Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

I don't know if this makes me cruel, but whenever people talk about donating money to starving children in Africa, I always imagine the following: If I were to donate some amount of money to starving children in an impoverished nation every year I could, theoretically, bring some of them out of starvation. However, these children would then grow into adults, and then these adults would have children of their own. The number of these new children would almost certainly be higher than the number I originally helped bring out of famine, so at that point there would be just as many if not more starving children than we had to begin with. So in my mind the question really goes the other way, how does donating money to buy food for starving children in Africa improve Africa's condition in the long term? What problems caused these nations to produce more children than food and what is being done to eliminate the source of these problems, rather than just the symptoms?

It certainly reads better than "We need to funnel some money to the guys who build the rockets so that, if the Russians get frisky, we can credibly threaten to can end the world."

I don't buy the argument. A $100b space mission is going to have a bigger benefit to the desperately poor than a $100b medical research program? No way.<p>But then, why does the space program need to be defended like that? People prefer buying big TVs, big cars, big houses instead of giving the money to starving Africans. So why not view the space program as just an extension of that?

A more curt, but more direct response would be: As a Christian Nun, you wouldn't even be in Zambia if it weren't for explorers increasing the bounds of our knowledge. Apart from the Copts in Egypt, there's not a lot of 'native' Christianity in Africa.

A relevant quote:<p>&#62; <i>When he [Michael Faraday] demonstrated his apparatus [the dynamo] to His Majesty's Government, the prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, asked, "Of what use is it?" To which Faraday replied: "I don't know, but I'll wager that some day you'll tax it."</i><p>- Michael Faraday<p>Source:<p><a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_Race_on_the_Edge_of_Time" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_Race_on_the_Edge_of_Time</a><p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamo" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamo</a><p>We will tax space in good time my fellow skeptics.<p>All in good time.

I did not know the SU actually turned off all radio transmissions and sent out ships to assist in the recovery of Apollo 13. That is an impressive display of human compassion, even inmidst the Cold War (though the cynic in me assumes there were ulterior motives, as well).

So the argument that research for the sake of research is worthwhile is perfectly sound, the condescending "let me explain to you how a budget works" and "it's not my decision to spend the money" parts certainly rubs me the wrong way.

Ok, so the story with microscope was a good one. I was initially shortsighted. But coming back to the recent Mars mission, anyone has any ideas, more or less accurate/detailed, of how this particular mission will/could benefit our civilization? This is a serious question.

Does anyone know how this letter first came to be published?<p>Update: Google Books answered the question for me:<p>&#62; Dr. Stuhlinger responded to the sister in a letter that was published by NASA/George C. Marshall Space Center in 1970 titled "Why Explore Space?"<p>[1] <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=qXuLydSqzDQC&#38;lpg=PA55&#38;ots=xlTrDlHmdf&#38;dq=Ernst%20Stuhlinger%20Sister%20Mary%20Jucunda&#38;pg=PA55#v=onepage&#38;q=Ernst%20Stuhlinger%20Sister%20Mary%20Jucunda&#38;f=false" rel="nofollow">http://books.google.com/books?id=qXuLydSqzDQC&#38;lpg=PA55&#...</a>

This is also a perfect parallel to CEOs who have to justify to their shareholders why they spend so much money on R&#38;D.

Well, US produces lots of surplus every year. We don't give them out. Instead, we burn them. Really now?

"You may ask now whether I personally would be in favor of such a move by our government. My answer is an emphatic yes. Indeed, I would not mind at all if my annual taxes were increased by a number of dollars for the purpose of feeding hungry children, wherever they may live."<p>Amen to that.

This letter is timeless, and provides such brilliant perspective. It's a fantastic answer to questions I've also been thinking about.<p>As an aside, I wonder if something so convincing could be written about military spending.

I'd love to compare $billions in expenditure / angry letters from conservative nuns, for both NASA and the Department of Defense.<p>Even better would add the estimated lives saved by NASA technologies and DoD bombs.

Somebody said "It's not by looking at improving the candles that we would have discovered electricity.". Like fundamental research, a lot of people are having a hard time to understand that it is a long term investment.

&#62;He was a member of the German rocket development team at Peenemünde<p>Just the guy to be answering ethical questions...

This guy has incredible tact, and knows his audience well.<p>&#62; Ever since this picture was first published, voices have become louder and louder warning of the grave problems that confront man in our times: pollution, hunger, poverty, urban living, food production, water control, overpopulation.<p>He even took care not to mention climate change, which I assume was in case the reader has a strong bias against it.