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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jian" data-source="post: 9888032" data-attributes="member: 78087">Just my thruppence. For the record, I don't know much about space flight or exploration, but I have worked in academic science (PhD, postdoc, epidemiology) and in local and national healthcare management and strategy (NHS, UK).It seems pretty obvious that almost anywhere on Earth up to and including the Marianas Trench is easier to colonise than anywhere outside Earth, and we definitely can do that. Yes, climate change is affecting our ability to live here, but it mainly affects our ability to live in places we've always lived (or not always, but have settled quite a lot of people recently), like where most cities are. So it's likely that Tehran or Las Vegas or Perth will become uninhabitable due to water issues, the UK will not be able to grow food, and so on. But that does leave quite a lot of the rest of the world to live in, some of which will become more inhabitable due to climate change. Obviously, everyone moving to Nunavut (or wherever) is a massive and traumatic disruption (not to mention kilotons of ethical and legal issues), but it's much, much easier than everyone moving to Side Colony 9.But space research, like all scientific research, is worth doing. ROI is a terrible calculation because it doesn't really work for science in the same way as it works for, for instance, properly funding and supporting the IRS/HMRC/etc (that generally shows a 10-20x ROI). You can't really work out what the overall ROI in money or benefits that funding science in general (and it really has to be science in general, all branches, you never know what's going to work out) but we all know that it's vast and worthwhile. We should do it for all the best reasons, and it will always be worthwhile, especially if the benefits are retained by the funders (the government and the people) rather than by corporations and billionaires (here's looking at those big welfare queens over at Tesla and SpaceX).Similarly, yes, we should fund the many social programmes that have improved our lives over the last century and which really work. There is enough money, we're just not spending it or refusing to do so for ideological and poorly thought out reasons. Again, the ROI is very hard to calculate but it's always vast and positive. There isn't a conflict between the above priorities - science should not have to compete with healthcare, or space with social care. Sure, yes, in the short term, but in the long term we should agree that all of them should be funded.</blockquote>

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