Unpopularity of space exploration

Alexander Sheppard · 2004-06-06 22:45:39

It occurs to me that the chief reason for the apparent unpopularity of large space initiatives at the present time is that people are afraid for their material security. Per hour wages in the US have been mostly falling since the late 1970s. The healthcare system is the most inefficient in the industrialized world, and the only one that leaves substantial portions of the population without coverage. Unions have been crushed, with workplace organization dropping by about two thirds since WWII. Organization in the non-public sectors is back to pre-New Deal levels. Meanwhile 1% of the population owns 40% of the wealth, up from 20% a quarter century or so ago.

People will be less timid about sacrificing money to what are percieved as hugely expensive ventures if they are not forced to live in constant fear by an oppressive system.

Gennaro · 2004-06-07 02:38:55

I believe you have a point. Another factor I'd like to identify is the sci-fi/science rift. Simply put, in the popular mind Star Wars and Star Trek symbolize the norm of how space should be. When this crashes head-on with the reality and its assumptions, i.e "Mars is a freaking cold, rusty heap of stone", "you can't go faster than light" etc, people get disillusioned about space and reject it.

smurf975 · 2004-06-07 04:54:32

From a socialist point of view the whole space exploration is something of the rich.

1. First only the rich and highly educated get to space and eventually Mars. How many % population of the US is rich or carries the title Dr. before their names? And its that small percentage that has a chance to go to Mars.
2. Second the argument of a Mars colony paying for it self by mining and stuff by companies only works for shareholders who are rich.

ANTIcarrot. · 2004-06-07 07:07:12

1. First only the rich and highly educated get to space and eventually Mars. How many % population of the US is rich or carries the title Dr. before their names? And its that small percentage that has a chance to go to Mars.
2. Second the argument of a Mars colony paying for it self by mining and stuff by companies only works for shareholders who are rich.

3. The rich in congress (and can one person name a poor congressman?) do not want poor people getting into space, because cheap space access would constitute a potential national security threat.
4. Hence the rich in congress cancel anything that has a chance of reducing the cost of space flight.

Though in this case few of the concerned are highly educated.

ANTIcarrot.

Palomar · 2004-06-07 07:20:51

I believe you have a point. Another factor I'd like to identify is the sci-fi/science rift. Simply put, in the popular mind Star Wars and Star Trek symbolize the norm of how space should be. When this crashes head-on with the reality and its assumptions, i.e "Mars is a freaking cold, rusty heap of stone", "you can't go faster than light" etc, people get disillusioned about space and reject it.

*Yeah, those are really good points, Gennaro.

All the strife and war in the world is another, if my relatives are any indication. Most are supportive of my lifelong interest in astronomy, but when it comes to manned space exploration and colonization, their first response is, "Don't we have enough unresolved problems here?"

I can't suppose my relatives are exceptions to the general thought.

--Cindy

smurf975 · 2004-06-07 07:35:07

"Don't we have enough unresolved problems here?"

Yes we do but if you believe space is a thing of the rich as I pointed out in a previous post and so did ANTIcarrot its exactly like now. Where Mars could be a refugee for the rich hiding from the Earths problems. Now you have Beverly Hills and other places but eventually the rich would want more privacy and security.

And wouldn’t it be something like the rich would do and make the poor (poor being low income and middle class) pay for the development of space flight (taxes) and then make it expensive enough so that only rich people and a few selected people can use it?

Josh Cryer · 2004-06-07 13:27:48

Thank you Gennaro, this is a point I have made before, too. Space is inherently 'boring' to the common person in a world where "Worlds Wildest Police Chases" is actually an enjoyable experience for many.

Shaun Barrett · 2004-06-07 18:41:11

Don't get me started on "the common person", Josh!
When I think of all the people (real life flat-landers! ) I've met, who can't see more than 10 km above their empty heads, THEN I get depressed about our future!
If we become a truly space-faring civilisation - and we're right on the threshold of doing that - the wealth we can create will be staggering. America has been the engine room of unprecedented world economic growth for many years but it took clear vision and great effort on the part of Europe, spending money they no doubt could have spent at home on other things, to kick-start that 'New World'.

There'll always be a gap between rich and poor. There'll always be economic injustice. But turning your back on the future because you feel disgruntled about it, dismissing the chance to vastly multiply the wealth and technology of the human species because you're worried someone else might benefit more from it than you will, is short-sightedness and pettiness of the worst kind.
Let's create the new wealth first. We can always fight over who gets what afterwards! And there'll be so much more to go around - wealth we can hardly imagine today.

smurf975 · 2004-06-07 19:05:47

Your arguments makes sence but its also something that makes me think of "The rich will get richer".

Whats wrong with improving the lifes of people here and now? I'd rather have security now then chase some wild dream. And the only way you will get cheap(er) spaceflight is by private enterprices. As the NASA and many other agencies are bloated and slow moving (however not all to their own faults). So if cheap spaceflight would be done by private companies, then the government could just step out and work on its to-do list.

Alexander Sheppard · 2004-06-07 20:17:56

I'm not sure if your arguments do make sense, or at least as much sense as most people here think they do. We have to understand that the average hourly wage in the US has been actually declining for most of the last quarter century. World GNP growth in that period has shifted into a very worrisome, slow pattern, which at least in the US would actually be negative if people weren't working longer hours to make up (the bottom 20% has nevertheless lost income anyway).

Our first priority must be reverse this very worrisome state of affairs, along with the growing threat to survival from nuclear war or ecological catastrophe.

And in my view, the main engines of economic growth in the future will probably include space but also are critically bound up in various kinds of molecular technologies, meaning biotech, nanotech and advanced computing. I don't know if we should be buying into this whole "just reach space and then its paradise" line.

Palomar · 2004-06-07 21:13:55

I'm not sure if your arguments do make sense, or at least as much sense as most people here think they do...I don't know if we should be buying into this whole "just reach space and then its paradise" line.

*Hmmm...-if- you're referring to Shaun's post (?) I'd like to say I think I understand where he's coming from (sort of, at least). A trickle-down (maybe not the best term) of wealth. For instance, it used to be only royals enjoyed ice cream. Now we "commoners" have -- for decades -- enjoyed multiple flavors of ice cream bursting from our grocer's freezer section. Used to be a color "code" for clothing in some old European societies -- royals and nobles could wear as many colors in their clothing as they desired, only royals could wear purple, "commoners" could only wear 1 or 2 colors. Today we can wear purple and gold and whatever else we want, all we want.

It's true our standard of living (of course I'm speaking of Western civilization) has improved, due to increase of wealth "in general." I can shop any hour of the day or night in grocery stores boasting produce and cuts of meat even royalty 100 years ago couldn't have dreamed about.

Vaccinations, dental hygiene, sterile surgical techniques, increased longevity, electricity, indoor heating/cooling, etc.

Just some analogies...I think (correct me if wrong, Shaun) this is the crux of Shaun's argument. He's never struck me as unrealistic or "pie in the sky." Not saying you're implying that, Alexander -- I just wanted to chime in.

--Cindy

P.S.: I'm still not thrilled, though, with the idea of huge conglomerations and corporations on Mars. I'd like to see as even a playing field as possible there, starting out at least. Let it be a true open frontier.

Shaun Barrett · 2004-06-08 07:51:29

Thank you, Cindy, for explaining so eloquently what I was trying to put across. I couldn't have done it better myself!
The 'trickle-down effect' is as good a way of describing it as any, and forms part of the logic which seeks to point out that economics don't have to be a zero-sum game.

And yes, Smurf975, the rich will indeed get richer. As Cindy describes so well, even the poorest American can now eat ice cream, a treat once reserved for royalty. In the past, I've cited the fact that poor Mexicans can be seen driving 25-year-old Cadillacs in places like Tijuana. This represents a standard of transport totally unavailable even to the wealthiest American of, say, 1904.
Obviously, it would be nice if every Mexican (or American, for that matter! ) could afford a brand new Cadillac. But in the present-day absence of such a pipe-dream, can we not take comfort in the fact that, as the wealthy get wealthier, so do the poor? You can eat your heart out with envy and righteous outrage and decry the rich for having more than you have but, in absolute terms, everybody is becoming materially better off and there's no denying it.

You can look at the wealth that exists now and fret and fume about how to part the rich from their money so that you can have it - Oops! Sorry .. I meant so that 'the poor' can have it! Or you can open your eyes and see that the standard of living of the wealthy people of today will be a pretty mean thing compared to the average standard of living of a space-faring civilisation of tomorrow.
The politics of envy spring from an inability to see the big picture. Let's not fight over who has the biggest slice of our one and only apple pie; let's bake more pies!

A time is coming, and maybe quite soon, when the average human will have routine access to almost everything s/he currently desires and a lot of things s/he can't even imagine today. It will seem incomprehensible that there was a time when people fought over food and material goods and had to toil at tedious unstimulating work.
I believe that becoming a space-faring civilisation is central to this vision of a better future for everyone. To remain in our planetary cradle, bickering as we've done for millenia over our limited resources and how to allocate them, would be the ultimate betrayal of our potential as a species.
I believe we're better than that.

Alexander Sheppard · 2004-06-08 10:17:37

What I'm saying is that what we need to do is reverse the very worrisome trend that has appeared over the last thirty years or so, and keep improving our standard of living. What is happening now is that the standard of living of a tiny minority is increasing very rapidly, while for most it is actually declining, if this is measured by real hourly wages.

