Space programme or Starving people

They can spen hundrends and millions of money to send a lone probe about the size of a house into space where it will encounter many problems and most probably lworkfor a few decades.

While on earth we have countries and millions of people who are dieing of disease and starving of sustinance, begging for a scrap of the food we eat everyday.

We can send a man into space, but we can not save a poor man's life?

The question I pose is:
Should we keep looking up to the stars dreaming of one day travelling the endless space or do we finally look around the ground and see the suffering of many, where we could make a countries life better?
Should we fund the space programme or fund countries in poverty?

 

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There have been many good will gestures in the past but it's totally unnecessary for the central government of a nation to do something that in no way helps it's own people. The judgment of the leadership could determine this but if it comes down to humanitarian aid versus the space race, it's probably more in any nation's interest to go with space probes because technology is a major economic and political issue, which can tip the balance of power. So, let good will organizations and individual donors help the people if you have to choose.

 

It all depends on what your priorities are. If you believe that all humans are members of the nation of humanity (which is the mindset that would be rather helpful >_>) then helping people wherever they happened to be born would be pretty high on the agenda. Also, building up these countries and their economies is part of long term planning and strategies. If they have a functioning economy then they also have a viable market to export to and import from, improving both countries.

If you believe in the long term, funding the space program would be a good idea. With the constant threat from meteor impacts (you are statistically more likely to be killed by a meteor impact than lightning) we need ways to deal with them.

Personally I think that countries, such as America, need to deal with their ever mounting internal problems before heading out into the world.

I would also go so far as to accuse America as not acknowledging the existence of much outside of their borders, cutting them off from practically all of the rest of humanity and making them one of the most hated countries in the world. Interesting title for a (waning) superpower.

 

I don't think you know where a LOT of our money actually goes. The U.S. and other countries are constantly sending money to other countries in order to help them out, especially in times of disaster. We also send the military and Red Cross as well as Peace Corps out to aid others and they receive a lot of funding to do so. We can't help -everyone- even if we took out the space program. That's the way life goes. People have to figure out their own ways of doing things and no one can be 'big brother' and do it all. Also, too much interference can be seen as rude and obnoxious.

I say we definitely need to continue space studies and exploration. I get tired of hearing people complain it is a worthless endeavor when there are real advantages to it and instead we should focus only on earth. We don't just live -on earth-. We live in this universe/multiverse and why should we not explore it and learn? We don't have to remain ignorant, so why should we? We would not know anything of asteroids that could be potentially harmless to us or be able to travel and learn of our solar system and other places to acclimate ourselves with further surroundings. It is advantageous to explore space and if we -can- we should.

 

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Another thing, why put a man on the moon when we know that there's no life on it when the money could be spent finding cures for cancer. Nature, by nature (no pun intended) has a cure for everything if you just look, ever seen the film "Medicine Man"?

 

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Starving people. Why would someone be selfish enough to have more knowledge than save the lives of millions of people? What's the point of having knowledge if ton of people dying because of them choosing to aquiring it?

 

I have no idea sometimes where you compare one thing with another like this and it's apples and oranges. You cannot just FEED the world and do everything for everyone in every country. We give millions (if not billions) of dollars per year to tons of people in other countries and also fight to get our own people off the streets. Why should we not use some money to explore and gain insight into space etc?

Did it also cross your mind that we can give tons of money and support, people going over to other places etc and it doesn't mean it's fixing very much? We do a lot, bringing in food, drug supplies, money, helping protect people from getting killed etc. We cannot just do it all or run other people's countries FOR them. Is that what you want? Some places really need a good old fashioned revolution and to know what to fight for, so they can oust these idiots in power that keep them where they are. It is not always our business or problem unless it's getting out of hand. Even then, we have to consider Diplomacy. Politics is a LOT more complex than you are making it and respect of other countries' borders is too. Part of morality is respecting how people choose to live. Despite how annoying politics can be, it IS a part of morality, so really you need to dig deeper to understanding other cultures.

Matter-a-fact, a lot of what you are saying sounds like you really don't research the positions, respect nations, think about the people themselves other than some are starving and less fortunate while others apparently sit on thrones. This is a very naive way to look at it and with ethics, morals, political issues, respect of other people etc, we cannot just support the world more than we already do. We also have to support ourselves.

Every time people want to take out scientific investigations I just shake my head. Space exploration may not be important to you, but so what? We have learned great things from it, to include more on mineralogy, advancing clothing and protections, better food packaging that resists rotting, and things for solar panels, tremendous computer advances, etc. We also have awareness and are working on a way of dealing with Apophis which without studies we'd not know it was potentially going to come near us and has a chance of impact. Isn't that saving lives too?

I really can wonder, Peace-of-war, where you come up with these things and do not research hardly at all before making statements like this.

Lastly, I will add that whether or not you like the space program, where do you get the idea that if we had no space program, we'd have a cure for cancer? That's another argument used by the unintelligent people who want to try to say money makes cures and argue two irrelevant points for comparison. MANY people research cancer. If they can't come up with a cure, it's not the space program that is to blame. It's not the war in Iraq that is to blame. It's not sex education funding that is to blame, etc. It's the fact that cancer has been with us since the dawn of humanity most likely and now that people live longer, it has become more prominently a part of our culture, like heart disease etc. It's the situation that even if people do find ideas etc, the corporations and pharmaceutical companies hold them back. This has nothing to do with the space program. The radiation that is higher now too is part of it. You know what could help us understand the radiation etc more and already has?...the space program.

There isn't a program out there replacing another program for money and funds the way you imagine. Hell, scientists have learned to toss in their own wages to researching, to include medical scientists and space exploration scientists, because the governments don't support them as strongly as they should. However, governments support a TON of things and unless we increase people's taxes, we just aren't going to make everything possible.

 

Another point that should be made is that the earth is a closed and rather limited economy. We only have so much in the way of resources and if we stay on earth making no effort to spread out into at least the solar system we will starve as a species. We need to think much more in the long term instead of being so pre-occupied with the present. We also have to accept the fact that in some instances we can't save everyone =/

However, I don't like the way this seems to be saying we can only fund a space programme or aid to other countries. It is much different in practice lol

 

XD
Apples and oranges are alll fruit in the end.

I To tell you the truth this thread wasn't really one I cared about, it was just that I hadn't though of any good questions in a while this is the only one that was in my head. Now that I look back at it, it was a stupid question.

It's Peace-and-War, my friend, really just call me PAW, alot easier to type out and remember.

It's more of a case of how much more can we learn, to me. We don't have sufficient enough equipment to invetigate the whole galaxy, we are in a restricted are at the moment. I'm not saying the projects bad, not at all, we can learn more form the cosmos than ever before, but at the moment we have no proper way of looking much farther than our own solar system.

As far as I know they are 2 arguments to that. one, we are already stable and will not enter a state of distability for a long time and two that we are already decresing to the same level as third world countries in economical terms. I don't know if either or true, but it still seems like too many projects are going on that don't seem to benefit anyone.

It seems like the government is already trying to win the support of other countries by funding them, but not enough by actually making a diference. Alll I see it is that the government is giving just enough resources to win over the country but not enough to make a difference. Thats just how it seems, I don't mean it's true.

See now thats just what I don't get, how a government can still care about others if their own country has problems. Why we have to keep supporting other countries when we should fix our own is a mystery.

 

i think we do need to help other coutries they shouldn't be starving and dieing and us not even doing anything about it i am for the poor people.

 

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WTF? What they give us?
Most of them don't even have a proper house, how can you be so selfish in wanting something from CHARITY?
I'm not trying to be dis-respectful but that comment is just selfish in my eyes.

 

Most America is selfish. Hate to break it to you, but I'm one of a million.


Edit: I hate debating and since PoW has been viewing this thread for a while, I'm assuming I'm going to get my ass kicked. So I'm going to get the **** out while my self-esteem/anger is in normal limits. Think what the **** you guys want to, have fun.

 

I did not mean to make it seem as if you'd be challenged because of your view but it took me by surprise.
I'm also quite stunned your almost proud of being selfish, no offense, just seems like that.

 

I never said I was proud of it. Just proving a point.

 

I'm not saying we should stop putting our money in space programs, but I do agree that we should spend most of the money on the unfortunate. Finding cures for diseases and giving food to the poor is much more important than seeing whats out there. If we do blow all our money on just space, then we are depriving millions of people of a chance on this Earth.

 

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