Sooner or later (In the words of Carlos Frenk) we’re going to have to admit that Einstein was wrong.
On 10-Jun-2021…
“Good places to see this phenomena are around Thunder Bay, Sault Ste Marie, Toronto, Philadelphia, New York City, and Atlantic City”.
Guessing that’s you in clover? Enjoy!! Had one here about 20 years ago, magnificent 
I thought this twitter thread was a good read - about the space race between billionaires. I’ve only posted the first - there are 16 tweets to the thread…
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Bezos and Uncle Virgin are dick measuring for sure. Musk’s in a different league. What he’s doing in Boca Chica is nothing short of staggering. He’s going to Mars and will get there decades ahead of NASA.
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Yep, he’s a mad genius, and doing lots of good.
The amount of money spent on space exploration (not Musk, but everyone!) could cure hunger and poverty, therefore is a poor use of resources. Maybe, one day, space exploration will change humanity for the greater good, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
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Space exploration (and associated science discovery) drives so much of our society, we literally couldn’t live without it.
I’m not saying all space exploration. I mean here and now, when there are billions of people unable to access basic needs. Unless space is providing me stuff right now that I can’t live without, but also don’t know about.
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I know the benefits…even scanning that article I was not surprised by anything in there.
My point is that there’s a space race, not to benefit humanity, but to fill the pockets of the winners of the space race. There is a competition.
Maybe some of these billionaires could club together and half space costs, achieve something together, then pump the other half into dealing with poverty or wider socio-economic issues.
I’m not anti space, I loved it growing up, it still fascinates me now. But over the last few years I struggle to comprehend how keen people are to explore so far away from home when home is totally fucked. I think if all space exploration stopped, beyond maintaining infrastructure, we would carry on living as we are. Not that I suggest that happens.
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As with most things, I’m sort of conflicted wrt space. On the one hand I believe that we need to explore - far and wide, identify and establish new frontiers and resources and extend ourselves. We need to move beyond the bounds of our birthing yolk and the coils that bind us. On the other hand, we don’t spend nearly enough money on space exploration and what little do spend, is in an uncoordinated way and often in a piecemeal way that never quite delivers and instead pander to petty parochial policies.
To be frank, there there isn’t enough money in this world (literally), or the will, to solve its ills.
Arguing that the space exploration money is better spent curing the ills of humanity is weak and in a way, a bit lazy. We just don’t spend that much. UK spends 40B odd on defence, 200+B on the NHS and an equivalent amount on social care. Space exploration? About 500M…
Space exploration does bring tangible and everyday benefits. Does football, cricket or tennis? Does Paris/London/Milan fashion? Do movies? Does the pint I bought at the pub the other day or the sneek Mars bar I had? Does having children? And what does building a £3-5B aircraft carrier bring? What do any of those things bring to solving the ills of this world? Is it more or less than space exploration? I would argue that space exploration is absolutely (and especially) essential in the short term and more so than any of the activities I mentioned.
Musk/Bezos/Bentsionovich and the like, apart from it being their own money, are spending a pittance relative to what they have overall, and, it is a drop in the ocean to what is required to “cure” the ills of this world - even if you could cure it with money. In addition, it is not their job to solve humanity’s ills, surely it is the job of governments, and we seem to be rubbish at picking them.
Beyond the ego-/megalo-maniacs and their motives, it is in the very fabric of life to explore - from bacteria to humans. Humanity would have died out in Africa if people did not look around the corner. I will take any activity that looks to expand humanity - knowledge wise or territorially. If we don’t explore we will, surely, die - and likely ruin this world utterly before that. We are just too human. Though some may argue that humans dying out is not necessarily a bad thing… I think that it would be tremendously sad and a hugely wasteful.
I think it was Clarke that said that a creature that no longer explores is a creature that’s dying.
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There are plenty of other places where I think money is wasted, but this is the space thread, so apologies if its come across as weak or lazy. Also I was focusing on the billionaires space race.
Yep plenty more wasted money there (although I’m not going to go through through the list). But I was just taking about space and billionaires.
Yep, I 100 percent agree with all of that. Esp about Governments. But funnily enough the government and high wealth are deeply intwrtwined. They go hand in hand. Humans are greedy for both power and wealth. Billionaires’ money is theirs, but how much of it is earned through evading taxes etc.
Yeah I’m all for exploring. As I said earlier in the thread, there could be a joint effort, right now everyone is in the space race and no one is sharing. The various space agencies aren’t best of pals - and I understand why.
I don’t want exploration (inc space exploration) to stop, and definitely agree it would be sad and wasted if humans died out, albeit I won’t give a monkeys as humans will be around long after our lives have ended.
One of the great fallacies (and it’s “humanity’s” ills, by the way).
Billionaires do not exist in a vacuum. They get rich through having staff, frequently underpaid, who are the products of a state-funded education system; they also need customers with disposable income, who come through the same route; and they often require government subsidies or investment.
So Bezos, Branson, Gates et al owe a great debt to both society and to “humanity” in general. Given that they reap obscene rewards from the system, the least they should do is support it.
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thanks - was late last night and I spent half the time trying not to fall a sleep and the other, tying to make sure the spellings were correct…
Regarding the debt the billionaires owe society, I agree. They should pay a fair amount of tax and generally be good citizens - but then, so should the average joe and that is far from true.
We, as humans, cannot and wont ever escape out humanity - love/hate, compassion/cruelty and so on, are part of our makeup. I think we can hold back the negatives but they are always there and waiting for any excuse to express themselves. Every religion and system has tried to hold the negatives in check - none have succeeded and none will.
There are a number of instances (ISS and many research projects in general) where there is coordination and sharing but I agree, it could be (a lot) more.
I wonder how long humans, as they are now, will be around. I agree, they will be around long after I’ve gone but I cannot see humans being around for that long in terms of medium/deep time.
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For me science including space exploration is essential. Not 100% sure on the dick comparison between billionaires as their motives may be questionable but I do feel we need to understand our universe.
With regard to poverty etc. Governments could end that tomorrow if they wanted to. They don’t.
I see the two issues as seperate entities to be honest.
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I’m not sure how familiar you are with this forum, but I frequently post COG’s first law of human dynamics here: people are fuckwits.
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Present company excluded 
Hopefully that is not specifically aimed at me - at least not all of the time…