Were the Apollo Missions a waste of money?

[dipole]

Critics of human space flight (which I usually identify as) generally feel that manned missions are a huge waste of money. The case is made that the amount of science you get per dollar spent on manned missions does not make them worthwhile, and that money should be spent on better science.

However, with NASA's recent talk about manned missions to Mars, I started thinking about the Apollo missions, and even though I normally identify as a critic of manned spaceflight, I find it very difficult to make the argument that the Apollo missions were a waste of time/money. This is putting my stance on future manned spaceflight into doubt in my mind...

What say ye? If current manned spaceflight is a waste of money, were the Apollo missions a waste of money as well?

 

[Bystander]

were the Apollo missions a waste of money as well?

No. Realizable goal, not more engineering than could be chewed in one bite, manned landing was more flexible than available remote technology, and it was an open and closed program.

NASA's recent talk about manned missions to Mars,

is marketing for the masses, "bread (not and, but) for circuses". The 2001 fans are getting pretty long in the tooth and gullible, generation X hasn't got a clue, current admin is desperate for every distraction it can generate, remote sensing and automated/roving technology can do more than any manned team ever did on the moon.

 

[Drakkith]

It's often difficult to gauge whether something of this magnitude is a waste of money or not. Many times the benefits are either intangible or are very, very difficult to put a price on. It's also effectively impossible to accurately predict what might have happened otherwise. For example, what would the world be like today had the space race not occurred? I don't think anyone can possibly know. At best we'd get vague guesses.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

I would consider myself a pretty big critic of the near-religious ideological stance that we must colonise space. Having said that I don't think the Apollo missions or a manned Mars mission would necessarily be a waste of money. They're bound to improve our engineering skills, our understanding of the solar system and probably a whole host of other fields. In terms of ROI...I'm inclined to say there are far better ways of investing money. X billion dollars would probably produce more advances if it was used to fund a thousand projects to the tune of X million dollars rather than one large space mission. But then again we don't just do science for purposes of the best immediate ROI, partially because we don't know what will be produced and partially because it is in human nature to get a lot of intangible value from big (and little) undertakings.

 

[DiracPool]

It's often difficult to gauge whether something of this magnitude is a waste of money or not.

I don't think it's difficult to gauge this at all. If you're referring to manned spaceflight and a Mars expedition in particular. Forget about the science per se for a moment. You can't really put a price tag on the adventure and human heroism a manned mission to Mars would yield. It might even bring some unity to the planet Earth for a few moments. Sadly, with the exception of the bottom of the ocean, there really are no "explorer" frontiers left for humans to venture to, and I think James Cameron even ruined the bottom of the ocean one .

I kind of side with Robert Zubrin in thinking a manned mission to Mars needs to be the great adventure of our time, the time of the first half of the 21st century. As far as the biological adventure of biological organisms, I think Mars may be it. I don't really see any manned missions to, say, Europa or any of the outer planets happening in the next century or maybe even ever. Extra-Mars exploration will be carried out by robotic devices with human-like intelligence. My point being is that I think we should embrace our fragile opportunity here to thrill the planet with a manned mission to Mars and redirect the budget of NASA toward such an endeavor.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

You can't really put a price tag on the adventure and human heroism a manned mission to Mars would yield.

Well you can, not as easily sure but you can. Let's say Joe Politician proposes NASA attempts to put a man on Mars (in the name of "adventure and human herorism"), now let's say he proposes diverting 0.0001% of the budget to do this. Ignoring if that is a practical amount of funding people would probably judge that good value for money. A tiny reallocation of budget for the potential payoff of watching a stranger have an adventure on another planet. But what if it was 0.1%? 1%? 5%? 20%? Pretty soon it gets to the point where people reasonably think that such a large expenditure of money isn't worth the reward of being able to watch a video of a man putting a flag in a red desert.

 

[DarthMatter]

While I think the Apollo missions were great in themselves, the money could have probably be spent better. Feed the hungry, build or repair some schools, improve education. Hopelessly romantic stuff like that. But this also is valid today for a huge part of the military budget.

 

[DiracPool]

But what if it was 0.1%? 1%? 5%? 20%?

