
Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa - happyscrappy
https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-a-1970-letter-to-a-nun-in-africa/?
======
john_b
I've found that objections to space exploration share a fundamental axiom with
the more general objections to federal funding of scientific activities of any
type. Namely, that the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is an inherently
worthless activity. If that knowledge happens to have some immediate positive
impact on a problem affecting presently living people, then it may be worth
pursuing if such a pursuit isn't "too expensive".

While it's trivially obvious that the value of unknown knowledge is
unknowable, this doesn't often occur to such people, focused as they are on
the limitations of the present instead of the possibilities of the future.
Even if the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake _were_ a completely useless
activity which diverted resources away from more pressing problems, societies
everywhere have accepted that their tax dollars inevitably fund certain things
which are unnecessary. Clean parks, public support for the arts, city
fireworks on holidays, etc. Yet people generally find these latter sinks of
funding less objectionable than things like space exploration and federal
support for science. Perhaps it's because the enormous scientific illiteracy
afflicting the populace as a whole (which can be observed simply by reading
any popular journalistic account of scientific developments) places scientific
developments and scientific pursuits into some mental category of "abstract,
probably useless stuff".

~~~
mnl
Let's talk about real science. How come the SSC got cancelled in favour of the
ISS?

The Higgs could have been found in Texas, around 2002. There would have been
no need for the HEP community to build further hadron colliders, it would have
run at 40 TeV and upgrading it would have been easy. Now we're stuck with the
27 km LEP->LHC tunnel and only this year the LHC will start running at 13
TeV... The Congress made its choice after spending $2 billion because it would
cost $11 billion. The ISS has cost U.S. taxpayers $75 billion and the science
there is more or less an excuse. It never was a scientific decision.

There's science and PR "science".

~~~
snowwrestler
I feel like this is just another variant on the utility argument, though. You
feel the SSC would have been more useful to scientific research than the ISS.
But there is still the argument to be made that we don't know in advance what
knowledge will be more useful. Maybe in the future, it will turn out that we
really need to know how to keep humans alive in space, but the Higgs is
useless for all practical purposes.

But--what I just said is still the argument from utility!

As the GP pointed out, we pay for all sorts of things that have little
directly measurable utility, like fireworks and parks and the arts. Yes, towns
with good fireworks, parks, and arts will have an advantage in attracting good
companies and employees. And I'd say the same is true of space exploration (it
helps the U.S. reputation). But once again, we're into utility.

Why do those things create advantage in the first place? Because people like
those things. So turn the utility argument on its head and consider: things
have high utility because they allow us to do things that we like.

Now consider that exploration is itself popular. Whether it's diving to the
Mariana Trench, free climbing a new route on El Cap, or flying to orbit on the
Space Shuttle, these are stories that many people love to read, and kids love
to dream about.

So I would argue that space exploration can skip the utility argument
altogether...we do it because we like it--directly. The purpose of exploration
is to explore. This is behind quite a bit of the history of science as well:
people exploring places and phenomena simply because it was so interesting to
do it.

Edit to add: this sort of reasoning can make fans of science uncomfortable
because it's not a logical or scientific argument. But the fact is that
emotions like awe, excitement, etc. are often big reasons that kids begin to
pursue careers in science. Not many 18 years olds start on a physics degree
because of a deep-seated desire to add 0.01% to future GDP.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _But the fact is that emotions like awe, excitement, etc. are often big
> reasons that kids begin to pursue careers in science. Not many 18 years olds
> start on a physics degree because of a deep-seated desire to add 0.01% to
> future GDP._

Emotions are paramount, they are part of who we are, and they are what drives
us to care about others. Also, pretty much no 18-year-old in their right mind
starts _anything_ because of a "deep-seated desire to add 0.01% to future
GDP". They choose their careers to help themselves and/or to help others
and/or because it's cool and/or because they have no other choice.

------
grondilu
One of my math teacher told me once a short story about Henri Poincaré arguing
with a child about the use of mathematics. When the kid asked him what were
maths used for, he answered : « and you, what are you used for? »

I don't know if this story is true or not. I suspect it isn't. But frankly I
have the feeling there is more sincerity in this answer than in this long
letter to a Nun in Africa.

