Hacker News Reader

Comment by Dudelander | Hacker News Reader

Probably an unpopular opinion around here, but honestly I think defense, healthcare, and food security to be more practical than human space exploration. I know that major advances in computing were made during the Apollo mission, but that was 60 years ago. What have you done for us lately?

View on HN

Maybe Starlink ? That already showed serious defense implications for example. And while not in-your-face visible I'm sure all the remote sensing sats launched in the last two decades improved our weather forecast, disaster monitoring and agricultural production significantly.

Yeah, but those aren't related to human space exploration. Not saying we should get rid of the space program 100% - just reduce it's cost by cancelling all the human spaceflight projects.

there are too many existential threats when looking on a long enough timeline to not justify making humanity interplanetary. It just has to happen at some point and i'd like to get moving before i giant asteroid comes hurtling at the planet, or the yellowstone volcano decides to erupt.

I see this as an AM/FM problem. If one of these disasters happen, then we should rely on "actual machines" to mitigate or avoid them, and not rely on "F*ing Magic" like interplanetary colonization.

I'm not saying we shouldn't try to expand what's possible with "actual machines", but that should be up to academia - and they're pretty clear that human space exploration isn't worth the money.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com