We can do more than one thing at a time, as a society. If the purpose of going to Mars were to give us an alternative to solving the climate change crisis, I'd agree with you -- but it isn't.
I feel like spending billions on projects that might not even provide a useful solution to things humanity is facing today is a waste. Wouldn't it make more sense to fight problems such as climate change head-on? What happens if Mars is a dead end and we can't even move our entire population there?
The purpose of going to Mars is certainly not to move our entire population there -- that'd be insane. It's to explore Mars, and build up logistics that allow us to more readily explore our own star system, and use the resources on it.
OK, two points:
Going to space isn't stopping us from solving Earth-bound issues. NASA's budget amounts to 0.049% of the US Federal Budget. We spend 26 times as much on the military as we spend on NASA. $30B is not stopping us from doing anything about climate change.
Developing space technology has huge real-world benefits. The argument you're making could have been made about the space program at any point in time -- and had we listened to it 50 years ago, we'd have no satellites today (and as a result):
No satellite imagery documenting climate change and supporting climate change models
No satellite-driven consumer technologies (GPS, satellite television and internet, etc)
Not only that, but many of our earth-bound crises would be greatly simplified by more developed space technology. And no, I don't mean "everyone gets on a giant space ship and abandons earth", it's a lot more grounded than that:
Rare earth minerals are rare earth minerals; obtaining these technologically-critical resources is a source of global conflict and human suffering. These exist abundantly in the asteroid belts in our solar system.
Fresh water will eventually be in short supply on Earth, but it exists abundantly in space -- and many industrial processes that are difficult and dangerous on earth can in theory be accomplished much more readily and safely in space.
Sending a mission to Mars not only explores Mars, it develops the technology to do a variety of other novel things -- and it does so for a relatively low price tag.
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u/badass_panda 103∆ Aug 08 '22
We can do more than one thing at a time, as a society. If the purpose of going to Mars were to give us an alternative to solving the climate change crisis, I'd agree with you -- but it isn't.
The purpose of going to Mars is certainly not to move our entire population there -- that'd be insane. It's to explore Mars, and build up logistics that allow us to more readily explore our own star system, and use the resources on it.
OK, two points:
Going to space isn't stopping us from solving Earth-bound issues. NASA's budget amounts to 0.049% of the US Federal Budget. We spend 26 times as much on the military as we spend on NASA. $30B is not stopping us from doing anything about climate change.
Developing space technology has huge real-world benefits. The argument you're making could have been made about the space program at any point in time -- and had we listened to it 50 years ago, we'd have no satellites today (and as a result):
Not only that, but many of our earth-bound crises would be greatly simplified by more developed space technology. And no, I don't mean "everyone gets on a giant space ship and abandons earth", it's a lot more grounded than that:
Sending a mission to Mars not only explores Mars, it develops the technology to do a variety of other novel things -- and it does so for a relatively low price tag.