Well, obviously the budget reallocation is going to have be reasonable. But it's not just the "potential payoff of watching a stranger have an adventure on another planet," that makes it worthwhile, it's also as you mentioned the inevitable consequence of such a mission to "improve our engineering skills, our understanding of the solar system and probably a whole host of other fields" that is highly relevant here. Again, I think Zubrin outlines all of these benefits rather well. An additional benefit he outlines is, again, the prospect that such a mission is going to re-energize a generation of kids to become interested in science, astrophysics/astrobiology and STEM-related education.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Well, obviously the budget reallocation is going to have be reasonable. But it's not just the "potential payoff of watching a stranger have an adventure on another planet," that makes it worthwhile, it's also as you mentioned the inevitable consequence of such a mission to "improve our engineering skills, our understanding of the solar system and probably a whole host of other fields" that is highly relevant here. Again, I think Zubrin outlines all of these benefits rather well. An additional benefit he outlines is, again, the prospect that such a mission is going to re-energize a generation of kids to become interested in science, astrophysics/astrobiology and STEM-related education.

The thing is if your aim is to push science forward and get kids interested in science then what has the better ROI: X billion spent on a manned space mission or X billion spent on terrestrial projects and science education?

 

[Bystander]

"improve our engineering skills,

Apollo: first engineering skill improvement was "housekeeping" for three lives, one capsule, and $XX; second skill was that duct tape, chewing gum, baling wire, still work, for price of one moon shot. Followed by applications of those improved skills in shuttle program for further lessons: engineering cannot overcome bad management at cost of one crew; duct tape, chewing gum, and baling wire may not be enough when things go south, at cost of second crew. There's definitely room for improvement, and plenty of Buzz Lightyear types willing to try, but it's lots cheaper to fly soft landing packages through a planet's surface than it is to fly manned missions while learning.

 

[DiracPool]

The thing is if your aim is to push science forward and get kids interested in science then what has the better ROI: X billion spent on a manned space mission or X billion spent on terrestrial projects and science education?

That's a great question. It would be interesting to poll that here. I would argue that it would be a manned space mission. My first argument is what do you mean by terrestrial projects and science education? Don't we have a lot of that right now? How exciting would it be for a 15 year old high school student to see X billion dollars spent on a second space station or a LISA type interferometer? Post-graduates might get excited over that, but not a 15 year old. I don't think the issue is the availability of terrestrial based science courses or science "tracks" available to kids, I think it's the lack of interest/excitement in these fields that is the limiting factor. A sure fire way to get everyone excited is to send humans to Mars and have an ongoing discussion in the popular media about the challenges and the science that goes into such a project for the entire 3 years it goes on.

 

[DiracPool]

engineering cannot overcome bad management at cost of one crew; duct tape, chewing gum, and baling wire may not be enough when things go south, at cost of second crew.

That's exactly my point, people from the 60's (those 60's people) don't remember anything about bad management within NASA or engineering issues related to the Apollo missions. What do they remember? They remember Buzz Aldrin sticking his pen into the control panel to release the ascent rocket because the toggle snapped off. See, to the general public, it's all about human interest.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

That's a great question. It would be interesting to poll that here. I would argue that it would be a manned space mission. My first argument is what do you mean by terrestrial projects and science education? Don't we have a lot of that right now?

Sure we do but the scenario under discussion is that more money is allocated to science; should that extra funding go to one space project or multiple Earth-bound projects?

How exciting would it be for a 15 year old high school student to see X billion dollars spent on a second space station or a LISA type interferometer? Post-graduates might get excited over that, but not a 15 year old. I don't think the issue is the availability of terrestrial based science courses or science "tracks" available to kids, I think it's the lack of interest/excitement in these fields that is the limiting factor. A sure fire way to get everyone excited is to send humans to Mars and have an ongoing discussion in the popular media about the challenges and the science that goes into such a project for the entire 3 years it goes on.

I'm very skeptical of the notion that manned space travel can massively increase STEM uptake. Is there any data to suggest this beyond anecdotes? I've had plenty of discussions with colleagues about why they got into science and I can't recall anyone ever saying it was because they saw the Moon landings or were captivated by space, even amongst those working in space science. Of course that's in no means definitive because it's difficult to impossible to track the influences that events have on one persons life. I also wonder if there is some generational bias here, those alive during the space race might have been caught up by it but would a modern generation of children (who grow up in a completely different world) have the same response? I don't know but I'm somehow doubtful it would be exactly the same.

As for interest in science in my experience getting kids interested in science is all about how they are taught it. Schools with big budgets for science lessons, school trips, equipment etc are bound to generate more interest than others. Which gets us back to the question of what could be done with X billion dollars for better science education.

