How are astronomical discoveries important to our lives? - Another Quora Question

Here's another answer to a Quora question. The question was "How are astronomical discoveries important to our lives?". I've seen questions like this several times here and elsewhere. I've given a lot of thought to the answer. It's a bit rambling, I know, but I think it kinda covers it.

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Often when this type of question is asked, it’s meant to be less a true request for understanding and more an argument that we’re wasting time and money on esoteric and arcane knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

It’s the same kind of argument used to question the reason for the space program. What does the man on the street get from the millions and billions "wasted" on such things, especially when we have problems enough down here on Earth.

In Chess, a key skill that players need is the ability to think several moves ahead. This is done by examining the board and seeing what moves are available to both sides, and anticipating the other person’s moves. If you’ve seen The Queen’s Gambit, this is demonstrated. In several places, our red-haired protagonist says something like "checkmate in five moves," and then goes on to predict exactly what is going to happen. In the same way, she plays out games in her mind (on the ceiling) to determine how to beat her opponent.

I bring this up because this type of skill is important to understanding the "bigger picture," which is essential to understanding why such research is important. And this is something most people don’t do or can’t do (not that they’re mentally incapable, but their minds aren’t trained for it). Most people only see what’s going on in front of them and not how interconnected the world and universe are.

Now, that aside… the importance of astronomical research can basically be distilled into two core principles: it feeds our desire to explore and learn more and the inspiration that provides to our species as a whole; and the more we understand about the workings of our universe, the more we understand the science of physics in general, as the interactions of matter and energy on cosmic scales helps explain things on smaller scales.

An argument can be made that all sciences can be distilled down to physics. For example, biology is largely chemistry. Chemistry is essentially a sub-branch of physics. All sciences, when you dig deep enough into them, are governed by physics. So the more we understand physics, the more we can understand other sciences in the long run.

In medical science, for example, physics gives us such practical tools as x-rays, CT scans, MRI scans, and PET scans. An understanding of physics and chemistry give us chemotherapy and radiation therapy. The underlying mechanisms of genetics are chemical and rely on physics. The mechanisms used by neurons to communicate signals in the brain rely on chemistry and physics. The more we understand the underlying principles, the more we understand how these things work and how we can modify them to benefit us all.

Physics also gives us electricity. Computers are an important factor in daily life for many of us, and without physics, we wouldn’t have them. Without physics we wouldn’t have cars, airplanes, trains, etc….

While understanding the behaviors of black holes may not be DIRECTLY applicable to our daily life, the lessons learned from this kind of research helps us better understand things that do.

As I mentioned at the outset, the same question is often asked of the space program. It’s a little easier here to nail down specific examples of benefits. Space research has given us satellites for communications, weather, and Earth-sensing. Ongoing experiments on the ISS deal with how compounds can be manufactured in microgravity that may become essential to the drug industry. Better communications systems and equipment have come from space research. In fact, the Wikipedia has a good list of technologies and inventions that came from the space program. Here’s a few:

• Infrared ear thermometers
• LASIK surgery
• Scratch-resistant lenses for glasses
• Aircraft anti-icing systems
• Chemical detection sensors
• Fire-resistant materials
• TEMPUR foam
• CMOS image sensors (the camera in your cell phone and most other digital cameras made these days)
• Water purification technology
• Powdered lubricants

I mentioned MRI technology before. This was developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. JPL developed signal processing technology which is used in MRI scanning. They didn’t invent the MRI, but NASA definitely was an influence.

Velcro wasn’t invented by NASA, but its popularization was partly due to the use of it in space by the Apollo missions.

And the list goes on.

Of course, the argument then becomes: were these inventions worth the billions we’ve spent? This can also be applied to your original question: is the money we spend on things like the 30 Meter Telescope being built in Hawaii being used wisely, or should we use it to feed and clothe the poor?

Here, I go back to my chess analogy. Its hard to see the ripple effects here. One principle that a lot of people don’t get is how money and the economy work.

