Technological advances are organic in nature. There is a theory which says that organic life tends to remain the same for long periods of time, until something drastic occurs in the environment. At that point, organic life must either change or die. (catastrophic evolution).
Within civilizations, war is that catastrophe which spurs tech revolution/evolution.
Going into space - a radical non-life bearing environment for carbon based organisms must either change or die. Robots in the same environment have challenges but they do not care if they work or not, only the people who sent them there care.
The people who send things into space are living lives which are not threatened directly by the success or failure of the robot.
A man is space is directly threatened. He must change his environment or die. Everything must work right the first time. Just as the soldier in war must have his weapons work as they are supposed to or he dies.
Necessity, Necessity, Necessity....
That is why we need an active, fully supported manned space program as part of our national defense, economy, and our survival as a nation and a species. Not to mention supplying hope and wonder to all the world as the US did in the 60s and 70s.
Your argument is like saying that the Gold Rush was a fools errand, that California would have been settled eventually, that the railroads would have come eventually to cross the continents, and that some one would have bought Louisiana and Alaska eventually.
What do you propose to do when all the other nations, which realize the absolute necessity for manned space flight, build rail guns on the moon and launch them at you? Private companies are not going to be helpful here.
Your analogy does not hold water.
It was not my intention to offer an analogy but to offer some of the background which formed my opinion. I said that. Did not your background form your opinion?
I do not find James Burke's (some English guy) recounting of the history of technological change to be at odds with the catastrophic change theory. In fact, in incorporates it. I also do not disagree with you that the speed of change is affected by motivation.
This conversation started off innocently enough with my statement that it was hard for me to see the benefit of continuing support of the space station.
I guess I am not far sightened because it gets harder and harder for me to see the benefit of the space staion. The Hubbell telescope at least furthers our knowledge of space and physics. What are we learning from the space station? The biggest benefits I see so far are to Russia who has benefited from our technology.
I am sure we have benefitted from other technologies to be used in real life but at what price? Would they have otherwise not been discovered or invented?
cripplecreek offered a logical answer:
The ISS is the placeholder but I do agree that its usefuness beyond that is dubious.
The problem is that we never seem to recover from our backsliding. Giving it up is ground that’s hard to regain.
My reply was:
An ongoing problem for the last few years has been deciding for what is it a placeholder? Taking men to Mars? Building the proper craft for the job which can be used for other efforts, too?
Mars may be close astronomically but it is not time wise. A craft that would significantly shorten the time probably could not be manned so what is the purpose?
I don’t favor killing NASA but is getting harder and harder to justify. It has also become a depository for graft, as have nearly all government programs, and a parking place for some liberals who use NASA to reenforce their credentials.
I agree with most of what you said. Our difference seems to be the speed at which change occurs but that is really not a difference because I agree with you, urgency affects incentive and incentive affects speed of change.
This seems to have been the trigger for our exchange:
“Would they have otherwise not been discovered or invented?”
Sure, perhaps in some other country, but definitly not in your life time. And definitely we would not be using the internet as we are now, cell phones would look like a shoe box, computers would be sporting 128 MB of RAM on a 300 MB hard drive for backups from the tape and punch cards in a 800 sq ft room.
To which I replied:
I doubt that very seriously. There were other uses and needs for all those items. American ingenuity and creativity would have advanced all that on their own and much cheaper than NASA could.
That seemed to rile you. However, I will state what I believe since in many cases you extend my argument beyond what I intended.
I think the internet would have advanced to where it is today even though it began as a military need. Its utilization is such that I think someone would have seen the need and filled it. The same with cell phones, computer memory and storage and such and I do believe private enterprise would have done it quicker and cheaper.
I do not extend that belief to things strictly military and that seems to be the argument in favor of NASA's present direction, to be a placeholder for development of things of military use. MY question was - is the space station part of that and if so, how? cripplecreek offered a logical explanation which I took further.
You then said:
Your argument is like saying that the Gold Rush was a fools errand, that California would have been settled eventually, that the railroads would have come eventually to cross the continents, and that some one would have bought Louisiana and Alaska eventually.
Although I find that specious and another extension of my argument I will address it.
I do believe California, the railroads and the entire west would have been developed had there been no gold rush and that Alaska and the Louisiana territories would have been bought at about the same time they were. None of those were reactions to catastrophes anyway.
You further said:
Then you are seriously misguided, or are too young to remember WWII.
I suppose I am seriously misguided then, according to your judgment, as I lived through WWII with two members of the household involved - one in the Army in Europe and the other in the Marines in the Pacific. Those remaining were in constant angst and paid rapt attention to every item of news.
I only bother with such a lengthy response because your saying an analogy I didn't make failed and that I am seriously misguided. That riled me, too. Summary: We basically agree and the differences can't be proved by either of us.