So last night I am having a conversation with a friend online and I link him to www.savehubble.com

He watches the trailer then says "Intresting site. But really what has space exploration done for society lately? I can't think of anything." Knowing this person I knew he was getting at: we still have poor people and hungry kids and diseases. Who cares about stars and radiation lightyears away.

This obviously upset me. Space exploration is something I like a lot, but then what made me even more upset was I couldn't think of anything off the top of my head.

Later I thought of a few things like space exploration could save the planet from asteroids and comets and things like that. Obviously building homes for poor people isn't much use if we all get wiped out by an object from space.

But I didn't feel like I had a good answer to this question.

For me, the search for knowledge is enough, and the idea that science for science sake is the best way to find things that help us. But this doesn't work well as a argument on the spot..

So what are some things space exploration have done for society? What's it done that helps people in their day to day lives, even though they might not know it.

How can I relate something like space science (and all it can offer) to something like.. oh... pro-football.

Space Exploration science is something I enjoy very much, please help me defend it better! :-)

So thoughts, discussions?

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Global positioning
Weather prediction
Location of underground resources (oil, coal, etc)
Electronics Technology (you might not have been able to post this question in a forum where people all over the world could see it without the space program)
The ability to see sporting events that happen on the opposite side of the world live
satellite communications (we don't have to run a cable across the ocean anymore to talk to our overseas relatives)
Propulsion technology - Leads to better aircraft, and potentially suborbital commuter flights in the future. Imagine going from New York to Tokyo in a few hours.
Ability to utilize solar power for electrical generation.
Knowledge of other planets' geology/atmospheres helps us learn about Earths geology and weather patterns.
Tang
"Space" blankets
Freeze dried ice cream
improvements in optics
improvements in data storage
potential microgravity manufacturing processes could produce many products better, purer, etc.
A sense of accomplishment/wonder (why do people climb Mount Everest?).
Broadening our horizons (why do college students take general education classes?)

The list is endless.

Space exploration (as opposed to space exploitation applications like GPS and the like) is the pursuit of knowledge about our solar system and universe. It's hard to put a value on pure knowledge but it often has a way of coming in handy. Consider the missions to explore other planets in our solar system. If all we do is study the Earth (and that's important in its own right), then all we have is a dataset of one entity. Looking at other planets helps us learn about ourselves. It helps test other areas of knowledge like physics, too.

Personally, I think space exploration also addresses something fundamental in our nature. Over a period of thousands of years, mankind spread from our birthplace in Africa to almost all of the far reaches of our planet. It's an amazing story. Today, we've gone about as far as we can on the surface of the Earth. That leaves us two ways to go - down in the oceans and up into space. I believe we need to do both.

Saluki, those things are space exploitation, not space exploration. Space exploitation is very valuable but the OP asked about space exploration. Space exploration is almost exclusively scientific missions to other planets and astronomy missions. Space exploration yields mostly intangible returns like scientific knowledge.

Perhaps the items Saluki listed are "space exploitation", but consider this: the technology developed for the exploratory missions is (because it has to be!) cutting edge and will ultimately find its way into our ordinary "space usage" technology.

(Ugggh!! I don't like the use of the word "exploitation" here, it has too many negative connotations. Wish I could come up with something better than "usage".)

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I think space exploration/exploitation is a false dichotomy (my favorite phrase lately). You are never going to get one without the other, let's face it, they are a pair that you either buy neither or both. To me, the real issue is, how much does all this cost, and you can concentrate on the pure-knowledge component and get, perhaps, a billion dollars a year or less. A billion dollars might sound like a lot of money, but it comes out to a few dollars a year for every American, just for the US budget for space exploration. So the real question is, was it worth a few bucks last year? Did you have a Capuccino while you were reading about the latest discoveries? If so, you spent more on the Capuccino. So the next time your friend questions space exploration relative to helping the poor, tell him to forgo his next coffee and send a buck to the Red Cross.

What Ken said.

Larry is overanalyzing things to the extreme.

