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Imagine a moonshot program for cancer(s) at the time. Or a moonshot program for computer chips. It's not so much the money spent as the "we get to recruit all

Imagine a moonshot program for cancer(s) at the time. Or a moonshot program for computer chips. It's not so much the money spent as the "we get to recruit all the smartest researchers and new grads for 2 generations to focus on a sole achievement" aspect. Getting to the moon was inspirational, but functionally curing even one type of common cancer or ushering in the information revolution a decade or two ahead of schedule would be an order of magnitude more valuable.

syndicatedjelly 3y ago
> Getting to the moon was inspirational, but functionally curing even one type of common cancer or ushering in the information revolution a decade or two ahead of schedule would be an order of magnitude more valuable. This is like, your opinion. Who knows what would have happened, or more importantly what might not have happened if the US didn't focus on getting to the moon. The context of the times is important - at the time it was important to beat the Soviets to space. Curing cancer, while admirable, wouldn't have given the US any sort of advantage over the Soviets. Maybe ushering the information age in sooner would have been meaningful. But what captures the attention of the 50s/60s American public more - a couple of bits of electricity pushed around abstractly, or the raw power of a rocket heading to the Moon? Which is more effective in showing the Soviets that the US has true hard power - controlling tiny amounts of electricity or demonstrating that they can send a rocket, potentially loaded with missiles, into space?
bregma 3y ago
> Or a moonshot program for computer chips. I can do that. I can imagine the Apollo program just like it happened, with one spinoff being computer chips and microelectronics. If it wasn't for Apollo we'd probably still be using rotary-dial phones owned by the local PTT.
- unsupp0rted 3y ago
  Imagine the spinoffs from the Apollo program if the Apollo program's mission was creating computer chips and microelectronics.
rightbyte 3y ago
Ads are our generations moon landing program. The best and the brightest ...
outworlder 3y ago
Can we just throw money at the issue? Going to the Moon was an engineering challenge. We knew what was required, we "just" needed to do the necessary work. Some research advancements in material science were needed, but they were incremental. We also got some computer advancements out of the deal too, and sensors. Even the reflectors placed on the Moon proved to be very useful. For cancer – they are several diseases with the same name. We don't necessarily know what we have to do to 'cure' them (in many cases, once we figure out what actually causes an illness, treatments become relatively straightforward). Even if we just focus on one type, would throwing the same amount of money as was spent in the Moon program (or the Manhattan project) be all that's required to 'cure' it? I don't think that's necessarily true. Funding helps, to an extent. But many things in medicine just take time and there's no way around that. We still have no consensus on what causes Alzheimer's. A lot of research on amyloid plaques that may or may not be a red herring. Once we can know with a high degree of certainty what causes it, treating or preventing should become much more straightforward. That said, throwing money at any kind of research seems to be beneficial. Be it the Moon, health and even military. We wouldn't be discussing this without military funding decades ago that enabled what eventually became the Internet. Although we, as in humans, have been wasting too many resources in wars. > ushering in the information revolution a decade or two ahead of schedule would be an order of magnitude more valuable. That's hindsight. When coherent light (what we know as lasers) was discovered, it was regarded as a novelty but with zero practical application. We can fund many types of research simultaneously – and we have to. You can't take a doctor and get them to engineer a rocket, and you can't take a rocket scientist and get them to work on curing diseases.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- unsupp0rted 3y ago
  It wasn't mainly that money got thrown at research. It was mainly that several generations of researchers were funneled into a singular mission, fueled by patriotism / ideology / propaganda. A JFK speech calling the nation to adventure + a blank cheque to your org + Walter Cronkite on tv & your nephew at school calling you a hero researcher can get a lot of basic science done. Is that basic science better aimed at a moon landing or better aimed at stopping people from dying from colorectal cancer? A moon landing is inspirational (and theoretically achievable) whereas stopping colorectal cancer is a big abstract "maybe". A moon landing gets you "don't mess with us because we have amazing rockets & targeting systems" cred. A "we can now save millions of our citizens from this one cancer" gets you "our capitalist society is more advanced than your communist society" cred. I'm not saying Moon Landing wasn't the obvious choice or wasn't the right choice. I'm saying it wasn't as generally valuable as other choices.
kube-system 3y ago
> Or a moonshot program for computer chips. That sounds scary, because there's a lot of encryption in use that is not quantum resistant.

syndicatedjelly 3y ago

> Getting to the moon was inspirational, but functionally curing even one type of common cancer or ushering in the information revolution a decade or two ahead of schedule would be an order of magnitude more valuable. This is like, your opinion. Who knows what would have happened, or more importantly what might not have happened if the US didn't focus on getting to the moon. The context of the times is important - at the time it was important to beat the Soviets to space. Curing cancer, while admirable, wouldn't have given the US any sort of advantage over the Soviets. Maybe ushering the information age in sooner would have been meaningful. But what captures the attention of the 50s/60s American public more - a couple of bits of electricity pushed around abstractly, or the raw power of a rocket heading to the Moon? Which is more effective in showing the Soviets that the US has true hard power - controlling tiny amounts of electricity or demonstrating that they can send a rocket, potentially loaded with missiles, into space?

bregma 3y ago

> Or a moonshot program for computer chips. I can do that. I can imagine the Apollo program just like it happened, with one spinoff being computer chips and microelectronics. If it wasn't for Apollo we'd probably still be using rotary-dial phones owned by the local PTT.

unsupp0rted 3y ago
Imagine the spinoffs from the Apollo program if the Apollo program's mission was creating computer chips and microelectronics.

rightbyte 3y ago

Ads are our generations moon landing program. The best and the brightest ...

outworlder 3y ago

Can we just throw money at the issue? Going to the Moon was an engineering challenge. We knew what was required, we "just" needed to do the necessary work. Some research advancements in material science were needed, but they were incremental. We also got some computer advancements out of the deal too, and sensors. Even the reflectors placed on the Moon proved to be very useful. For cancer – they are several diseases with the same name. We don't necessarily know what we have to do to 'cure' them (in many cases, once we figure out what actually causes an illness, treatments become relatively straightforward). Even if we just focus on one type, would throwing the same amount of money as was spent in the Moon program (or the Manhattan project) be all that's required to 'cure' it? I don't think that's necessarily true. Funding helps, to an extent. But many things in medicine just take time and there's no way around that. We still have no consensus on what causes Alzheimer's. A lot of research on amyloid plaques that may or may not be a red herring. Once we can know with a high degree of certainty what causes it, treating or preventing should become much more straightforward. That said, throwing money at any kind of research seems to be beneficial. Be it the Moon, health and even military. We wouldn't be discussing this without military funding decades ago that enabled what eventually became the Internet. Although we, as in humans, have been wasting too many resources in wars. > ushering in the information revolution a decade or two ahead of schedule would be an order of magnitude more valuable. That's hindsight. When coherent light (what we know as lasers) was discovered, it was regarded as a novelty but with zero practical application. We can fund many types of research simultaneously – and we have to. You can't take a doctor and get them to engineer a rocket, and you can't take a rocket scientist and get them to work on curing diseases.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
unsupp0rted 3y ago
It wasn't mainly that money got thrown at research. It was mainly that several generations of researchers were funneled into a singular mission, fueled by patriotism / ideology / propaganda. A JFK speech calling the nation to adventure + a blank cheque to your org + Walter Cronkite on tv & your nephew at school calling you a hero researcher can get a lot of basic science done. Is that basic science better aimed at a moon landing or better aimed at stopping people from dying from colorectal cancer? A moon landing is inspirational (and theoretically achievable) whereas stopping colorectal cancer is a big abstract "maybe". A moon landing gets you "don't mess with us because we have amazing rockets & targeting systems" cred. A "we can now save millions of our citizens from this one cancer" gets you "our capitalist society is more advanced than your communist society" cred. I'm not saying Moon Landing wasn't the obvious choice or wasn't the right choice. I'm saying it wasn't as generally valuable as other choices.

kube-system 3y ago

> Or a moonshot program for computer chips. That sounds scary, because there's a lot of encryption in use that is not quantum resistant.