 

[DiracPool]

I can't recall anyone ever saying it was because they saw the Moon landings or were captivated by space

Well, I can recall at least one kid that was captivated by the moon landings...Lol

Schools with big budgets for science lessons, school trips, equipment etc are bound to generate more interest than others.

Is that true? I don't know. Do you really think that if they doubled the size of the science buildings at the local university and doubled the science budget, it would attract more students? Interest wise I mean, forget about, say, scholarships per se. I think what you need to get kids interested in science is the equivalent of a "killer app," so to speak, and that killer app is going to be a manned mission to another world, IMO. Or, really, any manned kind of mission. Even the space station guys are talking to grammer schools and high schools across the country, if you watch the NASA channel. But the low Earth orbit stuff is becoming real tired and uninspired.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Seems like Danny Lloyd is more interested in other things on his clothes now :p

http://d2tq98mqfjyz2l.cloudfront.net/image_cache/1351030267710364.jpg

With regards to funding yes I do think that better schooling and other programs will lead to more science interest than one big life event. Indeed I'm skeptical of the notion that individual events of this sort can have such a big impact (as opposed to there being a multitude of factors but only the big one is remembered). A big, big reason why I'm a biologist is down to a specific teacher I had in upper school. She made the subject fascinating and was always striving to have practicals wherever possible and get out of the classroom. Several times she mentioned that she asked the school for more materials, equipment and permission to go on trips but they didn't have the funds for it. If they had I have no doubt her lessons would have been even more interesting. Another point on this issue: suppose we do have a group of kids who watch an astronaut walk on Mars, and let's assume that this does inspire them someway. How many of them will make it into STEM fields with regular schooling and programs? Is that one incident going to maintain a lifelong passion?

 

[phinds]

It has always seemed to me that you can make a very strong case that unmanned space exploration would have provided a MUCH bigger bang for the buck, and the rest of the money could have been spent on other technological projects and thus we would have produced the same level of technological spinoff as the manned program did. The only flaw in this argument is that it is ridiculous because it would never have happened. Without the space race there is pretty much no possibility that politicians could have / would have diverted so much money to technology.

A manned mission to Mars is even worse in terms of bang for the buck. Whether or not it captures the public's interest enough to allow politicians to fund it remains to be seen. Personally, I think it's a pipe dream to think it will happen any time soon.

 

[Bystander]

don't remember anything about bad management

Franklin Expedition, 1845. Robert Falcon Scott. Is it an impossible lesson? It is very well established that engineering and human ingenuity cannot defeat poor judgment and/or mismanagement. Is a multi- $T demonstration really necessary?

Stimulation of STEM or MINT interest in public schools?

(MINT standing for Mathematics, Engineering (in German "Ingenieurswissenschaften", that's why there's an I in the acronym), Natural Sciences, and Technology,

Great --- the kids will have degrees in Chem. Eng. and know what's happening to the plastic and cans they collect for recycling to pay for the fries they buy at McDonald's, and they'll even understand the automation that's replaced the minimum wage jobs they might have been able to compete for there.

Might be worth hanging on to a few economic resources for a rainy day rather than squandering them all on more pyramids.

 

[DiracPool]

Seems like Danny Lloyd is more interested in other things on his clothes now :p

Lol. Well, there goes my theory, looks like Danny is up to other Shenanigans now other than extraterrestrial interests.

Another point on this issue: suppose we do have a group of kids who watch an astronaut walk on Mars, and let's assume that this does inspire them someway. How many of them will make it into STEM fields with regular schooling and programs? Is that one incident going to maintain a lifelong passion?

I think the short answer to this is yes, for some people. How you split hairs and quantify this measure is not so clear. Again, if you read Zubrin or watch any of the Mars society conference presentations, you will see a community there. The moon landings certainly inspired me.

Personally, I think it's a pipe dream to think it will happen any time soon.

Again, disagree with this, I think humanity and the planet is desperate for a real challenge for humanity to undertake. Something on the scale of the moon landings or the first expeditions to the poles or the summit of Everest. All we have now are youtube stunts, wingsuit flyers, and the Jackass movies, that doesn't cut it.

 

[DiracPool]

Might be worth hanging on to a few economic resources for a rainy day rather than squandering them all on more pyramids.

