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NASA took $1000 from every American, and paid scientists to put 12 people on the moon. If you think about it, it is as pointless as the pyramids. LEGO on the

NASA took $1000 from every American, and paid scientists to put 12 people on the moon. If you think about it, it is as pointless as the pyramids. LEGO on the other hand stimulates the creativity and entertains kids for billions of hours. LEGO solves a real problem, NASA solves non-problems. I am all for NASA and working on hard problems just to show they can be solved, but any startup working on NASA problems is destined to be a commercial failure.

kakali 15y ago
Can you provide a link for that dollar amount? At its peak in 1966, NASA was 4.4% of the federal budget. That's 5.9 billion dollars for that year. The population of the United States was 196 million at the time. This puts the cost of NASA at $30 (1966 dollars) per person. That's a lot a bang for the buck! Source: http://www.infoplease.com/year/1966.html http://www.infoplease.com/year/1966.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA
- kakali 15y ago
  A quick follow up, from those same sites you can work out that NASA costs Americans about $55/yr per person today. Not bad, maybe others would like to buy a video game instead. I however enjoy the pretty pictures from around the solar system.
  - Cushman 15y ago
    Just imagine if the average American spent as much on space as they do on their car.
- jcampbell1 15y ago
  I was just considering the Apollo program. According to a wikipedia article, it cost $170B in 2005 dollars, or about $190B in todays dollars. The population in 1970, was right around 200M. So roughly $1000 in todays dollars.
nkassis 15y ago
The invention of the lego isn't what the article is talking about. It's more about building something cool in legos and comparing that to building something cool that puts people on the moon. And I feel you are downplaying the societal impact that going to the moon had on not just the US but the world. Without forgetting the technological advancement that had to be made to make it possible.

kakali 15y ago

Can you provide a link for that dollar amount? At its peak in 1966, NASA was 4.4% of the federal budget. That's 5.9 billion dollars for that year. The population of the United States was 196 million at the time. This puts the cost of NASA at $30 (1966 dollars) per person. That's a lot a bang for the buck! Source: http://www.infoplease.com/year/1966.html http://www.infoplease.com/year/1966.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA

kakali 15y ago
A quick follow up, from those same sites you can work out that NASA costs Americans about $55/yr per person today. Not bad, maybe others would like to buy a video game instead. I however enjoy the pretty pictures from around the solar system.
- Cushman 15y ago
  Just imagine if the average American spent as much on space as they do on their car.
jcampbell1 15y ago
I was just considering the Apollo program. According to a wikipedia article, it cost $170B in 2005 dollars, or about $190B in todays dollars. The population in 1970, was right around 200M. So roughly $1000 in todays dollars.

nkassis 15y ago

The invention of the lego isn't what the article is talking about. It's more about building something cool in legos and comparing that to building something cool that puts people on the moon. And I feel you are downplaying the societal impact that going to the moon had on not just the US but the world. Without forgetting the technological advancement that had to be made to make it possible.