Is it really necessary to send humans to those places just to get the knock-on benefits? Couldn't we do those things directly, without going there?

It seems to me that, today, those who have the money to spend on these endeavors would only do so if there were perceived short-term benefits to themselves. That means they plan to exploit the resources, or increase their own power somehow.

I know the good engineers that make this happen are doing it for the challenge and in the pursuit of knowledge, and I know that's why we poors support it, but that doesn't "pay the bills." What is the motivation behind the money? Why are they really doing this?

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[–] 10 points 8 hours ago

Google: Tescreal, Freedom Citys, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos etc. Basically there are several projects where they try to do unregulated research. Main idea seems to be to "survive" the end of our civilisation by living in Space or in the deep sea, enhance themselves (eg neuralink) , create General Artificial intelligence etc. Thiels Palantir is thought as defense mechanism by surveilling everyone. It all sounds like a big conspiracy theory, unfortunately it is not. Musk being responsible for Dodge, deregulating the US Governement was exactly one of these things. It was never about saving money. This is all a big rabit hole and you will get in a very bad mood readinfg about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TESCREAL

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