Honest curiosity here, I don't know what a lot of the purpose is!
The use of orbital based technologies like GPS and satellite imaging have unlocked entirely new capabilities.
It's hard to find an aspect of modern life that hasn't been transformed in some way by space.
Dollar for dollar, the only better return on our federal spending is education.
For example, how important is weather prediction to you? Genuinely, I’m not sure how much it is to me, but the value isn’t nothing.
GPS is another thing like that: it’s only a little bit useful to me, but it enables a lot of economic activity (like farm automation). And the fact that getting lost went from a regular thing that happens to rarely is probably at least somewhat valuable.
Remote telecom is another thing. For sure, there are diminishing returns, but going from no access to some access for very remote places (think ships at sea, polar research stations, oil rigs, very rural communities) is probably valuable. How many ships haven’t sunk because they got a satellite weather update?
You’re absolutely right, it’s not a strategy to invest randomly. And it’s quite possible that we’re over-investing in space. But there are direct returns in addition to the “exhaust”.
Manned spaceflight has brought and continues to bring many important advances in science. I would argue that the science dividends of the ISS (which is mainly a research station) are quite worth the relativly low costs. How familiar are you with the science currently being done on the ISS? It often doesnt get heavily talked up, so I suspect your "fringe" assertion is coming drom a place of ignorance. Do you have speficic experiments that you think are a waste of time and money?
Manned expeditions to the moon are harder to justify. However, given the track record of technological and scientific payoffs, betting against a positive return, if even from the "exhaust" isn't safe. I do wish that Artemis wasn't our approach though.
FYI we spend more money subsidizing fossil fuels than we do on space travel. If we can afford handouts to oil companies that are killing our planet, we can afford to pay for the research that will help save it.
If you'll recall from my initial comment: "How exactly is it useful?... Honest curiosity here, I don't know what a lot of the purpose is!"
Which you haven't answered.
P.S. I'm not the one who said spaceflight as all, though yes I did interpret it as manned spaceflight, as I just stated
Obviously propulsion will continue to get better and better, but it's a good way to anchor oneself back to technical reality.
What's your gut feeling on how long it'd take to reach our nearest neighbor if we were to travel at the top speed of the fastest spacecraft we've ever made?
I believe that Proxima Centauri is ~10 light years away, and that it would take tens of millions of years to travel that distance based on current propulsion.
Looks like I wasn't wildly off.
I still think that putting humans in space is a worthwhile endeavor, and that the amount we spend on it relative to many other things is not disproportionately high.
There may be some cross talk in this thread where some people are talking about space programs in general and other people are talking about sending people to space.