That's just the point, how much of the building of the pyramids was actually useful to serve the traversal of the king into the afterworld versus giving a mass of egyptians something to do with their time, that seemed important at least, rather than surf the web and raise their status on social media? I've got a great idea, why don't we take the, say, X billion dollars spent on a manned mission to Mars and use it to "solve" domestic issues like feeding the hungry and curing illnesses? What are we going to get then? A rapid increase in the population to 14 billion rather that 7 billion people depleting Earths resources at an even greater rate with a myopic focus centered on geocentrism? What a manned mission Mars is going to do for the general public, I think, is give people the peace of mind that we as a society are least trying to do something to reach out beyond this planet, even in a token manner, to provide security for the species in case things go badly at home. This has always been the motivation for exploration, it's built into our psyche and it inspires.

 

[phinds]

Again, disagree with this, I think humanity and the planet is desperate for a real challenge for humanity to undertake.

I admire your optimism but I think you vastly overestimate the public's interest in spending huge sums of money on space. The Cold War made the moon landings an easy sell for Kennedy but there is nothing comparable today.

 

[DarthMatter]

Again, disagree with this, I think humanity and the planet is desperate for a real challenge for humanity to undertake. Something on the scale of the moon landings or the first expeditions to the poles or the summit of Everest. All we have now are youtube stunts, wingsuit flyers, and the Jackass movies, that doesn't cut it.

Of course we have more than the Jackass movies and wingsuit flyers. Agreed though, you don't see them much on a screen. How about fighting hunger, increasing general health, curing the big deadly diseases? Fighting hunger is usually frowned upon because the challenge seems to big (I think). Is sending a man to our red neighbour a smaller or bigger challenge? Even giving every kid a proper education would be a good start. There are so many ways to spend resources here on our local planet.

 

[DiracPool]

I admire your optimism but I think you vastly overestimate the public's interest in spending huge sums of money on space.

Well, sadly, you may be right, as Raymond Dart (discover of Taung Child) once said, (paraphrasing) "more people are interested in feeding their bellies than they are in feeding their minds."

 

[timthereaper]

I admire your optimism but I think you vastly overestimate the public's interest in spending huge sums of money on space. The Cold War made the moon landings an easy sell for Kennedy but there is nothing comparable today.

Totally agree. The space race was a kneejerk reaction to the Soviets launching Sputnik and the possible national defense issues that stemmed from it. The fact that we've had moon landing technology for how many decades now and we haven't planned to go back means we don't care as much about space travel as we thought. We got some great tech out of the space race, but the public is already complaining about NASA's funding and the trillions we might spend sending a handful of people to Mars. Simply put, we don't care as much about space travel as about our needs here on Earth.

Are the Apollo missions a waste? No. I think it was the excuse we needed to take a chance on some developing tech, like finite element analysis software and other such engineering programs. Without a goal to reach, most engineering companies are content with the status quo. It forced us to mature the tech on the bleeding edge into something we can rely on. I agree we do need something like that, but I don't think we'll have another goal without something as equally influential as the Cold War.

 

[DiracPool]

I agree we do need something like that, but I don't think we'll have another goal without something as equally influential as the Cold War.

Well put Tim, but what I see is explanation, not opinion. Where do you think National and NASA resources should be directed to?

 

[phinds]

There are so many ways to spend resources here on our local planet.

And based on the evidence, it appears that in the USA at this time politicians have little interest in doing more than paying lip service to any of them, other than when it can be shown that they are "bringing home to bacon" for their constituents. Our "leaders" are not leading ... they are much more interested in arguing with each other and getting re-elected than they are in actually helping the country.

 

[timthereaper]

Well put Tim, but what I see is explanation, not opinion. Where do you think National and NASA resources should be directed to?

That's really hard to say. I'm not sure we have anything that will band us all together as much as the fear of possibly being attacked without provocation or warning. The energy crisis is the closest I think that we all have in common. I'm personally on the thorium nuclear reactor bandwagon, so I think that ought to be developed. The problem is that it doesn't have any weapons applications (or very few), but I think we could do some pretty cool things with the energy tech. I think that might be attainable in the next 10 years. I'm sure you can spin that by couching it as fuel for more aerospace vehicles or something military or space related.

Maybe we can redirect it into a kind of think tank to develop on some interesting tech from university labs. That might be the way we get the benefits of the Cold War without another one.

 

[BobG]

I think investment in NASA has been very worthwhile. That's not the same as our investment in the Apollo program, though. Investments in NASA have subsidized development of technologies that have been very valuable. Some of those spinoff technologies were a direct result of the Apollo program. Some of those spinoffs would have required a manned space program, even if not specifically a mission to the Moon.

But there is a cost to those investments, since you're dealing with the limited resource of money. Investment in landing a man on the Moon sucked up money that could have been invested in other areas of technological development.

