8 ms·

It's extremely and utterly odd, to me, that so many people single out things like the Apollo Program as an 'extravagance' when this was also the era of the Viet

It's extremely and utterly odd, to me, that so many people single out things like the Apollo Program as an 'extravagance' when this was also the era of the Vietnam War. The entire Apollo program cost $178 billion in 2022 dollars. The Vietnam War cost more than $1 trillion, and that's if you put a $0 price tag on the millions of people killed, to say nothing of decades more of people being maimed and killed by our cluster bomblets left all over the country. The Vietnam War had absolutely 0 value. We hyped it up as some do-or-die necessity, we invaded, participated in the killing of millions of people, blew a trillion dollars, lost the war, went home, and there was no grand catastrophic change. We could have just skipped to the end by not getting involved in the first place. By contrast one can argue about the exact value of the Apollo Program but it's absolutely undeniable that there was value. We learned a bunch, showed what's possible with human ingenuity, and just plain old did something that would make one proud to be a human, let alone an American at the time. If we did more things like this, it's very likely that the relationship between the people and the government would be far better than it is today.

gota 3y ago
> say nothing of decades more of people being maimed and killed by our cluster bomblets left all over the country. Not to mention the millions of people devastated by Agent Orange. The fact that the specialists warned the US military of these effects and it didn't stop them from poisoning the population for generations is mind boggling. How did these people rationalize their actions? Anyway - there's no possible price tag for that. Your point of comparison is correct; the space race as a whole was about the best- and cheapest-case scenario for a "war"
ebiester 3y ago
Leftists and black activists were also against the Vietnam War. The arguments were far less about the monetary value in that case, though.
- somenameforme 3y ago
  This is true but, in general, I don't think it should be. One can moralize endlessly about war. Even in this thread you can see somebody arguing that the Vietnam war couldn't have been that bad because it was against communism, which he thinks should always be opposed. And one cannot say he's wrong - it's an opinion. By contrast a trillion dollars is a trillion dollars. And I think almost nobody could argue, in good faith, that near to any war is worth a trillion dollars. That's more than $7,500 per household in the US. That sort of money, for some sort of vague geopolitical ambition, is just beyond absurd. And the thing is, even when we initially claim that this war or that will "only" cost some billions of dollars, they all go this way. Iraq "according to every analyst" was supposed to cost about $80 billion and last 2 years. 4 years later, the Congressional Budget Office estimated its cost to be about $2.4 trillion. That value is also not adjusted for inflation. These wars all around the world are just such an unbelievably tremendous waste of money. They have this magic trick that even Houdini couldn't hold a candle to - they can take trillions of dollars and just make it all disappear, with absolutely nothing to show for it. Nobody could ever rationalize this into being a good thing. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
philwelch 3y ago
In the aftermath of the fall of South Vietnam, somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000 refugees died at sea trying to flee the country. Cambodia also fell to communism, where the new regime murdered between 1.5 million and 2 million of its people. Actually winning the Vietnam War could have prevented these outcomes and left Southeast Asia in a much more stable and prosperous position today, similar to South Korea.
- ozborn 3y ago
  It was communist controlled Vietnam which got rid of the Khmer Rouge about 45 years ago ending the genocide in Cambodia, it's entirely unclear what your hypothetical "winning" South Vietnamese government would have done. The US government was still mad enough with Vietnam that it applied more sanctions on Vietnam after Vietnam invaded Cambodia and the other major player (China) supported the Khmer Rouge and invaded Vietnam in retaliation.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    The United States and South Vietnam both opposed the Khmer Rouge during the Cambodian Civil War while the North Vietnamese supported them. The split between the Vietnamese communists and the Khmer Rouge only happened after the US allowed both South Vietnam and the previous Cambodian government to fall to communists.
    - qwytw 3y ago
      The genocide happened in the mid to late 70s, a couple of years after the US had already withdrawn from Vietnam. Why did the US decide to support the Khmer Rouge only after they have significantly intensified their campaign of mass murder?
      - philwelch 3y ago
        > The genocide happened in the mid to late 70s, a couple of years after the US had already withdrawn from Vietnam. That’s what I said—after the United States allowed both South Vietnam and Cambodia to fall to communists. I am arguing that if the United States consistently maintained military intervention against communism in both Vietnam and Cambodia the genocide would have been prevented. > Why did the US decide to support the Khmer Rouge It’s not actually clear that the US did support the Khmer Rouge. But if they did, that would have been wrong, just like abandoning South Vietnam and the pre-Khmer Rouge government of Cambodia was wrong. The US has wrongly supported many communist regimes, including those of China and the Soviet Union, and would have been better served with a consistent anticommunist foreign policy at almost any point in history.
awongh 3y ago
I agree, and.... One reason why Apollo might seem cheap is because a lot of the R&D dollars are counted against developing ICBM missiles to annihilate everyone on earth. The rockets themselves and the fundamental work was primarily motivated by the creation of weapons, space exploration second.

gota 3y ago

> say nothing of decades more of people being maimed and killed by our cluster bomblets left all over the country. Not to mention the millions of people devastated by Agent Orange. The fact that the specialists warned the US military of these effects and it didn't stop them from poisoning the population for generations is mind boggling. How did these people rationalize their actions? Anyway - there's no possible price tag for that. Your point of comparison is correct; the space race as a whole was about the best- and cheapest-case scenario for a "war"

ebiester 3y ago

Leftists and black activists were also against the Vietnam War. The arguments were far less about the monetary value in that case, though.

somenameforme 3y ago
This is true but, in general, I don't think it should be. One can moralize endlessly about war. Even in this thread you can see somebody arguing that the Vietnam war couldn't have been that bad because it was against communism, which he thinks should always be opposed. And one cannot say he's wrong - it's an opinion. By contrast a trillion dollars is a trillion dollars. And I think almost nobody could argue, in good faith, that near to any war is worth a trillion dollars. That's more than $7,500 per household in the US. That sort of money, for some sort of vague geopolitical ambition, is just beyond absurd. And the thing is, even when we initially claim that this war or that will "only" cost some billions of dollars, they all go this way. Iraq "according to every analyst" was supposed to cost about $80 billion and last 2 years. 4 years later, the Congressional Budget Office estimated its cost to be about $2.4 trillion. That value is also not adjusted for inflation. These wars all around the world are just such an unbelievably tremendous waste of money. They have this magic trick that even Houdini couldn't hold a candle to - they can take trillions of dollars and just make it all disappear, with absolutely nothing to show for it. Nobody could ever rationalize this into being a good thing. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident

philwelch 3y ago

In the aftermath of the fall of South Vietnam, somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000 refugees died at sea trying to flee the country. Cambodia also fell to communism, where the new regime murdered between 1.5 million and 2 million of its people. Actually winning the Vietnam War could have prevented these outcomes and left Southeast Asia in a much more stable and prosperous position today, similar to South Korea.

ozborn 3y ago
It was communist controlled Vietnam which got rid of the Khmer Rouge about 45 years ago ending the genocide in Cambodia, it's entirely unclear what your hypothetical "winning" South Vietnamese government would have done. The US government was still mad enough with Vietnam that it applied more sanctions on Vietnam after Vietnam invaded Cambodia and the other major player (China) supported the Khmer Rouge and invaded Vietnam in retaliation.
- philwelch 3y ago
  The United States and South Vietnam both opposed the Khmer Rouge during the Cambodian Civil War while the North Vietnamese supported them. The split between the Vietnamese communists and the Khmer Rouge only happened after the US allowed both South Vietnam and the previous Cambodian government to fall to communists.
  - qwytw 3y ago
    The genocide happened in the mid to late 70s, a couple of years after the US had already withdrawn from Vietnam. Why did the US decide to support the Khmer Rouge only after they have significantly intensified their campaign of mass murder?
    - philwelch 3y ago
      > The genocide happened in the mid to late 70s, a couple of years after the US had already withdrawn from Vietnam. That’s what I said—after the United States allowed both South Vietnam and Cambodia to fall to communists. I am arguing that if the United States consistently maintained military intervention against communism in both Vietnam and Cambodia the genocide would have been prevented. > Why did the US decide to support the Khmer Rouge It’s not actually clear that the US did support the Khmer Rouge. But if they did, that would have been wrong, just like abandoning South Vietnam and the pre-Khmer Rouge government of Cambodia was wrong. The US has wrongly supported many communist regimes, including those of China and the Soviet Union, and would have been better served with a consistent anticommunist foreign policy at almost any point in history.

awongh 3y ago

I agree, and.... One reason why Apollo might seem cheap is because a lot of the R&D dollars are counted against developing ICBM missiles to annihilate everyone on earth. The rockets themselves and the fundamental work was primarily motivated by the creation of weapons, space exploration second.