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harkuponthegay t1_ja1hn0p wrote

Reply to comment by Ragnar_DanneskjoldSr in NASA's Artemis moon program receives salute from Apollo 11's Buzz Aldrin (video) by kevindavis338

What makes you say that? Pretty much all research and experimentation on human life systems in space has come from ISS, not to mention that the only vehicles that have undergone enough development to be human rated exist purely because the ISS gave them a reason to.

People can talk about space tourism all they want but the real dollars come from government contracts— and the government has spent a lot of money to build and maintain the ISS, that money isn’t wasted— it was paid to the contractors and industries that have now matured to the point of being able to make their own decisions about investment in space (see: satellite internet constellations, and SpaceX starship). We wouldn’t have a mature private space industry or nearly as much knowledge about living and working in space as we do now without the ISS.

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Ragnar_DanneskjoldSr t1_ja1hwmy wrote

It's not really relevant to traveling through interplanetary space. Little bit of physiology knowledge gained. Not much else.

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harkuponthegay t1_ja5nhyp wrote

Great—Im glad that you’ve seen all the research from ISS and determined that it was not much. Must be true.

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Ragnar_DanneskjoldSr t1_ja1i6vc wrote

Taxpayer funding of such endeavors is not the hill you want to die on. The entire miniature electronic world we live in now is completely due to the moonshot. And about 36 people are monetizing it. The taxpayer has been fucked over time and time again. Case in point The current situation with Moderno grossing over 36 billion on the vaccine +10,000,000,000 paid by the taxpayer upfront and paying a $400 million fine on government research that is essential to their product. It's morally bankrupt and any civilized society would either criminalize or under no circumstances, accept such behavior

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harkuponthegay t1_ja1ub0p wrote

I don’t understand your gripe here— the taxpayers are benefitting from the miniature electronic world existing— that is no small benefit, and it is enjoyed in equal measure by everyone. We all get to live in a world with better technology. In my opinion that’s worth the small percentage of my income that went towards those efforts.

If you are upset that there are people or companies that are reaping more of the profits from those technologies, then that is a complaint against capitalism… not science/technology or government investment and support for these things.

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