The impact investing in a manned lunar mission was even mentioned in Kennedy's speech to Conress urging us to commit to a manned lunar mission.

This decision demands a major national commitment of scientific and technical manpower, materiel and facilities, and the possibility of their diversion from other important activities where they are already thinly spread.

Of course, you'll also notice a manned lunar mission wasn't the only part of this program - it was just the centerpiece. Arguably, it's the reason the nation also committed more money to developing communications satellites and weather satellites. Could we have invested just in the communications & weather satellites without the Moon mission part? Sure. Would we have?

Personally, I don't think this is a zero sum game, where money not spent on the space program would have been spent on something equally valuable, or even spent at all. In any event, it's impossible to compare what might possibly have been to the cost/benefit of something that actually happened.

I think we got a very good return on the money we invested into the space program in the 60's and landing on the Moon was the main reason that investment happened.

(And, in the interests of full disclosure, I may be biased by the fact that, not only was I captivated by the space program of the 60's when I was a kid, but I've worked with both weather satellites and communications satellites. The space program has been very good to me.)

 

[Ryan_m_b]

I think the short answer to this is yes, for some people. How you split hairs and quantify this measure is not so clear. Again, if you read Zubrin or watch any of the Mars society conference presentations, you will see a community there. The moon landings certainly inspired me.

According to wikipedia the Mars society has around 4000 members and 6000 supporters. So 10K people overall, how many of them work in any way in a STEM field? Probably not many. I'm sure it's a great community but not sure how much relevance it has towards inspiring people into science.

Again, disagree with this, I think humanity and the planet is desperate for a real challenge for humanity to undertake. Something on the scale of the moon landings or the first expeditions to the poles or the summit of Everest. All we have now are youtube stunts, wingsuit flyers, and the Jackass movies, that doesn't cut it.

I respect your view, it's honestly fascinating to me but I couldn't' disagree more. A manned Mars mission wouldn't be a real challenge for humanity or something that would in some way elevate people from their current condition. It would be a challenge for one governments space agency and it would give little to nothing to the majority of people. If anything the planet is desperate for what it has been desperate for for a long time: prosperity, an end to poverty/hunger/sickness, security and peace. In my country I'd bet that the majority of people want an end to the poor economic conditions we've been in for years now. They're desperate for an end to ever increasing bills, high levels of underemployment and some actual job security. No one, except the very privileged, feel like the best thing that could happen to their life is for some stranger to put a flag in a red desert.

I'd be quite interested to hear your thoughts on why you think humanity is desperate for a Mars mission or similar? I've come across this sort of belief before and I can't help but feel that it's just an ideological tenant spawned from the space race and mixed with a healthy dollop of frontierism. In my experience a lot of space enthusiasts see utopia as an automatic consequence of space colonisation which just baffles me.

 

[Nikitin]

Obviously the scientific/technological ROI is pretty abyssal when it comes to manned missions. Apollo included.

But is that the only measurement of value that matters? Think of the inspiration, sense of achievement and perspective the space race generated. How many kids decided to go into engineering because of the moon-landing? Who was not awed when man first entered space? Isn't the dream that should humanity strive for something bigger than brainless consumerism and petty squabbles worth investing in? I think all of this is the true bang for the buck, though you need to have somewhat of an open mind to see it I think.

 

[Nikitin]

If anything the planet is desperate for what it has been desperate for for a long time: prosperity, an end to poverty/hunger/sickness, security and peace. In my country I'd bet that the majority of people want an end to the poor economic conditions we've been in for years now. They're desperate for an end to ever increasing bills, high levels of underemployment and some actual job security. No one, except the very privileged, feel like the best thing that could happen to their life is for some stranger to put a flag in a red desert.

And you think the space-exploration people are unrealistic? Economies go up an down, but in the big picture we are living vastly better now than we did 50 years ago. Sure, it might be painful when a bubble burst, but eventually the problem will be fixed and productivity will start increasing yet again. Now if you think we can ever remove poverty then you are unrealistic: somebody always screws up, and they end up on the bottom for it. Not much you can do but encourage a meritocracy and have a decent welfare program.

And what do you consider "poor economic conditions" anyway? The inability to buy a PS4 for christmas?

If you were thinking about the likes of sub saharan Africa: well, what do you want to do? The main thing that would help them wouldn't be charity but massive investments and people emigrating there to create some kind of educated class and proper governments. Are you thinking of going?

