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Nettius2 t1_izkecgt wrote

Reply to comment by KillerNinja86678 in Phobos' orbit prevents a traditional geostationary space elevator on Mars, but it is possible instead to build a downward space elevator from Phobos itself by Icee777

If all the money were taken from the overall space budget, we’d build a handful more smart missiles. Space exploration isn’t preventing us from taking care of the hungry and needy. People who profit from a hungry and needy “class” are doing it.

For example: some individual states prevented 100% free lunch for school children. It wasn’t for budgetary reasons.

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strvgglecity t1_izks6ss wrote

No but it does keep trained scientists and engineers from demonstrably more meaningful pursuits. Human capital is all we really have, and it's not much different paying scientists to target Mars than asking them to make a 4 dimensional candy bar. It is wildly outside the scope of our current needs. Once again the issue comes down to who profits: society, or individuals.

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Nettius2 t1_izl47zx wrote

The highly specialized scientist is doing pretty much the only thing that they were trained to do. It’s not like they’re suddenly go cure cancer now that they aren’t busy with Mars. I don’t know enough about engineer shortages to comment on that.

It gets worse. Why do you think it took so long to get back to the moon? Because the institutional knowledge was gone.

FYI: save the 4th dimensional candy bars for physicists and mathematicians

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strvgglecity t1_izl5rej wrote

Why not? They are smart people. It's troublesome that smart scientists and engineers are largely guided by paycheck size and "exciting"ness, I stead of actual benefit to society or individuals. Scientists make lots of money developing chemicals, for instance, with little to no concern over whether the chemicals are positive or negative. They are just doing a job. Everyone at SpaceX is likely a true believer, but as I've pointed out, they don't like discussing the realities of the mission beyond whether they CAN do it or not.

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