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Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

You don't solve these problems in a single step, but notice how space imagery and analogies pop up every time people try to talk about peace, global problems, mutual empathy, understanding, etc. The Pale Blue Dot, images of Earth from orbit or the Moon, etc. Those are anchors in public consciousness, competing in memetic space with usual divisive, dystopian, hope-draining pictures and soundbites - we need more of them to improve on the big problems, and we absolutely would not have them if not for people actually flying to space.

Or, put differently, space exploration is one of the few things "feeding the right wolf" for humanity at large.

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It's crazy to believe that people who believe in one holy book are killing people over another holy book in countries like (but certainly not limited to) Nigeria, while another country launches people to the moon.

But, alas, I agree with you. There's no way out but through I guess.

You seem to be forgetting that the country launching people to the moon is primarily of one holy book and is currently bombing the people of another holy book.

And mainly in the name of these holy books too lol. The forgetfulness of people when they see news like this is always funny to me.

The United States is not a Christian country and is not at war with anyone due to religion. I know you're talking about Iran but Iranian Christians are as affected as Iranian Muslims. Muslim countries in the area have pushed America to continue this war.

I am completely against this military excursion. Just an honest takeaway. A lot of rhetoric in America on religion is due to people's religious trauma. I blame American evangelicals.

That other country has also people killing other people over a holy book.

That this dissonance hurts, already tells you why space is important.

> You don't solve these problems in a single step

Obviously, but there's no evidence that the previous Moon missions were a step toward solving the problems.

> notice how space imagery and analogies pop up every time people try to talk about peace, global problems, mutual empathy, understanding, etc.

You think these problems will be solved with... photos?

How many more photos do we need? Everyone has seen the photos already. I'm sure Putin and Trump have seen the photos of Earth.

Nobody it'll say space exploration will alone solve those problems. But it helps, and can help more - much more, if we go all the way in and establish permanent economic activity and eventually settlements in the space near Earth and beyond.

> if we go all the way in and establish permanent economic activity and eventually settlements in the space near Earth and beyond.

Could you please explain exactly how these would help to stop war and inequality?

As far as I can tell, space exploration is going to exacerbate inequality, for example, by making Elon Musk even more obscenely wealthy than he already is.

Is the problem inequality or rather poverty? Because those are not the same thing.

What we've done in space has absolutely helped with poverty. It makes weather forecasts possible, which helps even the poorest farmers.

This can happen at the same time a handful of people become obscenely wealthy from it.

Though in Musk's case, I suspect the wealth is a bubble which will pop before he can cash out more than 8% of it.

> Is the problem inequality or rather poverty? Because those are not the same thing.

According to the OP, inequality: "Regardless of whether this particular mission is perfectly planned, this is precisely the kind of thing that will help humanity outgrow the dark age of war, inequality and climate mismanagement."

> What we've done in space has absolutely helped with poverty. It makes weather forecasts possible, which helps even the poorest farmers.

Are you talking about manned Moon missions or unmanned Earth-orbiting satellites? To use your own words, those are not the same thing.

In any case, poverty is a policy decision, a refusal to redistribute the wealth.

This is a policy decision insofar as the policy isn’t to liquidate entire groups of people over class and status resentment. “Just redistribute the wealth bro, it’ll work this time bro I swear let’s just do a redistribution”.

> “Just redistribute the wealth bro, it’ll work this time bro I swear let’s just do a redistribution”.

Bro, have you considered that NASA, the topic of this submission, is government redistribution of wealth via taxes?

Yeah, the difference is that NASA is cool, and lighting money on fire for utopian and inevitably corrupt money transfer schemes is not.

Hope that helps.

> Hope that helps.

It doesn't.

I think that helping the less fortunate is cool, and launching people to the Moon is lighting money on fire for utopian and inevitably corrupt money transfer schemes.

Well you’re in luck because we spend 4-5x the NASA budget on things like SNAP alone. Still not enough? Too bad!

NASA may be cool, but the main reason SpaceX was able to undercut old launch providers was all the I Can't Believe It's Not Corruption of pork barrel spending by those old launch providers.

So SpaceX made space cheaper, was good value for the US taxpayer, and was also a money transfer scheme from the government to him. (Worse with Tesla, but this isn't about Musk just SpaceX).

That said, now there's questions about if Musk is corrupt with all those US government ties that result in suspicious direct pressure on non-US governments, including with Starlink which even if theoretically separate to SpaceX is obviously functionally inseparable at present.

> NASA may be cool, but the main reason SpaceX was able to undercut old launch providers was all the I Can't Believe It's Not Corruption of pork barrel spending by those old launch providers.

FWIW, SpaceX did literally what NASA paid them to. It might be no one dared to hope that the Commercial Space budget will turn out so spectacularly effective at disrupting legacy structures of corruption, but the point of the exercise was still to pay private players like SpaceX to make access to space cheaper, and they absolutely delivered on that. This wasn't a competition between public and private interests, it was a successful cooperation.

> So SpaceX made space cheaper, was good value for the US taxpayer, and was also a money transfer scheme from the government to him.

Obviously paying someone to do something is a money transfer, and if the payer is the government and recipient a private organization, it is a transfer of money from government to private interests. Same happens every time a federal employee buys a coffee on their way to work.

> “Just redistribute the wealth bro, it’ll work this time bro I swear let’s just do a redistribution

Literally 100% of taxes work like this, it happens every monthly paycheck.

That's part of a general meme shift. 60s tech was defined by a mix of fear, awe, and optimism. Apollo had elements of all three.

There was a confidence underlying all of them. From the New Deal to the late 60s, there was a public belief a better future was possible.

2020s tech is defined by fear, pessimism, and dystopia. The utopian edge has either gone or been replaced by horrific anti-utopian tech - surveillance, manipulation, exploitation, and irrationality.

Tech has become anti-science. Musk's DOGE cut around $1.5 of science funding, science education, and NASA exploration.

The naive sense that a better future is possible, and tech will make it happen, has almost disappeared.

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