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How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

reason.com

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Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#151

Post by quanticle »

warfangle wrote: post #127
VMG wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It amazes me that on a tech site you are getting downvotes for this. Human space travel is a waste of money from a scientific standpoint. Why a libertarian magazine like reason.com supports human space travel at all is a mystery to me.

Human space travel is a waste of money from a capital market sense, perhaps. Think of all we've learned by putting humans into space. Think of all we'd have to learn to put humans permanently on the moon - from long-term temperature regulation to ecosystem habitats and materials science. It's not the destination of the journey that matters. It's what we need to figure out in order to get there that does.

So what, specifically, about space travel would cause us to make those discoveries about temperature regulation and ecosystem habitats? Unless there's something specifically about hard vacuum and freefall that makes it easier to study these topics, they could be more easily and far more cheaply studied on Earth.

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#152

Post by pemulis »

redthrowaway wrote: post #146
fennecfoxen wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know - you don't necessarily have to compete with the hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth; you just need to be able to compete with the expectations of their wealth after you roll in your tanks and attempt to crush them. This is presumably a lower value, iff you have a credible threat to actually go in there and crush them with your tanks (which takes military expertise, expenditure, and the political w…

This is what I'm getting at. If the US wanted to remove Assad, he wouldn't have much of a choice: a life of luxury in exile, or death. I disagree, however, that it would require tanks. They could do the same as they did in Libya, which is far more justifiable and politically expedient. The dissidents in Syria are gearing up for war[1], so the ever-problematic boots on the ground would be unnecessary. The US would onl…

I see where you're coming from, but there are a number of things that would need to happen for this to work.

1) The Assad family would have to find the threat from NATO credible. 2) They would have to believe that there is no chance of defeating the rebels militarily and outlasting NATO bombardment. 3) The major power players in the Assad government would have to be willing to accept life in exile, with no opportunity for travel or engagement with the rest of the world. (Even Ben Ali, the dictator who left Tunisia semi-voluntarily, has an international warrant out for his arrest.) 4) Some country (presumably America) would have to be willing to either pay them a significant lump sum out of their own pocket or allow them to loot Syria before they leave.

You could pick any one of these apart.

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#153

Post by verroq »

drblast wrote: post #123
arctangent wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Human space travel is a waste of money from a scientific standpoint. It's hard to weigh up the relative merits of spending money on human space travel now over spending (perhaps less) money a few tens or hundred years from now to achieve the same effect. But if mankind doesn't eventually colonise other planets then we're almost certainly going to be wiped out by a big rock hitting our planet and killing every last…

What's the point? It's not going to occur in a reasonable amount of time, and if you say, "Well, eventually it will..." then eventually everything that exists will cease to exist anyway. Why not focus on things that are problems now?

Your argument can be further extended as "what's the point of living when eventually everything will cease to exist anyway".

But ultimately, it's these small wins along the way that help push humanity forward. I'm not going to open the "what's the purpose of life" can of worms but to dismiss scientific research because of how long it will take is a defeatist attitude. You can not predict what fruits will a particular scientific research will be bring just as you cannot predict the future.

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#154

Post by CamperBob »

drblast wrote: post #123
arctangent wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Human space travel is a waste of money from a scientific standpoint. It's hard to weigh up the relative merits of spending money on human space travel now over spending (perhaps less) money a few tens or hundred years from now to achieve the same effect. But if mankind doesn't eventually colonise other planets then we're almost certainly going to be wiped out by a big rock hitting our planet and killing every last…

What's the point? It's not going to occur in a reasonable amount of time, and if you say, "Well, eventually it will..." then eventually everything that exists will cease to exist anyway. Why not focus on things that are problems now?

Why not focus on things that are problems now?

Because those problems will never be solved entirely, no matter what we do?

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#155

Post by verroq »

jaredhansen wrote: post #43
maratd wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reject the notion that we should coddle our children. The teacher is there for a reason. To provide context to what the child is being exposed to. And that can make all the difference. Yes, you can die. Yes, it is dangerous. Yes, these brave men risked their lives and they lost. And if they had to do it all over again, they would risk their lives again. Because if it wasn't for men like them, we would still be sitt…

>brave men risked their lives >men like them It wasn't just men: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Resnik http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christa_McAuliffe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalpana_Chawla http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_Clark Language has power, and using "men" in this context makes invisible the contributions and bravery of these women and others like them. Sorry to seem PC, but it's important to get…

That's ridiculous. When people use men in this context, they refer to humanity as a whole. Don't confuse your lack of English understanding as being PC.

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#156

Post by CamperBob »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #104
javajosh wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...there's nothing for humans to do in space that is worth so much as a single human life" Wrong. In the long run, even if we achieve some sort of utopia, all life will be destroyed by natural catastrophe. The only way to avoid this fate is to find other places to live. Mars is one of those places; so are the various exoplanets we are finding. Indeed, this is humanities greatest challenge. Can we harness the incredi…

Why? I have never understood this argument. What's so special about "humanity" that it needs to be preserved? You're born, you live, you die. A species arises, it has its time on Earth, then it's extinct. Why are humans so special that we should bother about eventually going extinct in hundreds of thousands of years?