If you spend some time on a spaceflight forum, you will read enthusiast posts
about how cool it would be to see other words, to experience micro-gravity, or
how interesting the science behind rocket engines is, but I rarely read about
how space science will solve hunger, world peace and whatnot, and when I do
it's precisely as an answer to someone who brought this up, and in this case
someone who does not work in aerospace.

When a Kid loves space and rockets, when he spends countless time reading
science-fiction books, it's because to him it's fun, fascinating and exciting,
not because it's supposed to feed starving children. I doubt an adult rocket
scientist or engineer is fundamentally different. Deep down he just doesn't
give a crap about starving children in Africa.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
>If you spend some time on a spaceflight forum, you will read enthusiast posts
about how cool it would be to see other words, to experience micro-gravity, or
how interesting the science behind rocket engine is, but I rarely read about
how space science will solve hunger,

If I go to a video gaming forum, do people talk about how to end world hunger?
For the price of one new video game, you can feed someone in Africa for two
months.

~~~
vacri
Video games aren't routinely justified as the solution to an extinction event
on earth.

~~~
craigjb
Because they are not. Colonizing other worlds is.

~~~
Chathamization
Not really. Even if multiple extinction events hit Earth, Earth’s still going
to be much more hospitable than Mars is now.

------
Symmetry
One thing I see missing from these discussions is the notion of diminishing
returns. In the end money is an abstraction over the productive capabilities
of our economy. If I were to spend twice as much money on food I could get
twice as much. But if the world doubled it's expenditures on food I doubt food
production would go up by more than 30% or so. If you read charity evaluations
at Givewell they always ask "How efficiently are they spending their money"
but they also ask "Could they efficiently spend more money if it was given to
them."

Another is that it seems odd how selectively we apply this argument. I often
hear about the need to stop space exploration until everybody is fed but I
don't think I've ever heard someone say we should stop making movies until we
end hunger.

~~~
avar
Your observation about diminishing returns is an excellent one, but your
comparison about space exploration and movie making doesn't make much sense.

The reason these people don't argue that we shouldn't stop making movies until
we end world hunger is that (well, most of the time), the making of movies is
not funded by the government, but by the private market.

It's a one thing to to argue that we shouldn't do Y at all as a species until
we accomplish X ("we shouldn't make movies when people are starving"). It's
very different to argue that maybe the government should completely prioritize
X over Y for the purposes of allocating tax money ("let's not spend money on
space until we can feed everyone").

~~~
Kalium
It should be remembered that movie productions are subject to an impressive
array of subsidies and movie companies the beneficiary of a great deal of
government policy and enforcement.

That aside, there will always be a better cause to which all resources should
be devoted. And usually problems which would result from a solution. Would a
more rapidly growing world in which everyone has food but in which nobody has
a job be a better one?

------
putzdown
Stuhlinger's letter expresses a basic optimism toward science that was
characteristic of the modern era in general and the middle of the 20th century
in particular, and which has tarnished a great deal since then. Their faith
held that science has a sort of generalized power to produce good; more
specifically, that given a relatively small cost investment (in terms of
money, time, effort, attention, education, etc.) in scientific endeavor, a
very large and concrete benefit is likely to eventually result. His story of
the lens grinder captures that expectation.

Without arguing the case, I think it's fair to say that a much smaller
proportion of the people in Western societies (at least) now hold this faith
as strongly. The costs of modern "progress" have become more apparent over
time: cures often harbor severe side effects; machines have their wastes and
their dangers; knowledge that seems sure at first often proves less sure with
further study. Our confidence that the costs of science are as low as we once
thought they were has weakened; our confidence that the benefits are as great
or as inevitable has also declined.

His argument that reapportioning money from science to humanitarian causes is
not as simple, in a democratic, bureaucratic country, as it seems it should be
is still as strong as it was when he gave it, if not more so.

But the underlying assumption that, "If we just do something ambitiously
scientific, vastly great goods for humanity will result," is harder to sell
than it was. We no longer accept that a manned voyage to Mars (for example)
will result in concrete benefits for humanity in a way that is remotely
analogous to the support of a lens grinder at the dawn of optics.

Proponents of space exploration must continue to both show the rest of us the
concrete benefits of investment and, at the same time, limit their
expectations. It will never again be like it was in the 60s and early 70s.

~~~
contingencies
Thanks for an extremely thoughtful and well reasoned contribution.