 

[russ_watters]

I don't think it's difficult to gauge this at all. If you're referring to manned spaceflight and a Mars expedition in particular. Forget about the science per se for a moment. You can't really put a price tag on the adventure and human heroism a manned mission to Mars would yield.

I don't like that cliche. It is at best inaccurate: the Apollo program did have a price tag. It was $110-$170 billion, depending on what all you include in it and when you consider the start. What the Apollo program and a Mars trip don't have is a clearly identifiable value.

To me, while the national prestige of Apollo 11 was great, it faded fast with later missions and lacking a cold war and given that no other country has been to the moon, that factor is virtually nonexistent today, for Mars. So to me, that intangible value is pretty low.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

And you think the space-exploration people are unrealistic

I'm afraid I don't understand your criticism, do you think that people aren't desperate for these things and that they are more desperate for a Mars mission? My comment was on the nature of what people want, not what we could solve now if we tried. These are huge issues and as you point out there are many examples where things are getting better, even if in recent years many countries have had certain things worse.

Now if you think we can ever remove poverty then you are unrealistic: somebody always screws up, and they end up on the bottom for it. Not much you can do but encourage plutocracy and have a decent welfare program.

And what do you consider "poor economic conditions" anyway? The inability to buy a PS4 for christmas?

I certainly think it's possible to get rid of absolute poverty, and on a global scale. Humanity has made great strides towards that. In terms of other forms of poverty it's trickier but I don't think it's unrealistic to envision a society with low-no levels of nepotism, high job security, a good safety net and a system that allows for smooth social mobility. We're getting off topic here though and not drag this thread into a discussion on the extent of poverty and it's perception and whether or not plutarchy is innevitable/desirable.

If you were thinking about the likes of sub saharan Africa: well, what do you want to do? The main thing that would help them wouldn't be charity but massive investments and people emigrating there to create some kind of educated class and proper governments. Are you thinking of going?

Actually I have gone to 3rd world countries to volunteer at charities. Regardless though I think this is a typical and poor criticism. Leaving aside the fact that you've misread my post (where I was referring to what people want rather than what we should immediately focus on) the idea that if you don't personally move to a poor country to help them then you don't have a right to advocate charity/development is asinine. Me as an individual is going to make little difference versus a nation electing to allocate a portion of it's resources to international aid. Again though this is side tracking.

 

[DiracPool]

I don't like that cliche. It is at best inaccurate: the Apollo program did have a price tag. It was $110-$170 billion, depending on what all you include in it and when you consider the start. What the Apollo program and a Mars trip don't have is a clearly identifiable value.

I think the best way to address this is to ask you a question: If you could go back in time and change things, would your mission be to reallocate the funds spent on the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs to various domestic and military budgets? If so, where would you have reallocated the money and how might that reallocation have better served humanity than landing a man on the moon? I submit that pouring that money into said domestic/military programs would have had an absolutely zero effect on changing the current state of affairs on the planet today, with the exception that we would be continue to be a population of peoples that haven't left their planet to venture anywhere beyond. What do you think?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

I submit that pouring that money into said domestic/military programs would have had an absolutely zero effect on changing the current state of affairs on the planet today

Why do you think it would make no difference? I think it would have made a massive difference. The AAAS has a bunch of different charts tracking federal science funding over time (available here). I downloaded the excel file from the By Function: Defence and Non-defence R&D, 1953-2014 to take a look. It's all been adjusted for 2014 dollars, what you see in that file is a breakdown of how many billions the federal government dedicated to different areas of science. If you take the data for non-defence R&D from the period of 1961-72 (the time of the Apollo program) you'll see that total spending was $394.17 billion. Of that space funding constituted $219.1 billion, or to put it another way a whopping 55% of the total funding went to space science. Now not all of that might have been the Apollo program specifically but that fits with the estimation of ~$170 listed on wikipedia.

Given that do you still think that there would have been absolutely zero effect if that all that, or even just the $170 billion was invested in the other fields? I mean it would have essentially doubled science funding in the US for a decade, I'm having a hard time imagining that it would have done enough except spur development along massively.

EDIT: Fixed a minor error in calculation.

EDIT2: For interest here is the total spending of federal science R&D from 1961-72 broken down by fields

Field / $ billions

Health 51.76
Space 219.10
Gen. Science 33.29
Energy 27.99
Nat. Res. /Env. 12.96
Other 49.07
Defence 502.71

 

[russ_watters]

I think the best way to address this is to ask you a question: If you could go back in time and change things, would your mission be to reallocate the funds spent on the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs to various domestic and military budgets?

