The value of manned space flight?

[Umbran]

What I'm responding to is a narrow technical point--money can be poorly spent even if it has a nominally positive ROI. That's just...true.

"Poorly" is not a technical term, or even one we have defined.

What it seems to me you're doing is saying "well, that true point is being used in service of a bad argument, so its ok for us to act like it isn't true". Which I don't care for.

No. As above, I do not accept the point as true, for it being undefined - it is positioned to implicitly use someone's unstated opinion as fact, which I don't care for.

Make the strong version of your argument. Don't "not look too deeply" at details because you agree with the broader argument. And we'll get more support for science, which I certainly care about.

With respect, don't tell me what do to.

My statements here, strong, weak, or silent, for or against, are a mere fraction of background noise. I have no illusions of my relevance, influence, or impact.

 

[trappedslider]

Not much has changed

Why Civil Rights Activists Protested the Moon Landing | HISTORY

In 1969, NASA was spending millions on the Apollo space program. Some argued that money could be better spent.

www.history.com

 

[Umbran]

But rather, should society prioritize space travel over other types of funding and scientific research.

Society should realize that it isn't NASA funding that's going to squeeze out other science research.

Really. This is like Dickensian orphans arguing over which of them is getting more than their fair share of limited gruel, while the guy running the orphanage is eating filet mignon and driving a Lamborghini.

Your fellow orphan struggling for scraps is not to blame, and is not the enemy.

 

[The Firebird]

Heck, even if we ignore CO2 and we kept growing in our energy consumption, we could theoretically end up boiling the oceans in few centuries due to all the waste heat (fusion isn't going to help here, even wind and solar would not).

It's not an exaggeration, it's very possible. Worst-case scenario, to be sure. And not an unavoidable fate . . . but very, very possible.

If we hit a runaway global warming threshold, then it's hello Venus II.

I'm not going to respond to these in detail, but these views are not in line with the current scientific consensus. To get a runaway greenhouse on Earth, you'd need an increase in solar radiation. It may be possible in a few hundred million years, but for now an increase in CO2 is not likely to cause it.

 

[The Firebird]

Prioritising is really very hard. It's easy for me to say that we should fund all the research, because it's obviously correct and I'm not having to find the budget. If it costs $100bn* (I'm just pulling numbers out of my posterior at this point) to put a couple of guys on the moon to do some interesting but unproven research and it costs the same to produce a breast cancer vaccine, well, I know where I'd vote to put the money.

As it turns out, Artemis costs about $100 billion.

No. As above, I do not accept the point as true, for it being undefined - it is positioned to implicitly use someone's unstated opinion as fact, which I don't care for.

I meant poorly in the sense of the post which stated "from a purely economic perspective". Yes, if you ignore that hedge, there are many other factors...but I never claimed otherwise.

 

[Dire Bare]

Society should realize that it isn't NASA funding that's going to squeeze out other science research.

Really. This is like Dickensian orphans arguing over which of them is getting more than their fair share of limited gruel, while the guy running the orphanage is eating filet mignon and driving a Lamborghini.

Your fellow orphan struggling for scraps is not to blame, and is not the enemy.

Yes.

 

[Ryujin]

As it turns out, Artemis costs about $100 billion.

Only if you're including the costs for development since 2004, I would think. The cost of the Artemis II mission, by itself, is something a little over US$4B.

 

[Umbran]

I'm not going to respond to these in detail, but these views are not in line with the current scientific consensus. To get a runaway greenhouse on Earth, you'd need an increase in solar radiation. It may be possible in a few hundred million years, but for now an increase in CO2 is not likely to cause it.

I agree. Real runaway greenhouse, with the oceans boiling away, isn't coming from our fossil fuel burning. The last work I saw on that found that it would take several multiples of all the fossil fuels in the Earth's crust to do it. So, we'll just have to wait a couple billion years for the sun to go red giant for that to happen.

Climate temperature increase to the point that human civilization falls? That's still on the table.

 

[Umbran]

Only if you're including the costs for development since 2004, I would think. The cost of the Artemis II mission, by itself, is something a little over US$4B.

You're both right.

The per launch cost for Artemis is about $4 billion.

The total program cost, which covers all the development, all the vehicles, all the launches, all the training, from 2012 through 2025, is about $93 billion. The program continues - we land on the Moon with Artemis IV and V, which will effectively amortize the development costs farther out.