As to cost, remember that the economy is nowhere near a zero-sum game. If you spend a billion on a probe, it means that the government is employing many people to build, test, launch, operate, analyze data, etc. It is also buying the products necessary to get it there from various manufacturers, which employ many more people. All these people and companies pay taxes, and spend their income on things like houses, food, medecine, toasters, etc. This spending employs other people who pay taxes, and likewise spend their own income.

So, when we say we "spend a billion" on a particular probe, the actual cost after all that trickling down is much, much less than a billion dollars.

BTW, if you buy Larry's false dichotomy (good expression there), most of my list could fit into both categories.

If he's a humanitarian, he can be excused for his position. If he's simply trying to be clever, well, he's not.

Morally, there are a couple of problems with his view. First, we're not under a world government, therefore, there is no objective political morality that demands of us that nation X should subsidize nation Y (we don't have to like this view, but it is the acceptable reality). Secondly, western liberal democracies - who, at the present time, are doing most of the space exploration - have systems of welfare for the less fortunate that are morally-based not on compassionate grounds, but rather rational self-interest. Thirdly, this kind of argument can be applied to nearly every activity we enjoy. What have video games done for society lately? Why are you stuffing your face with potato chips when kids are starving in Africa?

Ironically, the argument can be made that technology will someday alleviate poverty and food shortages. So in a broad sense, at least, we should be pushing pure science over purely compassionate grounds because it might offer a cure instead of a band-aid.

Which kind of leads to my next point - when our societies shifted from the hunter-gatherer model to the agricultural-based model, it allowed for the development of specialists in society. Specialists are important because they expand the scope of human civilization, and have brought us to a highly advanced state here in the 21st century. The benefits of our technological age did not occur in a vacuum; pure science was the drive behind a large portion of it.

Such is the case with space - there may be no immediate, every-day-joe-on-the-street practical applications to exploring Mars, but it's all baby steps. In the most obvious example, future generations of humanity will thank us for our earliest forays into space when our planet is no longer habitable and we must leave it. Saving the species? What could be more 'practical' than that? But given that it's such a long-term view, short-sighted thinkers don't value that approach much. In that sense, one can only be thankful they are not the ones in charge.

Ask your friend: if he lived 100 years ago, would he have asked the same question about Antarctic exploration?
John

Welcome to the board, DT. Excellent points! (Not just those I've quoted above.)

I've read a lot of books about science. Most of them early on point out that humans have always wondered what the heck is going on (or words to that effect). If your friend is just a drone worker bee, perhaps he doesn't wonder about these things. But I bet he actually does. Ask him, "Isn't it a natural thing for humans to wonder about The Big Questions?

More Big Questions

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The original question didn't specify an international context. The use of the word "society" instead of its plural or something else like "the world" could even be read as meaning that the we're talking about the benefit to the same soceity that's doing the exploring.

And each that's penny wasted on something pointless is a penny that could be added to those programs instead, or saved or spent on something else more useful.

Those expenses are chosen by the individual, who not only has the choice not to do it but also has no obligation to anybody else. Space "exploration" is invested in by governments, which take their money from everybody in the population. Unlike individuals, a government can be said to have an obligation to its people, and takes its money from everybody it governs. That means that a government spending money on what you just justified as a form of entertainment expense is not only diverting that money away from its obligations and more useful things but also taking that money from some people who aren't entertained by this function and aren't being given the choice. Would you appreciate your money being taken away without your consent for someone else's entertainment by something you're not entertained by? What other entertainment-to-some wastes of money does anybody approvee of for government?

Heya Cougar, thanks for the welcome!

The kind of argument referred to in the OP is one with which I am familiar; my response was general in intent to give a decent context to my perspective, given that the OP was not especially rigorous. That said, it's irrelevent whether the gentlemen in question was referring to the world at large or one specific nation-state. Do you believe the argument flawed, or were you merely clarifying on principle?

