Nasa ecosphere?

okiemavis

I fully respect developing and experimenting with the concept of a self-contained environment. However, a company has taken this imperfect system and now sells it for a profit- there is a HUGE difference there. The people who buy this don't use it for further gaining knowledge, they use it as a decoration, which they don't realize is cruel. The company lies to its customers and claims that this is a fully self sustaining environment in which the shrimp are properly cared for.

If you want to keep these shrimp (which are brackish for the long term btw), you can easily purchase them as feeders from stores that sell seahorse food. Despite the desire to "save" these shrimp from the ecosphere, you only serve to give this company profit and prompt them to produce more.

southafrica1001

^those are both good points. :D

iamntbatman

I agree with you that the company currently selling the eco-spheres is in it purely for the money and there is no scientific benefit coming from private citizens owning these things. I also agree that the environments housing the creatures are sub-optimal. However, the technology *was* developed by NASA, who no doubt made some money by selling the technology to this private company. Sure there are gray moral areas here, but in the end the fact that the technology was something that could be turned into profit was something that likely provided NASA with more funding for other research. I'm not taking a stand on the issue one way or another because I fancy myself a bit of a moral utilitarian and I'm not even going to attempt to break out a moral calculator to figure out the cost-benefit ratio in this case. I just wanted both sides of the argument to be fairly represented.

southafrica1001

yea i think both sides of the arguement are being fairly represented, its nice to hear everyones side of the story. :)