FWIW, I wonder if the decentralization / popularization of access to space
technology will contribute to lower costs that can iteratively enable higher
research goals without needing to cajole wrist-slashing degrees of government
spending?

------
dmethvin
Stuhlinger's thoughtful reply seems like something very few people would do
today. Not just the part about taking time to reply to a random letter, but
the part about deeply considering the role of their work and its effect on
humanity as a whole. Perhaps he's just rationalizing a greater good because he
really likes space exploration, but if that's the case he did an excellent job
of it.

~~~
scott_s
I see no reason to conclude that the number of people who "deeply consider the
role of their work and its effect on humanity as a whole" has gone down since
1970.

~~~
dmethvin
I don't have any quantitative data, agreed. The Internet certainly provides a
lot more visibility for such contemplation, and I can't recall seeing a lot of
it.

~~~
dasil003
To the contrary, I think one of the defining factors of the Internet is that
it creates an unprecedented amount of visibility to _shallow_ contemplation,
thereby drowning out any marginal increase in deep contemplation.

~~~
Kalium
Every era has its overwhelming amount of shallow contemplation. Historians and
archivists are excellent at sorting out the deeper material in retrospect.

------
jkot
It is not 'just' about starving children in Africa, but also about actual
space research. It is crippled by huge manned projects with questionable
scientific return. With money spend on Apollo, Shuttle and ISS we could have
already explored every corner of solar systems. Just imagine hundreds of lunar
and mars rovers.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
This is the most bothersome and asinine aspects of Elon Musk fandom. Instead
of a smart space approach we're degenerating back into a Star Trek-like
fantasy of manned exploration. Sorry but our bodies are not built for space
travel and the costs of fitting machines around us to keep us alive is
incredible. I don't know why people can't be satisfied with robotic missions.
Lusting after landing on what is essentially a dead and hostile planet like
Mars is a bewildering prospect. I don't see these people going to Antarctica,
which would be a comparable experience.

Seems to me, cheap and effective terraforming is a prereq to any planetary
migration or exploration. Even then it would just be a pick up and drop
service to Mars or where-ever. Exploration, in general, should be done by
robots.

~~~
Lambdanaut
Because SpaceX's end-goal isn't to land humans on Mars to conduct a bit of
science. It's to start self-sustaining off-world colonies in order to increase
mankind's prospects of surviving in the universe.

You can literally put an infinite number of rovers on Mars and still not have
this.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Robots can do "a bit of science" just as well, if not better. With a
comparable budget, you'd see some pretty incredible robots on Mars. Meanwhile
we're pissing away dollars shoving meatbags into tincans in LEO and pretending
its progress.

Even during the madness of spending that was the Apollo program the time spent
actually doing "a bit of science" was extremely limited. The cost per minute
doing science with people is a whole different league than robots.

~~~
Lambdanaut
Sure, but just to be sure, you don't seem to be responding to what I said.
Elon Musk's venture isn't based on doing science. Again, they're trying to
build a colony for a goal that isn't necessarily scientific, but will have
scientific benefits.

~~~
jkot
I find it fascinating how they want to build colony, but right now we are not
even able to drill small hole in there. It is like running startup in three
steps: 1) collect underpants 2) ???? 3) profit!!!!

You need robots even for colony. Farting into bubbles on LEO will not get you
there.

~~~
lotsofmangos
They are doing it the other way round from the gnomes though.

They are starting with profit, are not sure about the middle, but know that if
it all works then they are definitely going to have to collect some new
underpants.

------
logfromblammo
TL;DR:

We cannot solve any single problem faced by humanity any faster by focusing on
it to the exclusion of all other pursuits. Indeed, the solutions to some
problems are often found accidentally, while working on something apparently
unrelated. Such serendipitous discoveries cannot be forced; they can only be
encouraged by working on as many diverse efforts as we can reasonably sustain.

How many of our problems could be solved simply by being more unified and
cooperative as a species? Space exploration, by virtue of its great difficulty
and its ability to refocus our perspective on something much larger than
ourselves, drives us to become better as a species, and attacks in a single
stroke all those problems caused mainly by our everyday selfishness and
cruelty to one another.

Here is a photo that fits every human alive, except the three behind the lens,
into 3% of the field of view. I hope it readjusts your perspective as it has
readjusted mine.