The point is simply:
a) We live in an individualistic liberal/capitalisty/private enterprise/free-market system.
b) Our justification for social services is based on rational self-interest, not compassion.
c) This is a perfectly moral political structure given our present state of development.
d) Pure science is not a useless endeavor.
e) Your values are subjective and, if you portray your true position, do not reflect a significant portion of the society to which you belong. Furthermore, they are refuted with as little effort as it took you characterize space exploration as "pointless".

Theoretically, liberal governments are 'the people', and the only obligation that exists is to act as arbiter in disputes. The democratic process is such that we have a say in how our interests are represented, but of course, that doesn't therefore mean we will get our way, nor does it mean that our personal values succeed the system. A beef about space exploration means you should be voting for the party that has an anti-NASA platform, or perhaps start your own.

If it makes any difference, pretend that 100% of the taxes you pay belong to the portion that is doled out in social security. I'd be more than happy to contribute 100% of mine to space exploration (and face no ethical barriers in so denoting my contribution).

You're right: the analogy I gave is not perfect. However, it doesn't actually change anything. It is inconsistent for a person to want their public money be directed to humanitarian concerns on the terms of social obligation (as opposed to liberalism's rational self-interest), yet insist their private discretions be protected by the liberal notion of the individual. It's self-serving, and more-so because it doesn't respect the boundaries of our civil society as the suggestion is your personal values should be imposed on the populace as a whole.

And those maligned by space exploration do have a choice: as previously stated, it's called a vote. The sandbox isn't big enough for everyone, so we have to take turns and learn to compromise. If your tax dollars go to something of which you don't approve, it's the price of enjoying any lifestyle beyond a hunter-gatherer's.

It almost seems beside the point to say it... but the money that is directed towards space exploration is not packaged up and sent off to Mars along with the rocket. It all cycles through the system, and everyone benefits from it. I think this has already been stated above in the thread, so I won't dwell on the point.

Allways a good question. I think near earth observation from space is pretty much near the top of the list.Talk to anyone who is a geologist looking for mega volcanos, really Large craters, subsea craters etc. Knowing about them, we can perhaps plan for them. One....just one good thing about aerospace.
Of course, many have been listed here.
Best regards, Dan

Ask him to compare all the amount of money that Governments spend on welfare, aid and other humanitarian causes compared to the amount that is spent on Space Exploration.

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Remember we have an appointment with doom. Only Space exploration [exploitation, whatever] can save us. It´s more than justified.

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This is just one of the whacky notions, with which one certain Steven H. is promoting himself.
I wouldn,t give away a little piece of an Earthly dessert for the whole of Mars. The unlucky Mars-colonists to come will learn to subscribe to this....
...sincerly.

These are great posts! I've often though about the arguement: "Exploring space is too hard for us right now. We should go into space later when our technology is better."

I cannot beleive how many people make this arguement. How will the technology for going into space get better if we don't get through the rough spots??

There must be a dozen good points here i want to comment on, but i'll have to get to that when i'm less pressed for time.

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Remember, you just have facts, you have mere facts. -worzel (said with sarcazm)

"Pain is just weakness leaving the body." -unknown

I don't think it's a false dicotomy at all. How is a communications satellite "space exploration"? What is it exploring? To lump in communications or weather satellites with the likes of Mars Reconnaissance Observer, the Hubble Space Telescope, or Cassini is absurd in the extreme. That's like lumping in a scientific submarine such as the 'Alvin' with an Ohio class ballistic missile submarine because they both go under water.

Exploration is the quest for knowledge, most often with no readily apparent payback. Satcom is the quest for profit or military utility. They're far from the same.

If anything, as I and other posters have noted, going into space has been a stimulus for improving our technology.

We first ventured into space with much less technology than we have now. The first Commodore 64 computer I owned was more powerful than the on-board computer guiding the landing of Apollo 11. The desktop computer at work right now is more powerful than the room-sized computers that ran the Apollo missions. Imagine what our computers in space can do, as long as they don't run Windows^TM!

