wrote in
:

In article 39, bz
writes:
(Rand Simberg) wrote in
:

On Thu, 14 Apr 2005 13:23:08 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away, bz
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

By the way, when we 'waste money by sending it into space', we don't
waste money and it doesn't go into space.

Pieces of metal and some small amounts of other elements go into
space. The money stays here. It goes into the pockets of techicians.
It keeps millions of people employed and doing worthwhile things for
the human race HERE, on EARTH. No money goes into space.

This is a bizarre (and fallacious) argument. The fact that we don't
literally ship money into space doesn't make spending money on space
worthwhile, just because it creates jobs.

It does MORE than just create jobs, it creates knowledge.


Sometimes. But there are other ways of creating knowledge than
building space stuff.

Other, but not better. That is the BEST way for us to be spending our
time now.

Proof by emphatetic assertion?:-) I would say that, in terms of
knowledge generated per effort spent, space stuff is nowhere near the
top of the list.

I don't say it is the most efficient way to generate knowledge.
I say that getting mankind 'out of the cradle and into space' is the MOST
important thing to do NOW for the long time future survival of the human
species.

The fact that we will learn a lot while doing it is a "not exactly
unintended consequence".




--
bz

please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.

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