<story><title>Four Earth-sized planets detected orbiting the nearest sun-like star</title><url>https://news.ucsc.edu/2017/08/tau-ceti-planets.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hueving</author><text>&amp;gt;I am flabbergasted that as a society we aren&amp;#x27;t rushing to build a 100 metre wide telescope mirror large enough for us to directly image the spectra of the potentially habitable exoplanets around us.&lt;p&gt;This is because most of society is still struggling with day-to-day tasks like getting housing, clean water, reliable food, healthcare and dealing with physical conflicts.&lt;p&gt;Even people rich enough to not be stuck in the short term future have to be concerned with near term risks like political destabilization countries and climate change.&lt;p&gt;So it&amp;#x27;s hard to rush to do something like this as a society when we are already rushing to solve acute issues.</text></item><item><author>ExactoKnight</author><text>I am flabbergasted that as a society we aren&amp;#x27;t rushing to build a 100 metre wide telescope mirror large enough for us to directly image the spectra of the potentially habitable exoplanets around us.&lt;p&gt;A telescope this large could tell us whether any of these potentially habitable planets contain oxygen, and thus, biological processes.&lt;p&gt;Yet thanks to funding cuts in science the biggest telescope we have in the pipeline right now is one with a 30 metre mirror. 
 This telescope won&amp;#x27;t be big enough, and as a result, our failure to push now for bigger sizes is almost certainly going to push back for decades humanity&amp;#x27;s ability to answer one of the most important questions we face:&lt;p&gt;Why are we here, and are we alone.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bpodgursky</author><text>The world had less reliable housing, less clean water, less reliable food, worse healthcare, and more physical conflicts in the 60s, and we still had the Apollo program put people on the moon.&lt;p&gt;Only the most pathetic hacks would argue that we are the worse for having invested that money to push the bounds of exploration.&lt;p&gt;At a point, there are 6 billion people on the earth, and there will always be _some_ problems unsolved, whether that is because a few countries are trying to collapse, or because we have found new first-world problems to agonize about in the US.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a question of whether we will spend 10x the cost to solve the last 10% of those problems, or spend that money moving forward as a civilization.</text></comment>
<story><title>Four Earth-sized planets detected orbiting the nearest sun-like star</title><url>https://news.ucsc.edu/2017/08/tau-ceti-planets.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hueving</author><text>&amp;gt;I am flabbergasted that as a society we aren&amp;#x27;t rushing to build a 100 metre wide telescope mirror large enough for us to directly image the spectra of the potentially habitable exoplanets around us.&lt;p&gt;This is because most of society is still struggling with day-to-day tasks like getting housing, clean water, reliable food, healthcare and dealing with physical conflicts.&lt;p&gt;Even people rich enough to not be stuck in the short term future have to be concerned with near term risks like political destabilization countries and climate change.&lt;p&gt;So it&amp;#x27;s hard to rush to do something like this as a society when we are already rushing to solve acute issues.</text></item><item><author>ExactoKnight</author><text>I am flabbergasted that as a society we aren&amp;#x27;t rushing to build a 100 metre wide telescope mirror large enough for us to directly image the spectra of the potentially habitable exoplanets around us.&lt;p&gt;A telescope this large could tell us whether any of these potentially habitable planets contain oxygen, and thus, biological processes.&lt;p&gt;Yet thanks to funding cuts in science the biggest telescope we have in the pipeline right now is one with a 30 metre mirror. 
 This telescope won&amp;#x27;t be big enough, and as a result, our failure to push now for bigger sizes is almost certainly going to push back for decades humanity&amp;#x27;s ability to answer one of the most important questions we face:&lt;p&gt;Why are we here, and are we alone.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jdavis703</author><text>Let&amp;#x27;s assume a 100-meter telescope is 10x the cost of the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope. That means it would cost about $14 billion to build. If the U.S. and E.U. split the cost it would take about $14 for every person and child to build this. If you split the cost out to a decade, it&amp;#x27;d be about $1.40 everyone had to pay out every year. This is a matter of priorities, not there being a lack of resources.</text></comment>