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It's relevant because an argument can be flawed in one context but have an analogue in another context that isn't flawed. In this case, it was said that one nation has no obligation to do the people of another nation any good... but many people would say that a government DOES have an obligation to do its own people good through supportive programs and infrastructure. Thus, throwing money into space can logically be seen as failing the latter obligation but not the former, because the former doesn't exist.

Nor does THAT mean that any and all government actions must/would be justified or logically self-consistent. The government exists to serve certain purposes, and any proposed action by the government either fits into one of those purposes or doesn't. Saying that some proposed government action falls outside the government's legitimate jurisdiction is not a "personal value" but a determination of logical consistency or inconsistency. One can be in favor of something but still admit that it didn't make sense from the standpoint of governance, or admit that it does fall within government's legitimate boundaries but still be against it. (For example, you can be in favor of legal abortion but still think the Supreme Court's decision in "Roe versus Wade" was nutty and pretentious from a legalistic perspective because the law doesn't really say what they said it says, or be against a tax increase but still think that the government is technically free to increase the taxes based on the way the rules are written.)

Not really. First, the distinction you're making between humanitarianism and societal self-interest isn't present in the original post, so you don't know which one the speaker had in mind (if either at all). Second, even if we stipulate that he was talking about humanitarian compassion, it's still logically sound to think that a government owes people some minimal level of service but no extras above that... in which case, alleviating poverty would fall into the former category and "Wow that's a cool discovery" entertainment would fall into the latter. (Another example would be when I suggested elsewhere that child support for the parent without custody should be no more than it takes to keep that child above some minimal levle like 125% of the poverty line, instead of the huge bloated amounts that are often set just to punish someone rather than for the child's good. Someone responded that you can't go to college on 125% of the poverty line, to which my answer was that society doesn't owe these kids extras that other kids don't get such as college, or any assurance of a brighter future than other kids get; it only owes them non-poverty.)

Space is so big that we'll never get anywhere that there's a point in going to unless we invent faster-than-light travel, and maybe also artificial gravity. Those would be revolutionary brand-new leaps in technology that we can not approach gradually by launching rockets into Earth orbit and on one-way trips in the solar system and testing human bodies' responses to space life. Either they'll get invented or they won't, but they won't be developed by gradual improvement of current space technology because they'd have ot be based on phenomena that aren't related to anything we're doing now. If they ever are invented, THEN the kind of gradual tweaking of those other technologies can matter. But until then, it's just a matter of tweaking our sophistication at going nowhere and doing nothing.

Space is so big that we'll never get anywhere that there's a point in going to unless we invent faster-than-light travel, and maybe also artificial gravity. Those would be revolutionary brand-new leaps in technology that we can not approach gradually by launching rockets into Earth orbit and on one-way trips in the solar system and testing human bodies' responses to space life. Either they'll get invented or they won't, but they won't be developed by gradual improvement of current space technology because they'd have ot be based on phenomena that aren't related to anything we're doing now. If they ever are invented, THEN the kind of gradual tweaking of those other technologies can matter. But until then, it's just a matter of tweaking our sophistication at going nowhere and doing nothing.

By that line of reasoning, since the Wright Brothers first airplane wasn't capable of carrying 400 passengers across the Atlantic, it wasn't worth pursuing. It seems pretty specious to me.

The ability to put things in orbit is only 50 years old (this October). It took thousands of years before the first boats, rafts, and ships evolved into today's ocean liners. A lot of exploring and commerse happened before we had the ability to send tourists to Antartica. The solar system is huge and we've barely began exploring it with unmanned spacecraft. Humans have reached no further than the moon. To say that we must wait until faster-than-light travel is possible (if indeed it ever is) means we'll never go anywhere. Sometimes an accidental discovery results in a new technology, but most of the time a technology is developed in response to a need. The technology to expand our ability to explore space won't be developed if we're going to wait until it is developed before we try to explore space.

Incremental development got us from Goddard's first liquid fueled rocket in 1927 to men walking on the moon in 1969 (only 42 years). Given the chance, humanity will have much better technology in the next 42 years, but that won't happen if we don't try until the technology is available.

