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Comment by kharak | Hacker News Reader

I'm glad that the space age has been rekindled. I wish Europe would do something similar.

Thinking of Europe, I have a feeling that it's just surreal that this launch is happening in America at the same time with the events in Minneapolis

We're a big country. Plenty of space to do multiple things at once

There is an eerie echo of history here. The late 60's were the height of civil unrest in modern America. Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated as Apollo astronauts were preparing to land on the moon.

Interesting point. And the riots today are nothing compared to the late 60's. Yet.

In a few years, when people watch this historic footage, you have to explain why everybody is wearing masks.

https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4

Nice... I had this one kicking around in my head

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7DZcRFbSSQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC7tRE4BV14

Given the size of the US, it's comparable to riots going on in France persistently while there are none in Germany. Some cities are affected, some are not. 99% of the US isn't seeing any riot problems right now.

Tech in Europe is far behind, because huge sums of money are spent on pensions and welfare, supported by huge taxes on income and consumption.

Plus, the continent speaks 20+ different languages.

There is no room or encouragement for individual entrepreneurs like Elon Musk. They are regulated and taxed to death.

Europe faces labor shortages in farms and factories, and their solution has been to import labour, illegally, from the 3rd world - to the detriment of their local population and societies. They are anti-tech, at a fundamental level.

You know that taxes are a major part of research funding in the EU right?

Also Europe does has a nack for immense projects like LHC or ITER.

Being European also, I honestly am not in favour of it. The amount of public money that flows into these ventures without well defined purpose in a time where we're hitting 20% unemployment due to a pandemic seems grotesque to me. There's a lot more things to fix on this planet.

Unemployment and poverty are always going to be there and never be 100% removed. Not in the near future.

Wouldn’t starting a space mission create thousands of direct and indirect jobs?

These advancements are not taking money away from them. The research we did towards all of the space travel in the past 6 decades have given us dividends on several fronts.

There's obviously spill over happening from these things I don't ignore that completely, but if we're going that way I'd honestly rather see the money and manpower go towards terrestrial science that focusses on improving our lot here. There's opportunity cost there. With billions of dollars you can fund a lot of vaccines or infrastructure or science that helps people in more tangible ways.

Seeing people talking about going to Mars or building space hotels with the situation around the world seems more ghoulish to me than anything else.

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