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It succeeded in the 60s because we didn't just focus attention, we focused a LOT OF MONEY on it. In comparison, today's NASA has a meager budget which has only

It succeeded in the 60s because we didn't just focus attention, we focused a LOT OF MONEY on it. In comparison, today's NASA has a meager budget which has only been further slashed by the current administration. I would love to see the kind of investment in NASA we had during the 60s. The scientific advancements were staggering. Today, the only thing we have money for is weapons and warfare.

JackFr 1y ago
> we focused a LOT OF MONEY on it Apollo at its height commanded 0.8% of the entire US economy.
- intrasight 1y ago
  AI is today's equivalent race. I wouldn't be surprised if it's now over 1% of the US economy.
  - allenrb 1y ago
    And IMHO this AI race will do something Apollo never did, at least not with people aboard… crash and burn.
    - amrocha 1y ago
      I can’t tell if this is a joke. The Apollo mission did crash and burn and kill people.
    - Azrael3000 1y ago
      Apollo 1 burned quite well unfortunately. But IMHO it makes no sense to compare those things anyways.
  - jcgrillo 1y ago
    Apollo was much better value for money. It inspired generations to study and enter STEM fields, it gave us multitudes of technological advances, and it gave the entire world something to marvel at. It gave us the earthrise image, which fueled the environmental movement. What has "AI" inspired? What marvels will the enshittificatement of googling, or the latest deepfake garbage bestow upon us? If "AI" is our moonshot we're all well and truly fucked.
eru 1y ago
Technological progress should allow us to repeat ancient feats for cheaper. True excellence in engineering is being able to do amazing things within a limited budget. (And overall, sending some primates to the moon should come out of our entertainment budgets. Manned space flight has been one giant money sink without much too show for. If you want to do anything scientifically useful in space, go for unmanned. > Today, the only thing we have money for is weapons and warfare. Huh? You remember the cold war? The US spends less of its total income on weapons and warfare than back then. Have a look at some statistics to find what the biggest items are these days.)
- grafmax 1y ago
  > Have a look at some statistics to find what the biggest items are these days. Note that if you attribute interest for military-related debt to military spending(roughly 40-50% of our interest payments) then it ends up climbing in the ranking. But it’s true that we have other major expenses as well.
  - eru 1y ago
    Money is fungible. How do you decide what debt is military related? (And yes, the government can give labels to the debt, but that's more of a political exercise than fiscal reality.)
- somenameforme 1y ago
  > The US spends less of its total income on weapons and warfare than back then. Have a look at some statistics to find what the biggest items are these days. This is inaccurate. Here [1] is a nice table showing US military spending over time, inflation adjusted. Up, up, and away! And it's made even more insane because what really matters is discretionary spending. Each year lots of things are automatically paid - interest on the debt, pensions, medicare, social security, and so on. What's left over is in those giant budgetary bills that Congress makes each year that cover all spending on education, infrastructure, and all of the other things people typically associate government spending with. And military spending (outside of things like pension) is 100% discretionary, and it consumes about half of our entire discretionary budget! And this is again made even more insane by the fact that discretionary spending, as a percent of all spending, continues to decline. This is because we're an aging population with a terrible fertility rate. So costs for social security, medicare, and other such things are increasing sharply while new revenue from our children is barely trickling in. Notably this will never change unless fertility rates change. Even when the 'old people' die, they will be replaced by even more old people, and with even fewer children coming of age. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#/media/File:U.S_-_China_-_Russia,_Military_Spending.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...
ocdtrekkie 1y ago
For what it's worth military research projects also come up with plenty of scientific advancements and the military also is doing things in space, including things they have had up there for years without explaining the purpose of.
somenameforme 1y ago
This is a common misconception. The total amount spent on the Apollo program over its 13 year time span (1960-1973) was $25.8 billion as reported in 1973, around $240 billion inflation adjusted. That's around $18.5 billion per year, distributed on a bell curve. NASA reached it's minimum post-apollo budget in 1978 at $21.3 billion per year! Their current budget is $25.4 billion. [1] So based on current (and historic spending) NASA could have been constantly doing Apollo level programs, on loop, as a 'side gig' and still have plenty of money for other things. The modern argument is that we spend less as a percent of the federal budget, but it's mostly nonsensical. The government having more money available has nothing to do with the amount of money being spent on NASA or any other program. It's precisely due to this luxury that we've been able to keep NASA's budget so high in spite of them achieving nothing remotely on the scale of the Apollo program in the 50+ years since it was ended. The big problem is that after Nixon defacto ended the human space program (largely because he feared that an accident might imperil his reelection chances), NASA gradually just got turned into a giant pork project. They have a lot of money but it's mostly wasted on things that people know aren't going anywhere or are otherwise fundamentally flawed, exactly like Artemis and the SLS. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA

JackFr 1y ago

> we focused a LOT OF MONEY on it Apollo at its height commanded 0.8% of the entire US economy.

intrasight 1y ago
AI is today's equivalent race. I wouldn't be surprised if it's now over 1% of the US economy.
- allenrb 1y ago
  And IMHO this AI race will do something Apollo never did, at least not with people aboard… crash and burn.
  - amrocha 1y ago
    I can’t tell if this is a joke. The Apollo mission did crash and burn and kill people.
  - Azrael3000 1y ago
    Apollo 1 burned quite well unfortunately. But IMHO it makes no sense to compare those things anyways.
- jcgrillo 1y ago
  Apollo was much better value for money. It inspired generations to study and enter STEM fields, it gave us multitudes of technological advances, and it gave the entire world something to marvel at. It gave us the earthrise image, which fueled the environmental movement. What has "AI" inspired? What marvels will the enshittificatement of googling, or the latest deepfake garbage bestow upon us? If "AI" is our moonshot we're all well and truly fucked.

eru 1y ago

Technological progress should allow us to repeat ancient feats for cheaper. True excellence in engineering is being able to do amazing things within a limited budget. (And overall, sending some primates to the moon should come out of our entertainment budgets. Manned space flight has been one giant money sink without much too show for. If you want to do anything scientifically useful in space, go for unmanned. > Today, the only thing we have money for is weapons and warfare. Huh? You remember the cold war? The US spends less of its total income on weapons and warfare than back then. Have a look at some statistics to find what the biggest items are these days.)

grafmax 1y ago
> Have a look at some statistics to find what the biggest items are these days. Note that if you attribute interest for military-related debt to military spending(roughly 40-50% of our interest payments) then it ends up climbing in the ranking. But it’s true that we have other major expenses as well.
- eru 1y ago
  Money is fungible. How do you decide what debt is military related? (And yes, the government can give labels to the debt, but that's more of a political exercise than fiscal reality.)
somenameforme 1y ago
> The US spends less of its total income on weapons and warfare than back then. Have a look at some statistics to find what the biggest items are these days. This is inaccurate. Here [1] is a nice table showing US military spending over time, inflation adjusted. Up, up, and away! And it's made even more insane because what really matters is discretionary spending. Each year lots of things are automatically paid - interest on the debt, pensions, medicare, social security, and so on. What's left over is in those giant budgetary bills that Congress makes each year that cover all spending on education, infrastructure, and all of the other things people typically associate government spending with. And military spending (outside of things like pension) is 100% discretionary, and it consumes about half of our entire discretionary budget! And this is again made even more insane by the fact that discretionary spending, as a percent of all spending, continues to decline. This is because we're an aging population with a terrible fertility rate. So costs for social security, medicare, and other such things are increasing sharply while new revenue from our children is barely trickling in. Notably this will never change unless fertility rates change. Even when the 'old people' die, they will be replaced by even more old people, and with even fewer children coming of age. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#/media/File:U.S_-_China_-_Russia,_Military_Spending.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...

ocdtrekkie 1y ago

For what it's worth military research projects also come up with plenty of scientific advancements and the military also is doing things in space, including things they have had up there for years without explaining the purpose of.

somenameforme 1y ago

This is a common misconception. The total amount spent on the Apollo program over its 13 year time span (1960-1973) was $25.8 billion as reported in 1973, around $240 billion inflation adjusted. That's around $18.5 billion per year, distributed on a bell curve. NASA reached it's minimum post-apollo budget in 1978 at $21.3 billion per year! Their current budget is $25.4 billion. [1] So based on current (and historic spending) NASA could have been constantly doing Apollo level programs, on loop, as a 'side gig' and still have plenty of money for other things. The modern argument is that we spend less as a percent of the federal budget, but it's mostly nonsensical. The government having more money available has nothing to do with the amount of money being spent on NASA or any other program. It's precisely due to this luxury that we've been able to keep NASA's budget so high in spite of them achieving nothing remotely on the scale of the Apollo program in the 50+ years since it was ended. The big problem is that after Nixon defacto ended the human space program (largely because he feared that an accident might imperil his reelection chances), NASA gradually just got turned into a giant pork project. They have a lot of money but it's mostly wasted on things that people know aren't going anywhere or are otherwise fundamentally flawed, exactly like Artemis and the SLS. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA