h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5304086.stm

Well, finally some kind of announcement that we are (as a species) going back to the Moon after all this time. I have to say that it is brilliant news and about flippin' time.
Not tooo sure how honest I can be on here, but I used to argue with my dear departed mother that we should not spend the money on homeless or thrid world countries but get on with exploring what is "Out There" instead. In the intervening 30 odd years, I thought my views would have changed, but I am afraid they have not. Does this make me a bad person?

Should I care more about pouring global millions into aid, or just admit that I really would prefer to see men on Mars - and beyond?

We can and do pour billions into poor countries and achieve the square root of diddley-squat. I'd far rather see aspirational projects like this.

What a waste.

Why not give the rest of the universe a good laugh watching us mucking about on our little rotating rock that has inspired endless songs and loves to pull at our water?

I think it's a case of what's going to be done when they get to the Moon. If there is valuable research to be performed I say "good". If it's just a space trip to prove something or other to the Chinese, then "bad", but I suspect it's got more to do with the former rather than the latter. I think scientific research is in general a worthy goal. Few enough things in life would have been discovered or invented if we agreed with the "think of the poor people in the world" excuse every time.

What's the point?
It isn't 'humanity' going to the moon it's America. I don't pay tax in the US so why should care that the US government is mounting up national debt on a pointless excursion to the moon when they could spend it on healthcare, education or social justice or taking advantage of Katrina and sorting out the mess down there etc. etc. etc...

I am generally pleased to see good scientific research going on, and I've been thoroughly convinced by NASA propaganda that space exploration counts for that.

But in the past, others have argued that sending people to the moon is a lot less effective than sending robotic probes, and I was pretty convinced by that as well.

I remain on the fence about the value of giving aid to poor countries. I'd like to think it works. And I'm sure with all that money and all those people on the ground, it must do something? Surely they'd have noticed by now if not. And its not like those campaigning against it don't have a (free market) agenda of their own. But the value of scientific research has proven itself over and over. NASA may be a USA only prestige project, but its discoveries certainly have benefited a big chunk of humanity.

I don't think the problem of poverty (or any other of humanity's problems) are going to be solved with money [alone]. Science is another matter. It's getting to the point where we need enormous amounts of money to continue scientific research - the big projects being space missions and particle accelerators. If we really cared about proving theories or discovering absolutely everything there is to know about the universe, and if we consequently injected all of our funding into such projects, I'm pretty sure our terrestrial infrastructure would suffer.

I don't think you're bad merely if you think money alone can't solve poverty (and therefore we should spend it on other things). What I think would be bad was if you seriously didn't care about the suffering of other people.


"It isn't 'humanity' going to the moon it's America."

I get your point, but you do seem to be implying that Americans aren't human!