No, I think the Apollo program was a good thing. The point of the comparison is to show why the value of a Mars mission would be much lower (and, of course, the cost much higher).

 

[Nikitin]

I'm afraid I don't understand your criticism, do you think that people aren't desperate for these things and that they are more desperate for a Mars mission? My comment was on the nature of what people want, not what we could solve now if we tried. These are huge issues and as you point out there are many examples where things are getting better, even if in recent years many countries have had certain things worse.
I certainly think it's possible to get rid of absolute poverty, and on a global scale. Humanity has made great strides towards that. In terms of other forms of poverty it's trickier but I don't think it's unrealistic to envision a society with low-no levels of nepotism, high job security, a good safety net and a system that allows for smooth social mobility. We're getting off topic here though and not drag this thread into a discussion on the extent of poverty and it's perception and whether or not plutarchy is innevitable/desirable.
Actually I have gone to 3rd world countries to volunteer at charities. Regardless though I think this is a typical and poor criticism. Leaving aside the fact that you've misread my post (where I was referring to what people want rather than what we should immediately focus on) the idea that if you don't personally move to a poor country to help them then you don't have a right to advocate charity/development is asinine. Me as an individual is going to make little difference versus a nation electing to allocate a portion of it's resources to international aid. Again though this is side tracking.

I meant meritocracy was desirable, not plutocracy. Apologies, a slip of the tongue.

Well, granted I did not read all the posts in this thread, so I thought you preferred for the money to be spent on helping the poor. This is a pretty common position so I assumed that was what you took. Anyway, my response to that has always been that you can't just throw money at it and expect the problem to disappear.

In case of poorer nations, they will get richer only when their populations develop better work ethics, become more educated, more enlightened and so on. Spending money on charity is a waste, as allot of it gets stolen and what does get thru will only hurt the local economy in the long term. IMO it would be far better to do stuff like invest in African infrastructure and companies, sponsor exchange programs, lighten import duties on African goods (especially on agricultural products: Africa has some of the most fertile land in the world).

In case of fixing problems "at home",, how exactly are you going to fix nepotism by throwing money at it? Job security and social welfare in general will be fixed only when governments start redistributing wealth (by increasing taxes on the richer strata), which is not really a money problem.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

As I mentioned before Nikitin I think this is just derailing the thread. No one has proposed that the Apollo money would have been better spent on social programs, some of us might think that and there might be an argument to be made but trying to argue against it is just going to drag the thread into a debate on how to solve poverty. Instead why don't we stick to the original question of whether or not the Apollo missions were a good investment? If people want to go down the route of arguing that the money would have been better spent on social issues then fine, but at the moment the thread is concerned with the scientific ROI.

 

[DarthMatter]

EDIT2: For interest here is the total spending of federal science R&D from 1961-72 broken down by fields

Field / $ billions

Health 51.76
Space 219.10
Gen. Science 33.29
Energy 27.99
Nat. Res. /Env. 12.96
Other 49.07
Defence 502.71

Thanks for the numbers. I'm always missing the spending on military attacks/charges in tables like this one though.

In case of poorer nations, they will get richer only when their populations develop better work ethics, become more educated, more enlightened and so on. ... IMO it would be far better to do stuff like invest in African infrastructure and companies, sponsor exchange programs, lighten import duties on African goods (especially on agricultural products: Africa has some of the most fertile land in the world).

I'd agree on the probable benefit on spending money on most of these points. About the work ethics I'm not so sure though. I think many of these people are working pretty darn hard.

 

[jack476]

Even people during the Apollo missions were rather divided on whether they were worth it, plenty of people just saw it as the US needlessly weenie-wagging at the Soviets and many people understandably saw millions and millions of dollars being spent to go to the moon and bring back what appeared to just be rocks. So I think painting it as the "killer app" to get people into science might not be the way to go.

But the Apollo missions were ultimately necessary, it would not at the time have been possible to perform those experiments remotely. Now, it would be quite easy to do so with a remotely-controlled rover or lander compared to sending a human crew.

On top of that, it would effectively amount to a human sacrifice in the name of science popularization. Assuming everything goes perfectly, those astronauts will not be coming back to Earth. One way or another, they would almost certainly die on Mars. They'd have a finite supply of food and water and be thoroughly dependent on resupply missions, producing breathable air would require constant maintenance of a farm, they'd be subject to the health hazards of radiation and low gravity, and they'd have only whatever emergency medical supplies they can fit with them. And forget entertainment: just getting the bare essentials into a spacecraft would be hard enough. And they'd have to live like that for the rest of their natural lives, which could very well be shortened by a whole host of things.

