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The "throw money at it and we might get some cool tech as side effects" argument that is often made for government space funding could be applied to any random

The "throw money at it and we might get some cool tech as side effects" argument that is often made for government space funding could be applied to any random research field. It's one of those tired old saws that everybody believes, but I never bought.

olefoo 18y ago
That argument is usually made as a reference to the original Apollo program which DID succeed on the metric of advancing the state of the art in multiple fields from materials science to physiology; with public funding. The mistake many people make is thinking that that success can be repeated merely by giving money to NASA. The success of the Apollo program as an incubator of scientific and engineering accomplishment was directly tied to both the sense of mission that the participants felt, and the fact that it was widely perceived as a race with a rival power with potentially apocalyptic consequences for losing. It's not categorically impossible to create that sense of mission anew, but recreating the overall context would be difficult. The closest we've seen to public programs that capture the competitive juices of the participants are contests like the DARPA robotic vehicle challenge.
- pfedor 18y ago
  Any actual examples of useful new technologies that were developed during the Apollo program? Any that couldn't have been had two orders of magnitude cheaper if funded directly and not as a "side effect"? Not that I'm against manned space flight or public funding of it.
  - rkowalick 18y ago
    I would like to believe that the side effects of the space race couldn't have been easily emulated by just funding projects directly. I think a lot of the technologies that came out of the time period weren't "Oh, let's make a <technology>." Development seems to have been a result of NASA encountering a problem and then inventing something to fix the problem. That new invention then just so happened to have applications to other fields.
  - olefoo 18y ago
    http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/apollo.htm http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/apollo.htm As I stated above, I think the Apollo missions were unique in their historical context and unlikely to be repeated as a model.
davidw 18y ago
For me, space exploration is one of those things that has some intangible benefits that regard pushing the limits and doing something to be proud of. I don't really care who funds it, but exploration often seems to be funded by governments... because in its early stages, it's sort of "basic research": you don't know what, if any benefits will come of it.

olefoo 18y ago

That argument is usually made as a reference to the original Apollo program which DID succeed on the metric of advancing the state of the art in multiple fields from materials science to physiology; with public funding. The mistake many people make is thinking that that success can be repeated merely by giving money to NASA. The success of the Apollo program as an incubator of scientific and engineering accomplishment was directly tied to both the sense of mission that the participants felt, and the fact that it was widely perceived as a race with a rival power with potentially apocalyptic consequences for losing. It's not categorically impossible to create that sense of mission anew, but recreating the overall context would be difficult. The closest we've seen to public programs that capture the competitive juices of the participants are contests like the DARPA robotic vehicle challenge.

pfedor 18y ago
Any actual examples of useful new technologies that were developed during the Apollo program? Any that couldn't have been had two orders of magnitude cheaper if funded directly and not as a "side effect"? Not that I'm against manned space flight or public funding of it.
- rkowalick 18y ago
  I would like to believe that the side effects of the space race couldn't have been easily emulated by just funding projects directly. I think a lot of the technologies that came out of the time period weren't "Oh, let's make a <technology>." Development seems to have been a result of NASA encountering a problem and then inventing something to fix the problem. That new invention then just so happened to have applications to other fields.
- olefoo 18y ago
  http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/apollo.htm http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/apollo.htm As I stated above, I think the Apollo missions were unique in their historical context and unlikely to be repeated as a model.

davidw 18y ago

For me, space exploration is one of those things that has some intangible benefits that regard pushing the limits and doing something to be proud of. I don't really care who funds it, but exploration often seems to be funded by governments... because in its early stages, it's sort of "basic research": you don't know what, if any benefits will come of it.