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Many Americans think NASA should prioritize asteroid hunting instead of moon

businessinsider.com

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Re: Many Americans think NASA should prioritize asteroid hunting instead of moon

#21

Post by notRobot »

redeeman wrote: post #15
notRobot wrote: post #7

Many Americans think cloud storage involves actual clouds. The prevailing view in the 60's among the public was that moon landings were a waste of money. These decisions should be taken by scientists and experts. I think it's important to have these advancements. Not to mention, asteroid hunting will be a lot more effective from the moon anyway, since it has high visibility due to a lack of atmosphere and a low gravi…

> These decisions should be taken by scientists and experts. How about letting the people who pay for it decide?

We live in representative democracies, not direct democracies. Those representatives, in turn, hire experts and scientists.

My entire point is most people know nothing about science, why should they be making these decisions? Many people believe Covid-19 is a hoax and that the earth is flat and that vaccines cause autism, should we really be taking their opinions on matters they don't know about seriously?

Re: Many Americans think NASA should prioritize asteroid hunting instead of moon

#22

Post by notRobot »

tredre3 wrote: post #14
notRobot wrote: post #7

Many Americans think cloud storage involves actual clouds. The prevailing view in the 60's among the public was that moon landings were a waste of money. These decisions should be taken by scientists and experts. I think it's important to have these advancements. Not to mention, asteroid hunting will be a lot more effective from the moon anyway, since it has high visibility due to a lack of atmosphere and a low gravi…

> These decisions should be taken by scientists and experts. Who decides which expert to listen to? Because we have experts on both sides of this issue. > Not to mention, asteroid hunting will be a lot more effective from the moon anyway, since it has high visibility due to a lack of atmosphere and a low gravity which makes escaping the orbit a lot easier. This is just futurism-level techno babble used to justify imp…

> Who decides which expert to listen to? Because we have experts on both sides of this issue.

The representatives you elect. If you're not happy, you can try to hold them accountable or elect someone else. I acknowledge this isn't perfect, but it's what the system is right now.

> The reality is that building anti-asteroid orbital defence is cheaper, faster, more versatile, and plain easier than building a base on the moon.

Since I provided reasoning for my opinion, would you care to do these same, as opposed to stating it as fact?

Re: Many Americans think NASA should prioritize asteroid hunting instead of moon

#23

Post by Kerb_ »

tredre3 wrote: post #14
notRobot wrote: post #7

Many Americans think cloud storage involves actual clouds. The prevailing view in the 60's among the public was that moon landings were a waste of money. These decisions should be taken by scientists and experts. I think it's important to have these advancements. Not to mention, asteroid hunting will be a lot more effective from the moon anyway, since it has high visibility due to a lack of atmosphere and a low gravi…

> These decisions should be taken by scientists and experts. Who decides which expert to listen to? Because we have experts on both sides of this issue. > Not to mention, asteroid hunting will be a lot more effective from the moon anyway, since it has high visibility due to a lack of atmosphere and a low gravity which makes escaping the orbit a lot easier. This is just futurism-level techno babble used to justify imp…

You think asteroid missiles are legit but telescopes on the moon unaffected by atmospheric effects and orbital objects are fantasy techno-babble?

Re: Many Americans think NASA should prioritize asteroid hunting instead of moon

#26

Post by redeeman »

notRobot wrote: post #21
redeeman wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These decisions should be taken by scientists and experts. How about letting the people who pay for it decide?

We live in representative democracies, not direct democracies. Those representatives, in turn, hire experts and scientists. My entire point is most people know nothing about science, why should they be making these decisions? Many people believe Covid-19 is a hoax and that the earth is flat and that vaccines cause autism, should we really be taking their opinions on matters they don't know about seriously?

we live in representative democracies, supposedly because it is(was?) unfeasable to have everyone vote on every little thing. The idea then is, that people elect those who have the policies THEY want, as a whole. This is what representative democracy is sold as, but in reality its about who can promise most braindead shit, cherrypick the exact experts that can be paid to agree with them, and then probably do something different than what they got elected on.

Representative democracy where it actually did as promised, would be that the elected people would do what the ones who elected them wants.

>My entire point is most people know nothing about science, why should they be making these decisions? Many people believe Covid-19 is a hoax and that the earth is flat and that vaccines cause autism, should we really be taking their opinions on matters they don't know about seriously?

So... should we let them vote? and also, I dont give anything for this argument. The so called experts lie and get shit wrong all the time aswell.. How about when the experts and talking heads said "sars-cov2 is only gonna be a thing in places without healthcare, its scaremongering to say anything else, you have more to worry about from the common cold!!!". or "masks dont work!!". Or along the same topic, 100 years ago in new zealand during an outbreak, the so called experts decided that everyone should open their mouths and inhale some zinc sulfate as it was believed by the experts to stop virusses. Whoops!

Oh, and lest we forget, it was the leading experts at the time that believed the earth was flat, and would enforce it on the populace with an iron fist. Lets think, what has recently been enforced on people with an iron fist by experts?

Re: Many Americans think NASA should prioritize asteroid hunting instead of moon

#27

Post by okdure »

RugnirViking wrote: post #17
tredre3 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These decisions should be taken by scientists and experts. Who decides which expert to listen to? Because we have experts on both sides of this issue. > Not to mention, asteroid hunting will be a lot more effective from the moon anyway, since it has high visibility due to a lack of atmosphere and a low gravity which makes escaping the orbit a lot easier. This is just futurism-level techno babble used to justify imp…

> This is just futurism-level techno babble Is it? It seems pretty understandable to me. No atmosphere means easier to spot rocks Less gravity means easier to launch rock deflection mission with more mass. > Who decides which expert to listen to Right now? Our democratically elected officials do, by way of appointing a head of NASA, and also each time NASA wants to approve budget items

Democratically elected once vetted by the donor class

Re: Many Americans think NASA should prioritize asteroid hunting instead of moon

#28

Post by notRobot »

redeeman wrote: post #26
notRobot wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We live in representative democracies, not direct democracies. Those representatives, in turn, hire experts and scientists. My entire point is most people know nothing about science, why should they be making these decisions? Many people believe Covid-19 is a hoax and that the earth is flat and that vaccines cause autism, should we really be taking their opinions on matters they don't know about seriously?

we live in representative democracies, supposedly because it is(was?) unfeasable to have everyone vote on every little thing. The idea then is, that people elect those who have the policies THEY want, as a whole. This is what representative democracy is sold as, but in reality its about who can promise most braindead shit, cherrypick the exact experts that can be paid to agree with them, and then probably do somethin…

I'm not saying experts are perfect. I'm not saying they don't get stuff wrong. It's simply that someone educated in a matter is less likely to be wrong in their area of expertise than a random person off the street who knows nothing about that field.

> Representative democracy where it actually did as promised, would be that the elected people would do what the ones who elected them wants.

Different people want different things. Some people want to go to the moon. Some people don't. Who should get their way? Surely that decision should be made by someone who knows that they're talking about as opposed to randoms like us?

Please also address this from my previous comment:

> My entire point is most people know nothing about science, why should they be making these decisions? Many people believe Covid-19 is a hoax and that the earth is flat and that vaccines cause autism, should we really be taking their opinions on matters they don't know about seriously?

Re: Many Americans think NASA should prioritize asteroid hunting instead of moon

#29

Post by boffinAudio »

We should establish a base on 16 Psyche before we do anything else. This resource alone could propel us into the future as a species like no other project..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_Psyche

Imagine if we move China's production capabilities to 16 Psyche .. we'd all be getting our iPhones and Tesla's from the sky!

Re: Many Americans think NASA should prioritize asteroid hunting instead of moon

#30

Post by redeeman »

notRobot wrote: post #28
redeeman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we live in representative democracies, supposedly because it is(was?) unfeasable to have everyone vote on every little thing. The idea then is, that people elect those who have the policies THEY want, as a whole. This is what representative democracy is sold as, but in reality its about who can promise most braindead shit, cherrypick the exact experts that can be paid to agree with them, and then probably do somethin…

I'm not saying experts are perfect. I'm not saying they don't get stuff wrong. It's simply that someone educated in a matter is less likely to be wrong in their area of expertise than a random person off the street who knows nothing about that field. > Representative democracy where it actually did as promised, would be that the elected people would do what the ones who elected them wants. Different people want diffe…

> Different people want different things. Some people want to go to the moon. Some people don't. Who should get their way? Surely that decision should be made by someone who knows that they're talking about as opposed to randoms like us?

Why is one right and another wrong? this smells to me a bit like elitism. Are things only valid if they further some science goal? If the overwhelming majority of the population(example) thinks mining an asteroid should be done rather than going to the moon, or study some kind of gas cloud, or take pictures of some object, why is that wrong? even if what the "experts" say would lead to generating more invention/understanding of the universe?

> Please also address this from my previous comment:

When people were told the earth is flat, they knew NOTHING about it, it was the leading experts at the time. Why shouldnt they be making the DECISIONS? the scientists can tell the people what they want to do, and why, and what they expect it will give back as a result, and then the PEOPLE, the ones who actually pay the bills and fund the adventures of these academics, can get to decide what to do?

And to be sure, I fully support that any scientist goes and does pretty much whatever he/she wants, with their own money or whomever they can get to fund it, but dont they care to claim to have some divine right to DECIDE what public money MUST be spent on

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