OK... Serious question here: we find "life" (algae?) on one of Saturn's moons or one of Jupiter's moons. So, we spend ~$50 Billion (arguably much more) and find "life". So? Why is this important to people? There isn't one chance in (place your own word here) that we can do anything about it or even send humans there. Seriously want to know what people really think...
My honest reason (and this is coming from a guy with no stake in the game or significant physics or biology knowledge) is that it would just be cool as fuck, and that exploration is valuable in itself.
I'll acknowledge that that is wishy-washy language, but that's kind of my point. I'm not sure I can point to an objective "good" that comes out of it, but I also don't know that that's the norm for these kinds of things either. It might have been hard to say that going to the moon was an objective "good" outside of one-upping the Russians, but I do think it's good that we did it, even if I don't really know how to quantify why.
A majority of the planet thinks life started here. Finding it elsewhere would culturally be a cosmic (puns) shift of before alien life exited verifiably and after.
Because of statistics. If we can find life, potentially started independently or pollinated in a couple of planets close to each-other, then life is everywhere and we may be in a dark forest of intelligent or hidden native predatory beings waiting to wipe us out if we squeak or show up elsewhere. If it's not as frequent, then we can keep exploring to look for it and more human-habitable spots.
I have a premonition that even if extraterrestrial life is discovered, and even if intelligent, hostile extraterrestrial life is somehow discovered, humans are not going to leave it alone.
After all, everyone involved can just say it's inevitable! If we don't do it, someone else will.
Because it could then tell us if it's related to us or not, potentially we could get to see how life unrelated to us looks like, how life in general is originally formed, how likely in the universe it is...
I honestly struggle to imagine how it can be considered unimportant, unless your stating position is that said life is completely unreachable to current and future tech, which I don't find likely.
Look up the staggering amount of everyday conveniences invented by space exploration. Theoretically the private market would’ve filled this gap, but in practice we know the market will never be willing to spend the first few trillions on foundational research.
I am all for space exploration, but just in the interest of fairness, I would be surprise if the innovations for the entirety of space exploration approaches even 10% of what the US military has developed.
Strictly from an economic standpoint: The $10T goes right back into the economy. That's $10T worth of STEM jobs and manufacturing and so on. Arguably, it should be spent more directly on schools and universal healthcare and so on, but $10T also creates a lot of jobs and healthcare benefits and funds public schools and so on so it's a tricky comparison to make.
From a non-economic standpoint: Aside from ensuring we don't destroy this planet, what is more important than finding out if we're alone in the universe? Not much, if you ask me.
(I realize finding algae on Saturn's moon doesn't definitively answer that question but it's certainly a uh... pretty big data point)
The $10 trillion will be spent regardless. Whether it's on luxury yachts, private islands, and political capital or health care, education, and exploring the solar system are choices.
> Seriously want to know what people really think...
(in a vacuum) i think we would all be saying thats amazing and fundamentally change the way we see ourselves and place in the universe (science fiction becomes science fact) and open new possibilities for research and discoveries
> find "life". So? Why is this important to people?
when there are more down-to-earth problems right in front of us, i get this as well; why not use that money to fund free college for a couple years for all citizens etc etc
Oh, but there is. One reason is that life on Earth seems to have appeared almost immediately after the crust cooled enough and the primordial ocean formed.
Why not? Friction from tidal forces keeps the moon got enough to contain liquid water under its ice cover. This makes it similar to Europa in some ways.
What Makes Enceladus so Attractive in the Search for Life in Space?
Enceladus is considered to be one of the most promising places to search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system. Researchers suspect that under the moon’s icy crust there is a global ocean of liquid water and a rocky core further below. Due to cryovolcanic activity, gigantic plumes break through cracks in the crust at the moon’s south pole, ejecting ice particles hundreds of kilometers into space.
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft passed through these plumes multiple times to analyze its composition. Enceladus’s ocean is the only extraterrestrial “body of water” from which scientists have been able to directly analyze samples. The samples revealed traces of various salts and organic compounds. Furthermore, previous analyses conducted by Cassini gave indications of hydrothermal processes on the seafloor and other conditions that are significant in supporting life.
So it seems the people whose job it is to study these things do have reason to think it might exist.
I'll acknowledge that that is wishy-washy language, but that's kind of my point. I'm not sure I can point to an objective "good" that comes out of it, but I also don't know that that's the norm for these kinds of things either. It might have been hard to say that going to the moon was an objective "good" outside of one-upping the Russians, but I do think it's good that we did it, even if I don't really know how to quantify why.
After all, everyone involved can just say it's inevitable! If we don't do it, someone else will.
Because it could then tell us if it's related to us or not, potentially we could get to see how life unrelated to us looks like, how life in general is originally formed, how likely in the universe it is...
I honestly struggle to imagine how it can be considered unimportant, unless your stating position is that said life is completely unreachable to current and future tech, which I don't find likely.
From a non-economic standpoint: Aside from ensuring we don't destroy this planet, what is more important than finding out if we're alone in the universe? Not much, if you ask me.
(I realize finding algae on Saturn's moon doesn't definitively answer that question but it's certainly a uh... pretty big data point)
Are you saying people would rather have an apartment? It would house 250,000 people for 10 years. But the slime is cooler.
But there's no reason to think that it does.