Great rhetoric by Tyson, but completely misses the point that innovation in space travel is now completely the domain of NewSpace companies like Armadillo Airspace, SpaceX, and Virgin Galactic rather than governments.
NASA no longer innovates. It's coasting on past glories. If a fraction of the billions spent on NASA were left untaxed in the hands of individuals like Carmack, Musk, Thiel, and Branson -- and allowed to wend their way towards NewSpace investments rather than wasted on NASA boondoggles -- we'd all be much better off.
Also, it's not at all obvious that we want to keep focusing on manned missions, which Tyson mentions explicitly. You can iterate much more rapidly on unmanned drones as you need save nothing for the way back, and the costs of failure are far less. Tyson recognizes part of the human psychological factors at play (the motivation of wartime) but doesn't recognize that wanting humans in space instead of far more machines is emotional rather than practical right now.
Get the costs of putting things into orbit down with machines, and humans will follow. But let's not put the cart before the horse.
NASA no longer innovates. It's coasting on past glories. If a fraction of the billions spent on NASA were left untaxed in the hands of individuals like Carmack, Musk, Thiel, and Branson -- and allowed to wend their way towards NewSpace investments rather than wasted on NASA boondoggles -- we'd all be much better off.
Also, it's not at all obvious that we want to keep focusing on manned missions, which Tyson mentions explicitly. You can iterate much more rapidly on unmanned drones as you need save nothing for the way back, and the costs of failure are far less. Tyson recognizes part of the human psychological factors at play (the motivation of wartime) but doesn't recognize that wanting humans in space instead of far more machines is emotional rather than practical right now.
Get the costs of putting things into orbit down with machines, and humans will follow. But let's not put the cart before the horse.