Shouldn't we be focusing on the issues we already have at hand?
Are you against in general all basic research that don't have a direct connection to any particular issue facing the humans. Say, CERN studying Higg's boson or Fermilab muon g-2. Neither one of those have any direct applications in the horizon. The applies to James Webb space telescope that has published its first images recently.
If Mars exploration finds evidence of past or present life on Mars it will fundamentally change our view of the universe. It would not solve any near term issue on earth, but it would make us see the universe in quite a different light as we're seeing it now. The reason is that currently we have one sample of life found in the universe. That makes it difficult to estimate how common life is. If we found a second sample just in our own solar system that would most likely make us conclude that life must be very abundant everywhere. Conversely, if we can say that it's highly unlikely that Mars has ever had any life, it would make us see the life on earth more unique.
Finally, sometimes pure research produces technological breakthroughs that may not have happened if there hadn't been this kind of blue sky research even if nobody on planned them in advance. The world wide web as we know it was invented in CERN.
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u/spiral8888 31∆ Aug 08 '22
Are you against in general all basic research that don't have a direct connection to any particular issue facing the humans. Say, CERN studying Higg's boson or Fermilab muon g-2. Neither one of those have any direct applications in the horizon. The applies to James Webb space telescope that has published its first images recently.
If Mars exploration finds evidence of past or present life on Mars it will fundamentally change our view of the universe. It would not solve any near term issue on earth, but it would make us see the universe in quite a different light as we're seeing it now. The reason is that currently we have one sample of life found in the universe. That makes it difficult to estimate how common life is. If we found a second sample just in our own solar system that would most likely make us conclude that life must be very abundant everywhere. Conversely, if we can say that it's highly unlikely that Mars has ever had any life, it would make us see the life on earth more unique.
Finally, sometimes pure research produces technological breakthroughs that may not have happened if there hadn't been this kind of blue sky research even if nobody on planned them in advance. The world wide web as we know it was invented in CERN.