If NASA were allowed to profit from its inventions, then on the developments it made in just 4 areas, microelectronics, cryogenics, medical telemetry and systems analysis software, it would have made $4.50 in the twenty years following Apollo for every dollar spent up to the end of Apollo... NASA has contributed tens of thousands of inventions, developments and patents of all kinds
ok, so some useful inventions have come out as unexpected side-effects of the Apollo program. But why throw money at manned spaceflight and hope some spinoffs result by accident? Wouldn't it be much more productive to spend the money directly on the problems we want to solve?
Spending billions on Apollo II could help us solve climate change - or it could give us some more fasteners and powdered drinks. Why not spend billions on developing better wind/solar/nuclear/etc?
I felt proud just to be standing on the hallowed ground where great minds plotted of men flying through space and landing on the moon. Now on this site, sits a big obnoxious cell tower. It's kind of sad that kids today don't look up at the stars.
Back in those days, kids dreamed of being able to talk to each other through their wristwatch communicators. Now they can, thanks to that "obnoxious" cell tower. That's a miraculous bit of engineering too.
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If NASA were allowed to profit from its inventions, then on the developments it made in just 4 areas, microelectronics, cryogenics, medical telemetry and systems analysis software, it would have made $4.50 in the twenty years following Apollo for every dollar spent up to the end of Apollo... NASA has contributed tens of thousands of inventions, developments and patents of all kinds
ok, so some useful inventions have come out as unexpected side-effects of the Apollo program. But why throw money at manned spaceflight and hope some spinoffs result by accident? Wouldn't it be much more productive to spend the money directly on the problems we want to solve?
Spending billions on Apollo II could help us solve climate change - or it could give us some more fasteners and powdered drinks. Why not spend billions on developing better wind/solar/nuclear/etc?
I felt proud just to be standing on the hallowed ground where great minds plotted of men flying through space and landing on the moon. Now on this site, sits a big obnoxious cell tower. It's kind of sad that kids today don't look up at the stars.
Back in those days, kids dreamed of being able to talk to each other through their wristwatch communicators. Now they can, thanks to that "obnoxious" cell tower. That's a miraculous bit of engineering too.