------
chriskanan
Many comments on this previous post about the letter:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4372563](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4372563)

~~~
GrantS
It's interesting to note how much has happened in the short 891 days since
that previous discussion occurred in mid 2012. At that point, the space
shuttle fleet was retired but SpaceX hadn't yet flown a commercial resupply
mission to the ISS. Curiosity hadn't yet landed on Mars. Rosetta/Philae
arriving at their comet, etc. I'm sure someone can come up with a more
complete timeline, but I've been following space exploration as a layman for a
number of years and these last couple of years have been some of the most
exciting in quite awhile.

------
dmead
where is the nun's letter?

~~~
pdevr
I really liked Stuhlinger's reply and I am for space exploration, but this
question is relevant. Without knowing what she asked, it is not possible to
know whether the answer addressed the concerns she raised.

~~~
joshmarlow
Agreed. I would also like to see what (if any) reply she had to this letter.

~~~
ctchocula
Footnote:

Having read Dr. Stuhlinger’s letter, Sister Mary responded: “Thank you – from
now on, I firmly believe in the profound value of the space program.”

------
araes
Funny. I appreciate the want for more exploring, but the logic he lays out is
almost the exact rationale that has slowly eroded NASA from 1.6% to 0.5%.
Maybe not all for "think of the children," but after we lost the
fear/competition of Russia, space always comes second when you pose the
question as "...when we could do X with the money." Why not spend it on
something that will fulfill our lower needs as a group (hunger, health,
shelter, happiness)?

More annoying, the political defense to try and keep the votes for it makes it
all the more silly. It spreads over multiple states and locations to ensure
votes, which naturally makes it more diffuse and internally fractured. But
you're still arguing with the increasing conservatism of an aging country
whose Reps know that voting stability and order gets them back in.

OK. It would also help if they had a goal that wasn't just "stay up." Well
projected vision can set fire to a thousand hearts. (cue Superman joke)

~~~
dinkumthinkum
I think it is more complicated than that. There are political factors at play.
It is not as if every American has a direct voice in the budget. It is less
than 50% of what is was but at the same time it is a 0.9% drop so I think we
should be careful what conclusions we draw here.

------
theneb
The "invest in earth problems instead of space problems" has been a common
rhetoric among people as of late with various missions such as to Mars.

What I find an excellent addition from this letter is the discussion of
goverence of tax money in the letter.

It isn't a simple case of just deciding to redistribute funds from one
department to another.

------
facepalm
By explaining how space exploration could help fight hunger, he misses the
point that we already produce enough food to end hunger. So clearly more
science is not what is needed right now.

Nothing against more science, better food production and so on. Of course they
help - and perhaps people are also more willing to donate if they have more
(which better production would yield). But the real problem is probably
political (of course science could help with that, too).

I just don't think you can justify space exploration that way, because clearly
there would be more efficient ways to end hunger right now.

Assuming we wouldn't have food anyway, and every dollar for the space program
would have to be to taken away from a starving child, I don't think there
would be any way to justify it.

------
marktangotango
>> The voyage to Mars will certainly not be a direct source of food for the
hungry.

This sentence highlights the certainty a mission to Mars was during the Apollo
program. Soon after this (early 70's) the NASA budget was slashed, and the
mighty Saturn V mothballed.

------
arianvanp
I was always under the impression that Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (who is Dutch,
not German) invented the microscope. I can't find anything about a German
Count who funded microsope research anywhere. Does anybody know a source for
this?

~~~
snotrockets
To quote the late (and great) Billy Wilder: "The Austrians have completed the
feat of turning Beethoven into an Austrian, and Hitler into a German."

Stuhlinger was part of similar effort, downplaying von Braun role in Nazi war
effort (including use of slave labour).

------
ixtli
"significant progress in the solutions of technical problems is frequently
made not by a direct approach, but by first setting a goal of high challenge
which offers a strong motivation for innovative work"

------
not_that_noob
What I find remarkable is that Stuhlinger worked for the Nazis at Peenemünde,
where he undoubtedly was part of the machine that rained rockets and death on
the Britain and the rest of Europe.

Imagine being at the spear tip of something so evil as being part of the Nazi
killing machine - and then, fast forward a few decades, transform into a sage
statesman, arguing so passionately for the oneness of humanity and for the
peaceful uses of space.

