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Comment by AlbertCory | Hacker News Reader

> We're so innovative

what I'm wondering is: what's the incentive to be "innovative" in the first place? Unless "innovation" is an end in itself.

Is there some great unmet need to send people to extreme depths, especially when unmanned probes can do most necessar work nowadays?

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> Is there some great unmet need to send people to extreme depths, especially when unmanned probes can do most necessar work nowadays?

Two reasons: 1) they had plenty of paying customers, so there was a demand

2) the CEO wanted to be remembered as an innovator, views this as being an explorer, and wanted to inspire people (he said so in interviews)

> “I’d like to be remembered as an innovator,” Rush said in the 2-year-old YouTube interview. “I think it was Gen. MacArthur said, ‘You’re remembered for the rules you break.’ And, you know, I’ve broken some rules to make this. I think I’ve broken them with logic and good engineering behind me, the carbon fiber and titanium — there’s a rule you don’t do that. Well, I did.”

And see what happens?

The only "unmet needs" such an endeavor need care about is convincing a deep-pocketed investor

Exactly. One could make the same claim about space tourism, but that one has some rational justification at least. I don't see a great benefit in having cheaper deep-water subs.

What’s the rational justification for space tourism?

I'm hoping someone will come up with one. Maybe lowering the cost & raising the safety standards for people who have useful work to do up there?

You can argue, but it won't be with me on the other side. I don't have a dog in that fight.

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