One of my favorite movies of all time is the 1992 movie Sneakers staring Robert Redford and Ben Kingsley. Redford and Kingsley’s characters (Bishop and Cosmo, respectively) were college friends who were computer hackers in the early days. Through a fluke, Cosmo was arrested, Bishop got away. Decades later, they meet again. Cosmo is trying to get hold of a technology that can essentially break any encryption system so he can hack into government and bank records. In one scene, the two are talking:

Cosmo: "… When I was in prison, I learned that everything in this world, including money, operates not on reality…"

Bishop: "… but the perception of reality."

Cosmo: "Posit: people think a bank might be financially shaky."

Bishop: "Consequence: start to withdraw their money.:

Cosmo: "Result: pretty soon it IS financially shaky."

Bishop: "Conclusion: you can make banks fail."

Cosmo: "I’ve already done that, maybe you’ve read about a few?" (this was around the time of the S&L Crisis in the early 90’s). "Think bigger."

Bishop: "Stock market?"

Cosmo: "Yes."

Bishop: "Currency market?"

Cosmo: "Yes."

Bishop: "Commodities market?"

Cosmo: "Yes."

Bishop: "Small countries?"

Cosmo: "I might even be able to crash the whole damned system. Destroy all records of ownership. Think of it, Marty: no more rich people, no more poor people…"

The key here is the first part: money operates not on reality but perception. The rest is examples of how that works.

Now, let’s look again at the space program. In particular, the 1960’s and Kennedy’s challenge that we would put a man on the moon within a decade.

The Apollo program cost about 25.4 billion. In today’s terms that’s closer to about 200 billion. What did we get for that? Some people might argue that we got nothing more than a few interesting rocks, some nice pictures, some interesting tidbits of information, and bragging rights. And in the immediate sense, that may be true.

But that 200 billion wasn’t just put in a pile and burned up. NASA hired contractors, bought things and paid employees with that money. The contractors they hired bought things and paid employees. The people they bought stuff from bought things and paid employees. Money was put into the economy, that money circulated. Every time a dollar was spent, someone made a dollar.

There’s a law of physics known as the first law of thermodynamics. It says that energy is neither created nor destroyed, it just changes form or is transferred. To an extent, this applies to money as well. When you spend a dollar the value is converted into the thing you spent it on… but that dollar remains, just in the hands of other people.

Let’s say you’re a baker, your friend is a hunter. You bake and sell bread. Your friend buys it at $1 a loaf. He hunts game and sells the meat to you for $1 per pound. He buys 1 loaf every day, you buy 1 pound of meat every day. You may both net to $0 in the end, but over the course of the year, you made $365 from him, and he from you. If he bought 4 loaves a day, you’d have made $1,460. Even if you spent it all on meat or other products from others, you still made that money. This is an ultra-simplified example, but it can be extrapolated: the more money moves through the economy, the more people have to spend.

Of course, this isn’t applied equally. Some people make little or no money, and others make huge sums. But that’s not what matters for this discussion: simply the movement of the money is what’s critical.

By spending that 25.4 billion on the space program, the government stimulated economic activity. That money went to people who used it. Sure, some people and companies saved some of it, but most of it circulated. And in the end, the government took some back in taxes. And the more it circulated, the more people made in a year, the more they taxed.

Instead of the "Circle of Life" you can call it the "Circle of Bucks."

The same thing goes for spending on astronomical research. The money spent to build the thirty meter telescope in Hawaii is paid to the contractors and workers building it. Some of that will go to the companies making the mirrors and structure of the scope itself, some to the companies building the actual building. Lots of that money will go into circulation in Hawaii. The workers will buy groceries, pay rent/mortgages, go to restaurants, etc… So this money isn’t necessarily wasted.

In the long run, the spending of money on these projects is beneficial to many people and the economy as a whole. And while the discoveries made might not have direct impact on our daily lives, the advancement of science in general has wide-ranging impacts. You just have to be able to look several moves ahead to understand how that happens.