The line of reasoning you just used is not the one I used. That makes it a "straw man".

Hear hear! It's amazing how many people seem to think that technology just materializes out of thin air as a function of time passing!

PS. I believe that our solar system is "worth going to". Potentially, we can build things of great value out there. We just won't find any automatic wealth sitting in finished form on the ground. But then we haven't based our economies off gathered natural-resource wealth since the industrial revolution. Our cars, TVs, and office buildings were once rocks and trees and oil slicks. If we can construct them from what we find in space, then we can turn those currently barren and worthless worlds to things of great value as well.

And we can reach the solar system with just technological extensions of known physics. But that extending of our technology is an active process requiring active efforts to launch to and live in space.

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If there were such people, that would be amazing, but I don't know of any evidence that they exist.

Meanwhile, what would be much more amazing than that anyway is that some other people seem to think that nifty new stuff can't get invented without a space exploration program...

It's amazing how many people seem to think that technology just materializes out of thin air as a function of time passing!

If there were such people, that would be amazing, but I don't know of any evidence that they exist.

Space is so big that we'll never get anywhere that there's a point in going to unless we invent faster-than-light travel, and maybe also artificial gravity.

Have you read what you wrote recently?

No! What's amazing is that some people think that, if we sit on our collective duffs fat, dumb and happy the "magic space drive" will just fall in our laps! Our current space flight technology is a direct descendent of the works of (among others) Boeing, Macdonld, Douglas, Curtiss, the Wrights, Lilienthal and even da Vinci. Any future advances will trace their lineage through this same timeline.

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Currently there are multitudes of groups out there spending billions of dollars per year to save everything from endangered bacteria to the Spotted Owl, the Snowy Plover, Hump Back Whales, the Bengaled Tiger and Polar Bears. But my question is: What is causing all of these species to go extinct? In most cases the species are dying out because of changes in thier habitat which the animals are unable to adapt to. Forrests are being cut down to build cities, global warming, the ice caps melting causing sea levels to rise etc.

While it is a nobal cause to try to save such a magestic species as the Tiger, the real problem isn't the fact that the tiger is dying out. The real problem is that the tigers habitat is changing and the species can't adapt. Wouldn't it make more sense to take those billions of dollars we spend every year into saving an annoying little bird like the snowy plover, accept the fact that the bird is going to go extinct and spend that money on finding a way to solve the problem that caused them to die out in the first place? If it turns out that global warming caused by the emissions from millions of petrolium burning cars is causing species to die out, we should be spending money to find a new clean power source so we can control global warming a little better rather then spending that money to save the whales.

The exploration of space does exactly that. By studying the other objects in the space and solar system we are gaining knowledge about ourselves and our own planet which will some day be translated into viable technological advancments that just may feed a small starving child in Africa or save the poor nearly extinct Panda bears habitat.

As for what space exploration has done for society recently, here's a quote from "Men in Black":

"1500 years ago, everybody knew the Earth was the center of the Universe. 500 years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was flat... and 15 minutes ago, you knew people were alone on this planet. Think about what you'll know tomorrow"

Weather satellites explore the Earth's atmosphere. Increased communications makes exploration more easy to achive.

MRO (orbiter, not observer) is space exploitation. We exploit the fact that the space near Mars is a much better place to observe Mars than the surface of Earth. We can certainly study Mars from the surface of the earth, but if we expoit space, we can get a much better view.

More expoitation. Near-vacuum provides better seeing than atmosphere.

Again, we are exploiting the fact that Saturn orbit is better than Earth surface for studying saturn.

They are certainly both submarines.

SharkByte,

your article starts good .... and lands flat.
in citeing "man in black" you refere to just this uninformed consumistic pop culture, that is at the root of so many problems.
But I aplaude you for rightfuly having put out that not the extinction of single species is the main problem, but the ever ongoing destruction of habitats.
I can't see the nexus to space exploration (to my utter deploration)...