>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

Wal-mart... crazy rant about how it kills your neighbors...
I've never quite understood this argument. Wal-Mart doesn't kill local businesses. It rearranges them and then creates more jobs. Every Wal-Mart that goes up has about 10 restaurants, 2 car dealerships, 1 Gamestop, a couple book stores, and a bunch of other ancillary businesses sprout up literally overnight right next to it once it opens. These places employ - that's right - your neighbors. It has been demonstrably proven over and over again that Wal-Marts increase employment and revenue in the communities they enter. Do they shake up the environment and force local shops to change it up? Of course. But for every guy that curses Wal-Mart because he had to close his Mom & Pop, there are 20 other guys who are cheering Wal-Mart as they take showers in new business money.


I agree that it's a crazy rant, but I'll take it further. Any argument about making or killing jobs is a crazy rant.

Our goal, as a society, is to reduce the number of jobs needed in stupid stuff (like retail), so that we can put more of our collective resources into things that actually improve us as a society (research, education, health care).

If a WalMart meets the retail needs of a community with 40 jobs instead of 80 independent merchants, FANTASTIC. That means we all get to spend less money on equipping and feeding ourselves, and spend more money on schools and space programs. If you went out of business because a WalMart showed up, your job was not adding enough value to the product to be worthwhile. Sorry, the free market has spoken. But don't worry, we haven't reduced the productive output of the human race, this just means that we have more resources to spend on science instead of mom and pop shoe stores.

So stop bragging about your stupid government project "creating hundreds of jobs". Anyone can create make-work jobs. The only job the government should be creating are those that directly serve the public good and that can't be financed on an individual scale. Basic research falls into this category. So does policing and homeland security, although I think we've gone way overboard on security spending.

I think I understand what you're saying. It's not that your logic isn't "easy".

Well, Polio research didn't save any lives or improve our living conditions until AFTER we found the cure. It had potential to, just like the space program does now. But we didn't know for sure that we could find a cure until afterward. And in fact, we never did find a cure, only a vaccine. The fact is that most scientific advancement happens sort of randomly. We never really know where the next big step is going to be made.

It's simply not possible to ONLY fund things that we KNOW will save lives or improve our living conditions, because we don't know where the next advancements are going to come from.

Either way, the space program HAS improved our living conditions. Even if you exclude the ones listed in this video.

http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/at_home.html

>> ^Yogi:

I'm all for science and funding it in order to move our species forward. But we don't get to do it as long as there is a child still hungry or dying in our country from something easily preventable.


The U.S. spent ~$70 billion on science funding in 2010. In the same year, it spent nearly 10 times that much on the military. Tell me which is more likely to prevent a child dying from hunger or disease.

Granted, the space program probably* won't do much in that regard, but how about they cut NASA's paltry 18 billion out of the military budget and see what they can do with that?

* and here's the thing. We really don't know what will come out of research until we do it.

>> ^NetRunner:

I get that this was a segment taken from a longer conversation, but I come away from this having no idea what his position on the manned space program was.
Yes, the manned program isn't, and never was really about science. Wasn't that always obvious? Especially in the 60's and 70's, we were calling it the "Space Race", and only just barely shying away from openly calling it a front in the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
But I'd like to know, does he think we're better off without it than with it? I get the impression he thinks the manned program was a waste of time and money from this clip.
He's no Carl Sagan if he thinks that!


If it doesn't help us it is a waste of money. We need answers to serious questions not expensive ways to get pilots who call themselves astronauts laid.

I get that this was a segment taken from a longer conversation, but I come away from this having no idea what his position on the manned space program was.

Yes, the manned program isn't, and never was really about science. Wasn't that always obvious? Especially in the 60's and 70's, we were calling it the "Space Race", and only just barely shying away from openly calling it a front in the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

But I'd like to know, does he think we're better off without it than with it? I get the impression he thinks the manned program was a waste of time and money from this clip.

He's no Carl Sagan if he thinks that!

While I agree that it is wonderful to have a unifying goal like the space program sometimes provides, this is one of the places where the free market might be able to take over and do it better. It certainly could not have done it back during the space race, but now there are lots of market driven reasons for investment in space, so it might work.

And we just don't have the political will during this economic climate to invest in the big ideas, like a Moon base or mission to Mars. Maybe in another decade or two, when the economy has recovered and people are bored with Virgin Galactic's low earth orbit.

>> ^westy:

This is all good and fun , but really should we not be pioneering technology that caters to the pore and the majority of humans on the planet rather than a technology that will only cater to the super wealthy at first and then maybe the very upper middle western class in 30 years ?
As far as i understand the altitude for this craft would be to low and short lived for scientific use maybe some of the research from this will go into national space programs.
stuff like this is far better than war and entertainment is defiantly an important thing i still feel this for such a small section of privileged society that its just an insult to the majorty of people on earth.


No no no no no no no NO NO NO NO god no.

Firstly, who are you to decide what people spend their money on? Richard branson's company can do whatever the hell richard branson chooses because he made the successful company. Why the hell don't you spend all your time and money and effort on solving world hunger problems, if you're so keen to point out where others can increase their charity.

