

Yes, there were many conflicting priorities in various manned-spaceflight programs through US history. Yes, we have had many achievements due to researching human life in space. Yes, a long term (more than a presidency) goal should be sustainable human life on another rock. Yes, we can do both manned- and unmanned- space research simultaneously, if we can attempt to de-politicize it a little.

Please don't be an asshole on HN, even if you don't feel nostalgic for space travel. It helps no one and just makes the thread worse. We've had to ask you this kind of thing before. You've got some good points here, but in the future please express your good points thoughtfully.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.

Smartphones also.

Smallpox may have gone but I'm fairly sure that there was a vaccine for that a very long time ago. As regards extreme poverty, I don't know that the situation in sub-Saharan Africa has improved, it may even have become worse. But I'm not doubting that there have been massive improvements in a qualitative sense to such an extent that in some ways they are revolutionary.

The 50 or so years from about 1895 gave us powered flight, radio and television, the first antibiotics, nuclear energy, rockets capable of escaping earth orbit, the big bang understanding of the origins of the universe, motor cars and even car phones. They also gave us two world wars which may be significant. By comparison the last 50 years appears rather dull, from this layman's perspective.

> Extreme poverty has halved or so in the last 30 years.

People love to bring this up, but always fail to mention the change is almost entirely in China and India. The US has completely stagnated and done pretty much nothing new in the past 30 years.

Rent-collection is the only imperative now.