The rocket scientists who first hypothesized that we could escape earth's gravity had nothing to go on but calculations and predictions. If we had run them off as a bunch of self-interested academics in search of grant money, we would have a lot poorer understanding of this little blue ball - in fact we would not even know this was a little blue ball that we are sitting on.
Thank you for your example.
The rocket scientists who first developed missiles that could reach space did so at the point of a gun, it was the Nazi's who developed the V2 ballistic missile, a weapon of war. The first rocket scientists to use a missile to put a satellite in orbit were Soviet Communists led by Krushnev. Sputnik was launched into orbit to embarass the USA, to demonstrate the Soviets led the space race (an element of the cold war) and further development of Soviet ICBMS. The desire to escape gravity was fueled by greed and war ("war is politics by other means" Clausewitz). Global Warming just like rocket science is fueled by greed and politics.