I wonder if he ever chose to explain that dichotomy to his children before he
died. It blows my mind.

~~~
sanderjd
I don't know much about this, and even less about Stuhlinger and Peenemunde in
particular, but I suspect that some blame for raining death on people can be
laid at the feet of quite a few rocket scientists on both sides of the war,
that those scientists possessed a wide range of individual views on the
justness of their cause, and that they were nearly all pleased to be able to
apply their talents to a good and peaceful cause after the war ended.

------
musesum
In 2004, NASA hosted the Virtual Iron Bird workshop. I attended. At the time,
VPOTUS Dan Quayle proposed that we fly to Mars. But, because there was no
additional budget, it meant that NASA had to re-budget funds from other
programs. There was some grumbling. My argument for Mars exploration was to
drive bio science. Because, by the time you get to Mars, you'd probably have
cancer. It was meant to be a joke. But, not really.

------
flavj
Working as a software developer in radio astronomy, I frequently get asked the
same question. Where's the value in spending half a billion euros on a massive
telescope array? I struggle to understand how people cannot simply accept the
answer: to know more!

This article will definitely help me to explain the value of radio astronomy
and science in general in a more succinct and 'useful' way.

~~~
Qwertious
>I struggle to understand how people cannot simply accept the answer: to know
more!

When you say that, people are thinking "so would you let people die
unnecessarily, JUST so you can know more?". What's important about knowing
more? It's useful for its entertainment and curiosity-satisfying properties,
but that ranks far lower than stuff like people starving.

~~~
TeMPOraL
So I'd counter - where's the value of spending half a billion Euros on a few
blockbuster movies? Or 10% of an Olympics game? Why do you want a right to
watch soccer games and want to deny me right to knowing more about the
universe around us?

That being said, I'd go back to explaining very carefully how everything we
have around us is built on top of people doing weird stuff just to know more.

------
pif
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6695429](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6695429)

~~~
js2
No comments on that submission. Here's a previous submission with discussion -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4372563](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4372563)

------
z3phyr
One example that comes to my mind after reading this is of the
aboriginal/native tribes in various continents that decided not to explore
alien areas. In my opinion, the natives were far less developed when the
explorers from the old earth conquered them.

This is primarily the reason that we should explore the space and try to find
new and exciting things.

------
amadeusw
What a wonderful piece. The argument that space exploration is a catalyst to
new discoveries was very well put, but what struck me most was the contrast
between peaceful space exploration and earthly wars. He made the letter very
easy to relate to.

------
dinkumthinkum
It's a very beautiful letter. I think this should be a standard reading middle
school. It not only enshrines a strong purpose for scientific exploration but
it is a wonderfully written piece.

------
underbluewaters
I'm always surprised by "starving kids in Africa" argument. Why would one
assume that hunger is a solvable problem? As soon as there is more food, there
will be more children. It's basic ecology. If anything, the Green Revolution
that produced more food in the 20th century has devastated the environment
(our life support system) and will probably lead to more starvation in the
long run.

~~~
rtpg
Your model is simple, nice, but wrong. Experimentally proven wrong by the fact
that developed nations (where food is not an issue for most of the population)
there are declining birth rates.

~~~
lmm
But the developed nations didn't become developed simply by throwing food at
them. In fact, one could argue that space programs were a significant factor
in their development, and therefore prevented more starvation than food aid
ever did.

------
gcb0
love how they both ignore the fact that children only starve because of war
and such. mostly for resources that are paid handsomely on space exploration,
changing hands on wars often dressed as religious ones.

~~~
onion2k
There are often wars in places where resources like food and water are scarce.
People fight over what little there is, or they see the weakened country as a
target for an invasion. Somalia for example, has been in the grip of war for
years but also has had significant droughts over the past few years. The two
problems are related.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_East_Africa_drought](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_East_Africa_drought)

~~~
spiritplumber
And a lot of people, including me, would love to go there and work on cheap
desalinization if we didn't have the certainty that our lives would be at
risk, and our work would stand a very high chance of being expropriated by a
number of predatory competing quasi-governments in case it does work.

Look at Zimbabwe's food output on a chart and you'll see what I mean.

------
morpheous
tldr;

