3 ms·

Yes, and the equivalent of 175 billion dollars per year (4% of federal budget times 4.4T$/y). I'm going to go out on a limb and propose that the money may have

Yes, and the equivalent of 175 billion dollars per year (4% of federal budget times 4.4T$/y). I'm going to go out on a limb and propose that the money may have helped, too.

twh270 7y ago
The money was necessary. But if it had been run like a typical government program, it would have been 25 years before we landed on the moon.
TrueDuality 7y ago
That is not how inflationary comparisons work with government budgets. The entire documented cost of the Apollo program[1] was $25.4 billion over 11 years. Adjusted for 2018 dollars that's $153 billion over 11 years, which works out to just about $14 billion per year. The total expenditure in the 2018 United States budget was $4.109 trillion[2] or %0.34 of yearly expenditures. Budgets do not follow inflationary trends even remotely, the 1961 expenditure[3] was $181.588 billion (wow that's pretty crazy). For the year that makes the Apollo program %1.2 of the federal expenditure. Another useful point of reference, the entire NASA organization in 2018 had an operating budget of $19.2 billion and this has to cover all of the mandated projects such as the SLS. They're also responsible for maintaining and monitoring a lot of infrastructure for other agencies (the weather service, DSN, etc) which wasn't the case during the Apollo mission. NASA itself is kind of left with scraps. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_federal_budget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_federal_bud... [3]: https://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/spending_chart_1960_1970USb_20s2li011mcn_F0f https://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/spending_chart_1960_1970USb_...
- jjoonathan 7y ago
  > That is not how inflationary comparisons work Right, but normalizing to the price of bread and milk is even more ridiculous than normalizing to the federal budget, which is not excellent for this purpose, as you point out. In any case, thanks for digging up more numbers. I stand by my claim that money (and enough assurance of continued money to bet everything on one large project) is key.
  - h3throw 7y ago
    > Right, but normalizing to the price of bread and milk is even more ridiculous than normalizing to the federal budget, which is not excellent for this purpose, as you point out. The CPI is composed of much more than that: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/2016.pdf https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/2016.pdf
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    > normalizing to the price of bread and milk is even more ridiculous than normalizing to the federal budget No it's not. Maybe normalize to the median income if you don't like bread and milk, but how much the government spends on education, health care, interest, military fleets, farm subsidies... that's not relevant to NASA's budget.

Yes, and the equivalent of 175 billion dollars per year (4% of federal budget times 4.4T$/y). I'm going to go out on a limb and propose that the money may have helped, too.

twh270 7y ago

The money was necessary. But if it had been run like a typical government program, it would have been 25 years before we landed on the moon.

TrueDuality 7y ago

That is not how inflationary comparisons work with government budgets. The entire documented cost of the Apollo program[1] was $25.4 billion over 11 years. Adjusted for 2018 dollars that's $153 billion over 11 years, which works out to just about $14 billion per year. The total expenditure in the 2018 United States budget was $4.109 trillion[2] or %0.34 of yearly expenditures. Budgets do not follow inflationary trends even remotely, the 1961 expenditure[3] was $181.588 billion (wow that's pretty crazy). For the year that makes the Apollo program %1.2 of the federal expenditure. Another useful point of reference, the entire NASA organization in 2018 had an operating budget of $19.2 billion and this has to cover all of the mandated projects such as the SLS. They're also responsible for maintaining and monitoring a lot of infrastructure for other agencies (the weather service, DSN, etc) which wasn't the case during the Apollo mission. NASA itself is kind of left with scraps. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_federal_budget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_federal_bud... [3]: https://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/spending_chart_1960_1970USb_20s2li011mcn_F0f https://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/spending_chart_1960_1970USb_...

jjoonathan 7y ago
> That is not how inflationary comparisons work Right, but normalizing to the price of bread and milk is even more ridiculous than normalizing to the federal budget, which is not excellent for this purpose, as you point out. In any case, thanks for digging up more numbers. I stand by my claim that money (and enough assurance of continued money to bet everything on one large project) is key.
- h3throw 7y ago
  > Right, but normalizing to the price of bread and milk is even more ridiculous than normalizing to the federal budget, which is not excellent for this purpose, as you point out. The CPI is composed of much more than that: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/2016.pdf https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/2016.pdf
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  > normalizing to the price of bread and milk is even more ridiculous than normalizing to the federal budget No it's not. Maybe normalize to the median income if you don't like bread and milk, but how much the government spends on education, health care, interest, military fleets, farm subsidies... that's not relevant to NASA's budget.