It used to be the case that what you were saying was correct, the rich would get richer and poor would get richer. That is roughly the situation in America from WWII to the mid 1970s.

Technology has certainly kept on advancing since that time, and it isn't known, if the current trends keep up, when it will begin to really stagnate. But barring some extreme development, if these trends continue, it must do so at some point. It may well be that these trends will turn around well before that point is reached; but the political realities driving them are still going strong, and looking to get even worse. Perhaps we will find some amazing new technology which will reverse these trends even despite the political situation. IT has been widely praised as such a technology, although it clearly has not had an effect even approaching what would be necessary.

But it is perhaps more likely that given the political realities of our time (do you think that a manned mission to Mars is so likely now?) and the present feelings of the masses, we will have to reverse these trends without such technology if we ever plan on having it.

C M Edwards · 2004-06-08 10:40:21

What are the political realities driving these trends?

If you're going to drive a stake through the heart, you'd better know where to aim...

Alexander Sheppard · 2004-06-08 11:48:54

More or less, neoliberalism.

atitarev · 2004-06-08 19:05:30

Let me add my 2 coins.

The popularity of space exploration could be boosted if we have more and better sci/fi movies, say based on K.S. Robinson's Mars trilogy, Case for Mars and others - optimistic - less war and scary aliens, nasty viruses, more achievable results, no speed light travels - new frontiers - Mars settlement, etc.

Journalists contribute to unpopularity of space exploration by talking about huge budgets needed to get something done. They need to be better educated in this.

Palomar · 2004-06-08 19:12:26

Journalists contribute to unpopularity of space exploration by talking about huge budgets needed to get something done. They need to be better educated in this.

*Hi Anatoli:

I agree. Sorry, I don't mean to necessarily inject U.S. culture into this, but I suppose it's a bit unavoidable. I think Bill O'Reilly of FOX News is correct in pointing out that, whereas in the past it was the journalist's job to obtain and report facts, now the media (print, radio, TV) is mostly or completely sold over to political biases -- and "pitching for" a particular agenda. (I wonder how his own show fits in...). To heck with facts.

Anyway, it sure makes hoping for "fair and balanced" journalism more difficult -- impossible, I suppose, for media corporations opposed to space exploration and the like. :-\

And I don't mean to get this thread off-topic; simply chiming in, relative to one aspect of it.

--Cindy

smurf975 · 2004-06-08 19:24:04

I think the media has always been biased but now with more tv stations and the internet you can compare them more easily.

I don't know about how it is in the US, but most countries have and always had newspapers that were supporting some political ideology. Meaning you have newspapers that lean to the right or to the left or have a religious background.

Non Americans read this for a background on Bill O'Reilly http://www.plastic.com/article.html%3bs … mt=167]Fox News' Translates As 'Funny' In Canada?

atitarev · 2004-06-08 19:35:55

Journalists contribute to unpopularity of space exploration by talking about huge budgets needed to get something done. They need to be better educated in this.
*Hi Anatoli:
I agree. Sorry, I don't mean to necessarily inject U.S. culture into this, but I suppose it's a bit unavoidable. I think Bill O'Reilly of FOX News is correct in pointing out that, whereas in the past it was the journalist's job to obtain and report facts, now the media (print, radio, TV) is mostly or completely sold over to political biases -- and "pitching for" a particular agenda. (I wonder how his own show fits in...). To heck with facts.
Anyway, it sure makes hoping for "fair and balanced" journalism more difficult -- impossible, I suppose, for media corporations opposed to space exploration and the like. :-\
And I don't mean to get this thread off-topic; simply chiming in, relative to one aspect of it.
--Cindy

Thanks, Cindy. You're very right. And this problem is not only with the US media, it's common. Space exploration is just not on agenda. In Australia, I watch the morning news - 30% commercials, 30% sports and some news. When they start talking about Mars, space, etc, they start laughing and joking for no obvious reason (I don't get the jokes - must something that causes them to smile).

In the Russian media it's the same attitude.

smurf975 · 2004-06-08 19:37:13

Let me add my 2 coins.
The popularity of space exploration could be boosted if we have more and better sci/fi movies, say based on K.S. Robinson's Mars trilogy, Case for Mars and others - optimistic - less war and scary aliens, nasty viruses, more achievable results, no speed light travels - new frontiers - Mars settlement, etc.
Journalists contribute to unpopularity of space exploration by talking about huge budgets needed to get something done. They need to be better educated in this.

Yeah but people don't want to see realistic movies. They want star trek, star wars with sounds in space, they want gravity, aliens like humans etc.

If you look at the http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegr … non-us]top twenty of best all time selling movies you will see only two movies (Titanic and Forrest Gumb) that are some what realistic the rest are all fantasy based.

However you had movies like http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199753/]Red Planet and http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183523/]Mission to Mars I have seen both but its a long time ago. One of them was kinda of like the book Red Mars. But anyway I guess they didn't sell to well. BTW they are not bad movies but just not Star Trek, Star Wars with huge empires and wars.

atitarev · 2004-06-08 19:43:04

Let me add my 2 coins.
The popularity of space exploration could be boosted if we have more and better sci/fi movies, say based on K.S. Robinson's Mars trilogy, Case for Mars and others - optimistic - less war and scary aliens, nasty viruses, more achievable results, no speed light travels - new frontiers - Mars settlement, etc.
Journalists contribute to unpopularity of space exploration by talking about huge budgets needed to get something done. They need to be better educated in this.
Yeah but people don't want to see realistic movies. They want star trek, star wars with sounds in space, they want gravity, aliens like humans etc.
If you look at the http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegr … non-us]top twenty of best all time selling movies you will see only two movies (Titanic and Forrest Gumb) that are some what realistic the rest are all fantasy based.
However you had movies like http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199753/]Red Planet and http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183523/]Mission to Mars I have seen both but its a long time ago. One of them was kinda of like the book Red Mars. But anyway I guess they didn't sell to well. BTW they are not bad movies but just not Star Trek, Star Wars with huge empires and wars.

I watched both movies, Smurf. They are good but we need more and better. Enemy Mine (an old one) is a good one too, as well as the Planet of the Apes and it's positive - stop the war, all intelligent species are equal, etc. I think, Mars Trilogy could be a good base for a movie but they should add some action and use a bit more fantasy. I liked the final part of Total Recall - Terraformation made easy

smurf975 · 2004-06-08 19:50:35

I think if you really to make more people interested in space you must build orbiting hotels in space. Where you can go for $10.000 a week.

atitarev · 2004-06-08 20:04:30

I think if you really to make more people interested in space you must build orbiting hotels in space. Where you can go for $10.000 a week.

Alexander Sheppard · 2004-06-08 20:21:22

Again, I don't really think that the public sentiment is all that far off track. Despite our looking down on the "common moron", the fact is that the standard of living in the US, as measured by wealth accrued per hour, is mostly declining. In such a society it would be very strange if there wasn't a lot of anxiety, and when people start talking about foward leaning projects, the natural reaction is to ask, "Well, what about my children?" You can't blame people for that reaction. The only reason, actually, that it isn't asked about the military, and most importantly the large corporations, which eat up far more money than NASA, is because of people like Bill O'Reilly who will say anything to gain prominence in a media owned by huge corporations. NASA doesn't have those kind of ideological defenses in place, so it is more vulnerable. Support for these other things would doubtless be lower than for NASA if it wasn't for the power they wield.

smurf975 · 2004-06-08 20:32:01

I think if you really to make more people interested in space you must build orbiting hotels in space. Where you can go for $10.000 a week.

I don't think its funny. But I do understand that you may think so.

Its just that Mars and Moon and humans on them are age old stories. Getting people on Mars is such an old story and nothing has happened since the 50 years that people said its possible.

Its like when I see a brochure or on TV something about a holiday on a exoctic island with scuba diving and stuff. But now imagine there are no commercial airlines and only sailing ships. Do you really think people would be that interested in going to some far region? Or would think of it as something realistic?

You can argue to people that's technically possible but most humans are pretty down to earth and will then say: "Well then do it." Or "I will believe it when I see it"

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#1 2004-06-06 22:45:39

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#2 2004-06-07 02:38:55

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#3 2004-06-07 04:54:32

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#4 2004-06-07 07:07:12

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#5 2004-06-07 07:20:51

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#6 2004-06-07 07:35:07

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#7 2004-06-07 13:27:48

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#8 2004-06-07 18:41:11

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#9 2004-06-07 19:05:47

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#10 2004-06-07 20:17:56

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#11 2004-06-07 21:13:55

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#12 2004-06-08 07:51:29

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#13 2004-06-08 10:17:37

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#14 2004-06-08 10:40:21

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#15 2004-06-08 11:48:54

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#16 2004-06-08 19:05:30

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#17 2004-06-08 19:12:26

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#18 2004-06-08 19:24:04

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#19 2004-06-08 19:35:55

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#20 2004-06-08 19:37:13

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#21 2004-06-08 19:43:04

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#22 2004-06-08 19:50:35

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#23 2004-06-08 20:04:30

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#24 2004-06-08 20:21:22

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

#25 2004-06-08 20:32:01

Re: Unpopularity of space exploration

Board footer