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Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

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Re: Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

#81

Post by lobotryas »

MarkMc wrote: post #57
jxcole wrote: post #9

I don't know if this makes me cruel, but whenever people talk about donating money to starving children in Africa, I always imagine the following: If I were to donate some amount of money to starving children in an impoverished nation every year I could, theoretically, bring some of them out of starvation. However, these children would then grow into adults, and then these adults would have children of their own. The…

Good question! Firstly I would like to suggest that even if you can only tackle the symptom, not the cause, it would still be worthwhile - a patient with untreatable cancer should nonetheless get painkillers. You are correct that the number of people in the second generation would be higher than the number you bring out of famine. But if you do nothing the second generation would be even larger still since the fertil…

Thought provoking answer!

I'm not OP, but I always wondered: how do nations coming out of poverty (with high birth rates as part of life or tradition) culturally transition to a nation where low birth rates are the norm?

The scenario I'm thinking of is a nation that beats poverty and improves standard of living, but falls back into it because the population refuses to adapt and decrease the number of births.

Re: Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

#83

Post by mturmon »

joering2 wrote: post #33

Ok, so the story with microscope was a good one. I was initially shortsighted. But coming back to the recent Mars mission, anyone has any ideas, more or less accurate/detailed, of how this particular mission will/could benefit our civilization? This is a serious question.

1: Development of autonomous robots. The light-time delay forces autonomy.

2: Possibility of discovering signs of prior life on Mars.

3: Baby steps on the way to developing a more robust space presence.

I don't want to take the time to flesh these out.

You could argue with all of them. You could grant them, and argue about cost/benefit.

But ultimately, it's exploration, and there are no guarantees what will turn out, so arguing cost/benefit when benefit is unknown is not an analytical process.

Re: Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

#84

Post by orbitingpluto »

mynameishere wrote: post #25
dmlorenzetti wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Bill Gates' wife began pushing him to work on issues of third-world health, this was more or less his argument against it. She dug up the statistics to show that this idea, while intuitive, is not supported by fact. As health improves-- and in particular as child mortality goes down-- birth rates fall accordingly. As we all know, Gates got on board, and now funds a lot of health research and on-the-ground initia…

Health generally improves with the underlying economy, not because of charity. The underlying economy is going to correlate with damn near other statistic one way or another. More credibly, the "War on Poverty" was an abject failure in every way.

More credibly, the "War on Poverty" couldn't compete with the "War on the War on Poverty".

It's really simple. Imagine that you have no social security in your old age. Your children, who are very likely to die from malnutrition, are your ONLY resource. In the short term (generationally) it makes sense to try to have as many children as possible. That way maybe someone will still be alive to take care of you.

If you don't feel that pressure, there isn't that population explosion.

Re: Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

#85

Post by mturmon »

btilly wrote: post #75
fragsworth wrote: post #68

This guy has incredible tact, and knows his audience well. > Ever since this picture was first published, voices have become louder and louder warning of the grave problems that confront man in our times: pollution, hunger, poverty, urban living, food production, water control, overpopulation. He even took care not to mention climate change, which I assume was in case the reader has a strong bias against it.

That letter was written in 1970. The possibility of human-caused climate change did not start come to the awareness of the general public until 1988, and did not become a political issue until this millennium. He therefore cannot legitimately be criticized for his inability to predict where science would go in future decades. However he can legitimately be praised for being prescient about the role of satellites in r…

"he can legitimately be praised for being prescient about the role of satellites in researching a number of environmental problems"

Good catch to notice that. I was impressed this too, but didn't post until I saw your reply.

To me, Earth remote sensing is the most clear-cut example of near-term benefit to humanity by space technologies. It's amazing what can be done -- way beyond inputs for weather forecasts.

You can assess health of forest canopy from space (because you can measure water content of leaves -- it's a delicate measurement, but it can be done). (Hyperspectral radiometer)

You can measure full-air-column CO2, CO, and other gases, from space.

You can measure sea surface salinity and temperature, and even surface wind velocity, from space. (microwave radiometer, radar scatterometer)

You can measure tiny post-earthquake land deformations -- not at selected sites, but continuously over a broad area. (Radar interferometry)

All this is way beyond where it started, with pictures of cloud formations. Having these physical inputs allows much better modeling and prediction of all kinds of activity: weather/ecology/seismicity.

Re: Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

#86

Post by saraid216 »

MarkMc wrote: post #62

I don't buy the argument. A $100b space mission is going to have a bigger benefit to the desperately poor than a $100b medical research program? No way. But then, why does the space program need to be defended like that? People prefer buying big TVs, big cars, big houses instead of giving the money to starving Africans. So why not view the space program as just an extension of that?

Because hedonism isn't really a good argument when being offered to a nun.

Re: Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

#87

Post by saraid216 »

nathan_f77 wrote: post #26

This letter is timeless, and provides such brilliant perspective. It's a fantastic answer to questions I've also been thinking about. As an aside, I wonder if something so convincing could be written about military spending.

"Tell me, do you plan to report on the millions we've saved by advancing medical technology or kept from starvation with our intelli-crops? All those breakthroughs, military funding, honey." -- Tony Stark, Iron Man.

I agree with TheComedian that the drawbacks mitigate the benefits a lot, though. The thing about space exploration is that the drawbacks are purely speculative (alien regard, exoplanet contamination, etc.) and are a lot easier to dismiss.

Re: Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

#88

Post by powertower »

nandemo wrote: post #34
mynameishere wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health generally improves with the underlying economy, not because of charity. The underlying economy is going to correlate with damn near other statistic one way or another. More credibly, the "War on Poverty" was an abject failure in every way.

The argument is not that "charity improves healthcare" (though in some specific cases it does, locally), it's that since birth rates tend to fall, the claim that "saving a child will only increase the number of starving people in the future" doesn't hold.

I'm afraid that the difference it makes when we decreased infant mortality in a region, is the difference between having 8 children and having 5 children.

The problem is one of culture, education, and relative-wealth (and also whatever traits are infuenced by DNA). Everything else stems from that.

Sub-Sahara population has seen a decrease in infant mortality and at the same time has gone from 250M to 850M people in 30 years.

It's blowing up and I'm also afraid that the cause of all that is foreign intervention and artificial aid. In 2050 there will be 2 Billion people there. Who's going to help feed the hungry then?

Re: Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

#90

Post by GlennS »

JohnsonB wrote: post #64
drucken wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How on Earth is that condescending? How is a nun in middle of Africa meant to have even a basic understanding of how a specific government's budgeting and economic system works? I am willing to bet the vast majority of Americans themselves (to this day) have no idea of even the basics so simply explained by Dr Stuhlinger, yet it was a critical part of the bigger picture.

>How is a nun in middle of Africa meant to have even a basic understanding of how a specific government's budgeting and economic system works? She can't have read a few books on economics? His explanation was pretty basic and nothing that couldn't be found in econ 101 textbooks. He essentially just assume she was uneducated.

A nun, in the 1970s, in Zambia, is not going to have easy access to economics textbooks.
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