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Not Crap. Humans can create a liveable planet on Earth while also exploring the space we inhabit. It's not an either/or situation but what do you think?

Mixed feelings.

Humans will have to do it eventually. And I'm fascinated by Artemis II's journey.

It costs a crap ton of $$$, though, that could be spent elsewhere. Apparently, the Artemis II launch cost $4+ billion. Still a lot less than the $1.5 trillion budget increase that the US is proposing for defense spending.

Gonna go with NC.

I have vivid memories of watching the Apollo missions a kid. I turned 5 in 1969 and Dad was an engineer, so it was kinda natural to be interested in all of that. At one point my Dad's little brother gave me a whole set of mission patches for all of the Apollo missions and the Apollo Soyuz joint mission. Like 3" diameter embroidered ones that looked great. I have no idea what happened to them.

Yeah, it's expensive, at least for humans. Mother Nature makes it real hard for her kids to leave. But stuff like Voyager? The ROI on that project has been off the charts for science and general understanding, so, NC there.

I'm for placing importance on funding for space exploration just like we do with social security, income security, health security...all of the securities afforded to us.

Team Jet Propulsion Laboratory Team

rsmurphy wrote: Thu Apr 09, 2026 12:40 pm I'm for placing importance on funding for space exploration just like we do with social security, income security, health security...all of the securities afforded to us.

Dude, I have bad news for you…

major wrote: Thu Apr 09, 2026 1:27 pm Dude, I have bad news for you…

To sleep, perchance to dream. Aye! There is the rubber.

Also conflicted. I mean, if we defund the military maybe we can have both social services and our science nerdery.

One of my childhood interests that I held onto.

Not crap when it's NASA or another government's space agency doing it for science. Waffles for the Cold War being as much about gaining space superiority as it was about technological advancement.

Absolute crap when it's Musk & Bezos taking joyrides in their dick rockets, monopolizing satellite communications and talking about just letting the earth go to shit and migrating to Mars.

Publicly funded space exploration for the sake of science and discovery… one of the greatest things we’ve done as a species.

Voyager ffs… we put people on the moon with computers with less power than my kids scientific calculator. Yes of course that money could be distributed to solve other problems but you say that of anything if you go down the Peter Singer route. By that anyone that brought a coffee today instead of donating the cash to a charity to provide mosquito nets is immoral.

I think is speaks to something about us that transcends “grubby materialism”.

It’s not a zero sum game. We can explore the universe and create heaven on earth.

Seems like a waste of money and time that could be better spent on social programs and solving problems here on Earth. I know that stuff is by no means mutually exclusive (b/c hey, the '70s had both), but so far, I don't think space exploration has justified its budget, despite some of the cool stuff. And w/the increasingly Musky privatization of the industry (never mind its historical ties to the military), I'm not particularly optimistic.