Space flight has military benefits (“Hey look—we can go into space too, so don’t fuck with us!”), scientific benefits (experimentation in a zero-gravity vacuum, material analysis of the interplanetary medium, vastly improved telescopy), immense practical benefits (without rocketry we wouldn’t have cell phones and GPS devices, for example), and potential long-term benefits (the possibility of space colonies, protecting humanity from extinction due to a variety of existential risks). Since NASA is actually fairly cheap as U.S. government projects go, and since spaceflight is increasingly moving toward becoming a private endeavour (made possible, in part, by decades of publicly-funded spaceflight) you’d be hard-pressed to demonstrate that the cost-benefit analysis comes out in the negative.
EDIT: That’s also not including the quality-of-life benefits that come from getting to watch something this totally awesome.
without rocketry we wouldn’t have cell phones and GPS devices, for example
GPS, sure, but how does cellular telephony rely on satellites or rockets? Do you mean satellite phones that are used by reporters in regions without reliable cellular telephone service?
What private companies? There simply wasn’t any profit to be had in spaceflight until fairly recently. We needed publicly-funded spaceflight to get us to where we are today.
Space flight has military benefits (“Hey look—we can go into space too, so don’t fuck with us!”), scientific benefits (experimentation in a zero-gravity vacuum, material analysis of the interplanetary medium, vastly improved telescopy), immense practical benefits (without rocketry we wouldn’t have cell phones and GPS devices, for example), and potential long-term benefits (the possibility of space colonies, protecting humanity from extinction due to a variety of existential risks). Since NASA is actually fairly cheap as U.S. government projects go, and since spaceflight is increasingly moving toward becoming a private endeavour (made possible, in part, by decades of publicly-funded spaceflight) you’d be hard-pressed to demonstrate that the cost-benefit analysis comes out in the negative.
EDIT: That’s also not including the quality-of-life benefits that come from getting to watch something this totally awesome.
GPS, sure, but how does cellular telephony rely on satellites or rockets? Do you mean satellite phones that are used by reporters in regions without reliable cellular telephone service?
But what would we now have if all the scientists who have worked at NASA had instead been employed by private companies?
Assumption of fungibility of talent detected.
Fungibility of money is well-tested, however.
Assumption of fungibility of high IQ.
What private companies? There simply wasn’t any profit to be had in spaceflight until fairly recently. We needed publicly-funded spaceflight to get us to where we are today.