There's money in this for branson, that's why virgin is doing it. If there's one thing that will give a gigantic boot to the progression and interest in space travel, space flight, space technology, it's commercial companies finding a way to make money out of it.

If i told you to live and work inside your house all day every day, you'd get bored and want to escape the house and see the town. If i told you to live and work in your town all the time, you'd want to see the country. If i told you to stay in your country, you'd want to see the world. Why are people so content to sit on this rock indefinitely? If not space, what else? Do we just stay here like a fenced animal, our eyes blinkered, focused so hard on chasing bits of paper with "£20" or "$20" on them?

There are enough people in this world such that we can do more than JUST solve world hunger. We didn't drag people away from charity events to work on space flight.

>> ^westy:

This is all good and fun , but really should we not be pioneering technology that caters to the pore and the majority of humans on the planet rather than a technology that will only cater to the super wealthy at first and then maybe the very upper middle western class in 30 years ?
As far as i understand the altitude for this craft would be to low and short lived for scientific use maybe some of the research from this will go into national space programs.
stuff like this is far better than war and entertainment is defiantly an important thing i still feel this for such a small section of privileged society that its just an insult to the majorty of people on earth.


I don't think we live in a world where restricting development for the sake of keeping things fair is viable. Or functional, or reasonable. It certainly is short-sighted.

When bionic eyes and limbs go commercial, when they're superior to what we're born with, it's going to be hideously, prohibitively expensive at first, but then the price will come down as the technology is finessed and further developed. Soon enough, they'll be available to a significant percentage of the population. That's progress.

>> ^westy:

This is all good and fun , but really should we not be pioneering technology that caters to the pore and the majority of humans on the planet rather than a technology that will only cater to the super wealthy at first and then maybe the very upper middle western class in 30 years ?
As far as i understand the altitude for this craft would be to low and short lived for scientific use maybe some of the research from this will go into national space programs.
stuff like this is far better than war and entertainment is defiantly an important thing i still feel this for such a small section of privileged society that its just an insult to the majorty of people on earth.


I'm sure someone said the exact same thing to the Wright brothers...

>> ^westy:

This is all good and fun , but really should we not be pioneering technology that caters to the pore and the majority of humans on the planet rather than a technology that will only cater to the super wealthy at first and then maybe the very upper middle western class in 30 years ?
As far as i understand the altitude for this craft would be to low and short lived for scientific use maybe some of the research from this will go into national space programs.
stuff like this is far better than war and entertainment is defiantly an important thing i still feel this for such a small section of privileged society that its just an insult to the majorty of people on earth.


Let the rich die and iron out all the kinks...

...seriously though, the cost of technology always decreases. Don't worry about being able to afford a space flight one day. Unless you're like 70 years old...

>> ^westy:

This is all good and fun , but really should we not be pioneering technology that caters to the pore and the majority of humans on the planet rather than a technology that will only cater to the super wealthy at first and then maybe the very upper middle western class in 30 years ?
As far as i understand the altitude for this craft would be to low and short lived for scientific use maybe some of the research from this will go into national space programs.
stuff like this is far better than war and entertainment is defiantly an important thing i still feel this for such a small section of privileged society that its just an insult to the majorty of people on earth.


“I do not think that the wireless waves I have discovered will have any practical application”
(Heinrich Rudolf Hertz)

Something to think about for you.

You make it sound like all researchers worldwide are only researching in ONE field which has no use (yet) for the poor. As for the "we" part of your statement: Virgin Galactic is a privately owned company and they can pioneer whatever technology they like.

Why should this be an insult to the majority of people on earth? Was the moonlanding an insult too? Or the space-programme of all spacefaring nations? What about arctic or deep sea research?

Don't get me wrong, I too am saddend by the devide between developed and undeveloped nations, but stopping "our" developement is not a solution. Even more so when all(certainly allmost all) technology for undeveloped nations to become developed is available.
(Yes, I know I am ignoring many other factors which keep the poor poor, but they have nothing to do with technological and intelectual advancement of the human species in general)

P.S. and while I'm already rambling: I really hate HD-embeds without the fullscreen button

>> ^critical_d:

It's weird to think that there will be no more shuttle flights soon. If the Baby Boomers had Apollo, then Generation X had the shuttle program. We need to stay focused to avoid losing momentum here so it will be interesting to see where the space program is in 5-10 years.


I don't think we necessarily need people in space probably far more cost effective and eficent to phase out human space travel and replace it with robotics or virtual presence devices.

there are far more important things to spend money on until we have space lifts or something that allows for humans to get into space cheaply.

This is all good and fun , but really should we not be pioneering technology that caters to the pore and the majority of humans on the planet rather than a technology that will only cater to the super wealthy at first and then maybe the very upper middle western class in 30 years ?

As far as i understand the altitude for this craft would be to low and short lived for scientific use maybe some of the research from this will go into national space programs.

stuff like this is far better than war and entertainment is defiantly an important thing i still feel this for such a small section of privileged society that its just an insult to the majorty of people on earth.

It's weird to think that there will be no more shuttle flights soon. If the Baby Boomers had Apollo, then Generation X had the shuttle program. We need to stay focused to avoid losing momentum here so it will be interesting to see where the space program is in 5-10 years.

In Soviet Russia..this is their space program.
And looks like in a few years it will America's as well