What's so special about "humanity" that it needs to be preserved?

The frustrating thing about your nihilistic argument is that there's no practical way we can divide humanity into the grasshoppers who live only for today and the ants who live for the future. A consequence of the advance of democracy -- itself arguably a prerequisite for survival -- is that the grasshoppers will always be with us, and will always have a voice.

If there were a way we could magically reserve the benefits and spinoffs of human space exploration, up to and including the potential preservation of the species, to those who agreed to pay for them, I'd be much more accepting of this kind of question.

But colonization of other celestial bodies is too big a job for only part of humanity to tackle. We all need to pull in that direction, or we'll fail. So the fundamental problem becomes one of how to convince people of all walks of life that this is a worthwhile goal that can, and should, be achieved. It's a tough sell -- like the great European cathedrals, it will take longer than any one lifetime, and cost more than any one king can afford. But it seems possible to make sound, rational arguments in favor of such a mission. There are times when I almost believe that the necessary case can be made, and that the necessary work will be done...

... at least until some overly-clever bozo asks an unanswerable question like, "What's so special about humanity that it needs to be preserved?"

Then, I sink back into my usual unproductive attitude: "Fine. Screw you. Stay behind, see if we care." And sure enough, as usual, nothing changes.

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#157

Post by CamperBob »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #116
stinkytaco wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biology? Because billions of years of evolution have made us all think: "We should have kids and hang around long enough to make sure they have kids too. That way we can keep this caravan rolling." That's a pretty big motivator.

Sure, I get that. That's my I included the "hundreds of thousands of years" modifier. I want my kids to grow up, be happy and have their own kids if they want to, but I really don't care about what happens 100 generations down the road. That's the perplexing part.

I want my kids to grow up, be happy and have their own kids if they want to, but I really don't care about what happens 100 generations down the road.

Stop trying to think 100 generations ahead -- that's pointless, no one can do that. Instead, think 100 generations back. What if the people alive at the time had been happy with their lots in life, content where they were living, and/or too afraid to try anything new? Where would you be now? Do you really feel good about being part of the generation that finally dropped the ball?

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#158

Post by CamperBob »

chernevik wrote: post #46

Apollo was a national security project -- demonstration of our system, exploration of technology of potential military importance. Fixing Hubble was really important. I'm not sure how much the shuttle's work was of the same magnitude, or couldn't have been done with automated gear. BUT bureaucratic and political imperatives called for continuation of the space program, at scale, and that called for justification of t…

Fixing Hubble was really important. I'm not sure how much the shuttle's work was of the same magnitude, or couldn't have been done with automated gear.

Although a staunch supporter of Zubrin and his Mars strategy, as well as a supporter of the HST maintenance effort, I think he shot down his own proposition in this particular article. He points out that Hubble cost $5 billion, while elsewhere, he casually mentions that each of the 125 Space Shuttle launches cost $3 billion.

So for the price of just one additional Shuttle launch, we could've simply launched a new (and potentially improved) copy of Hubble instead of risking anything at all to fix the old one. That's what I call a no-brainer.

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#159

Post by DavidSJ »

benwr wrote: post #3
tokenadult wrote: post #2

This article ended up being more interesting than I expected. Particularly noteworthy is the point that if a program sets an unusually high value on human life, it diverts resources from other programs also intended to protect human life, and thus brings about LESSENED protection of human life through that drain on resources. This provides thoughtful perspective on policy trade-offs. As Thomas Sowell has written, "Th…

I did find the policy of rejecting proposals with costs higher than $3MM/life-saved very interesting. If saving lives made up the entire extent of the federal budget, that sort of thing would clearly be appropriate. But as it is, is the money saved by the rejection of such proposals always redirected back into other lifesaving efforts? If not, that would also seem to imply that a life's value is significantly less th…

No one's claiming that every dollar saved will be directed back into lifesaving efforts, but the mere fact that we could be doing that is proof that what we're doing right now is not the best option we have available to us. Once we accept that, we can decide if saving more lives is the best use of that money, or instead we'd rather pursue other objectives such as actually going to Mars.

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#160

Post by tsotha »

tobylane wrote: post #133
VMG wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It amazes me that on a tech site you are getting downvotes for this. Human space travel is a waste of money from a scientific standpoint. Why a libertarian magazine like reason.com supports human space travel at all is a mystery to me.

It made 14x as much for the US economy (including inspiring American children, excluding inspiring other children/nations). Can that sort of success ever be considered a waste over a long enough timeframe?

The kind of accounting you need to do to arrive at that 14x figure would get you arrested if you put it in a corporate quarterly report, and anyway it totally ignores lost opportunity costs.
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