🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <638@hindmost.gtisqr.UUCP> kevin@hindmost.UUCP (Kevin Bagley) writes:
>>Experience gained by having people work in space is only worthwhile if
>>there is some prospect of profitably applying it in the reasonably
>>near future.

>Paul,
>With this philosphy, we should abolish all the large aperture telescopes,
>radio telescopes, particle research, robotic planetary exploration, and
>a host of other fairly esoteric studies, since profitability is by no
>means expected in the near future in any of these areas.  I hate it
>when elimination of scientific studies is based on whether or not
>you will get as many bucks back as you put in.

I was not arguing that scientific projects should be judged on direct
economic payoffs.  First of all, I wasn't criticizing *science*, I
was criticizing "experience", that nebulous thing that putting men
into space is supposed to give us.  This is largely technical knowhow,
I think, and technology development is subject to economic criticism.

Science should be judged on whether it helps answer questions of
central importance, not just on economic grounds.  Unmanned
exploration of the solar system and the larger cosmos clearly does
this, even if it has no obvious direct payoff.  The questions answered
are so connected to more mundane problems that indirect payoffs are
inevitable.  For example, it would clearly be helpful to know how the
Earth was formed; this would have ramifications throughout geology.
To understand this we need to study the rest of the solar system.

The science that has been proposed for the space station is not, in my
opinion, of the same importance.  It seems to me that it has been
justified on more utilitarian grounds -- understanding how liquids
behave in microgravity may help in future space manfacturing, or
biological experiments may help in sending people to Mars.  Economic
criticism IS justified for these, I think.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu