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Comment by remotehack | Hacker News Reader

The US should be in on, or leading, this.

Waiting for the day when most of the richest countries will join together to invest in an orbital ring, or mass driver, or sky hook, or something to make launching stuff in space much cheaper. All of those proposals will cost a few hundred billion dollars to a few trillions so we probably won't get any of that until the richest countries decide to pay for it, and then if necessary, charge the rest (or everyone) for using it.

If any part of the mission of this proposed station involves monitoring the Earth for climate change data, and it certainly will, then the US will not be part of it. I think if voters wanted the US to lead in space and science then they shouldn't have voted for someone who dismisses basic science.

China will absolutely lead on this now that we've put in an anti-science government. Expect them to lead on other things that were traditionally our domain too.

Why is this down-voted? It's 100% correct. The US will not be part of anything that involves climate science at this time.

We should be looking to China to lead the world in many things in the coming years. The US has shot itself in the foot, and continues to shoot itself in the foot.

Just guessing: maybe the down-voter thought it was an attempt to make an off-topic political point? I wouldn't entirely disagree - I can't imagine why you would want to go all the way to the Moon and set up a manned base there in order to observe Earth - but a reasoned response making that point explicitly would certainly have been better.

There is plenty of peculiar-looking down-voting on HN. I am seriously beginning to wonder if that down arrow serves any useful purpose.

>I can't imagine why you would want to go all the way to the Moon and set up a manned base there in order to observe Earth

Why wouldn't you? You're all the way there and pointing a sensor at the Earth isn't a big deal. You know you can do more than one thing at a time, right?

Climate science is probably one of our bigger planetary issues and perhaps the biggest issue facing humanity right now. You know Earth is a planet right? That's part of planetary science, that's why you explore space in the first place. It doesn't get an exception for purely political reasons. Studying the Earth is no different than studying Mars or Jupiter.

Its incredible the hoops people will jump through to justify Trump's absurd climate conspiracy theories and asinine policies in regards to science.

> Why wouldn't you?

For the same reason that these aren't on the Moon:

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

A sounding argument, but:

> You know Earth is a planet right?

Not really necessary...

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