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So, down from 'thousands of spin-offs' to 13, all of which would have been developed on their own for the explicit purpose to which they were eventually put. N

So, down from 'thousands of spin-offs' to 13, all of which would have been developed on their own for the explicit purpose to which they were eventually put. None required the magic of putting a human on the Moon for their development and none required an up-front investment of billions of dollars. The hope for spin-offs is a really horrible justification for a program. If you want to do something specific (say, establish a permanent human presence in space) why not do it direct instead of hope it results from a spin-off of something else?

BigZaphod 17y ago
Geez, dude. Why do you have to change my words (even within quotes!) and twist their meaning to win your argument? I was never originally talking about corporate spinoffs - I was talking about raw technology, basic science, fundamental ideas and breakthroughs that Apollo helped develop. That got derailed nicely when I happened to provide a link to NASA's corporate spinoff page under the assumption that a reasonable person would consider that commercial products are simply applications of technologies - not a representative list of them! Now you've decided that I meant to say Apollo directly started thousands of companies?!
- tom_rath 17y ago
  I didn't twist your words and I'm not talking about corporate spin-offs. To be picky, your exact quote was "Apollo led to hundreds (if not thousands) of advances". It did not. There were no breakthroughs in basic science, fundamental ideas or raw technology which resulted from Apollo which would not have otherwise been achieved by a bit (not billions of dollars) of direct research in the fields of interest. You've not been able to identify a dozen (or even one!) of those advances you're so sure about. Romantic and astounding as it was, Apollo was a money-sink which delivered us nothing but memories. It was an awesome 'night on the town' and we would have done better by constructing permanent space infrastructure instead.

BigZaphod 17y ago

Geez, dude. Why do you have to change my words (even within quotes!) and twist their meaning to win your argument? I was never originally talking about corporate spinoffs - I was talking about raw technology, basic science, fundamental ideas and breakthroughs that Apollo helped develop. That got derailed nicely when I happened to provide a link to NASA's corporate spinoff page under the assumption that a reasonable person would consider that commercial products are simply applications of technologies - not a representative list of them! Now you've decided that I meant to say Apollo directly started thousands of companies?!

tom_rath 17y ago
I didn't twist your words and I'm not talking about corporate spin-offs. To be picky, your exact quote was "Apollo led to hundreds (if not thousands) of advances". It did not. There were no breakthroughs in basic science, fundamental ideas or raw technology which resulted from Apollo which would not have otherwise been achieved by a bit (not billions of dollars) of direct research in the fields of interest. You've not been able to identify a dozen (or even one!) of those advances you're so sure about. Romantic and astounding as it was, Apollo was a money-sink which delivered us nothing but memories. It was an awesome 'night on the town' and we would have done better by constructing permanent space infrastructure instead.