I don't think any humans will set foot on Mars until we're talking about full-scale colonization and population efforts, and I don't think that's going to happen for a long time.

 

[leright]

The Apollo program generated a ton of new technology (spin offs) that eventually became ubiquitous in society. A lot of new technology had to be invented in order to get to the moon. This could very well justify the investment in the Apollo program.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies

 

[Ryan_m_b]

The Apollo program generated a ton of new technology (spin offs) that eventually became ubiquitous in society. A lot of new technology had to be invented in order to get to the moon. This could very well justify the investment in the Apollo program.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies

True but in terms of the investment the counter argument would be that if all this money had been invested in basic research we'd have far more new technologies than the handful of spin-offs. In my opinion there's only one reasonable objection to this counter argument: that were it not for the Apollo program this money would not have been spent on science. Whether or not that is true is an interesting question.

 

[dragoneyes001]

its easy to say it was a waste of money if you ignore that the 70's as we knew them would not have existed at all without the Apollo missions. all those new materials which made so many horrific living rooms,the social changes not only the new materials but processing of would never have gone the way they did however you may view this as good or bad they made huge changes including the development of the personal computers we now take for granted. without the direction the space industry took plastics in the 60's and 70's would not have been prevalent enough to attract the attention they did making many projects much less likely to have developed at all. I used the personal computer as an example because the plastics industry was a pivotal part in the timing of its creation because of costs and availability for mass production.

the amount of spin off from the Apollo program is so huge we miss many of the outcomes that affect our every day lives. I'd definitely say no the missions were not a waste of money. don't forget at the time remote control was at best pretty crappy so unmanned was at the time a bigger waste of money.

 

[dragoneyes001]

True but in terms of the investment the counter argument would be that if all this money had been invested in basic research we'd have far more new technologies than the handful of spin-offs. In my opinion there's only one reasonable objection to this counter argument: that were it not for the Apollo program this money would not have been spent on science. Whether or not that is true is an interesting question.

I'd have to disagree with the above: look at the cancer research and how many billions of dollars are pumped into it every year how much new technology does that money generate? it does create some but its not a huge variety of new tech.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

I'd have to disagree with the above: look at the cancer research and how many billions of dollars are pumped into it every year how much new technology does that money generate? it does create some but its not a huge variety of new tech.

It generates quite a lot, as evidence by the fact that cancer survival rates increase year on year to the point where some cancers have very good survival rates compared to a generation ago where they were a death sentence. I think your criticism is unfair and unfounded as it implies that no advance has been made. In reality even if there were no better treatments (which is untrue) our understanding of cancer biology would be such that we know far more about what doesn't work and what avenues are best to investigate in future.

In short your argument seems to come from a somewhat naive end-use perspective, rather than an appreciation of the field.

 

[dragoneyes001]

It generates quite a lot, as evidence by the fact that cancer survival rates increase year on year to the point where some cancers have very good survival rates compared to a generation ago where they were a death sentence. I think your criticism is unfair and unfounded as it implies that no advance has been made. In reality even if there were no better treatments (which is untrue) our understanding of cancer biology would be such that we know far more about what doesn't work and what avenues are best to investigate in future.

In short your argument seems to come from a somewhat naive end-use perspective, rather than an appreciation of the field.

again I disagree you imply I mean that cancer research did nothing to advance its research. which is not what I said. I said cancer research although very well funded in the billions of dollars per year only generates so much variety in technology. where as the Apollo missions created especially with the need to include men in space a much broader quantity of technological advances.

 

[symbolipoint]

It has always seemed to me that you can make a very strong case that unmanned space exploration would have provided a MUCH bigger bang for the buck, and the rest of the money could have been spent on other technological projects and thus we would have produced the same level of technological spinoff as the manned program did. The only flaw in this argument is that it is ridiculous because it would never have happened. Without the space race there is pretty much no possibility that politicians could have / would have diverted so much money to technology.

A manned mission to Mars is even worse in terms of bang for the buck. Whether or not it captures the public's interest enough to allow politicians to fund it remains to be seen. Personally, I think it's a pipe dream to think it will happen any time soon.

Imaginably, the level of robotics engineering between then and now has changed. Present day gives more chance to avoid manned missions.

 

[phinds]

Imaginably, the level of robotics engineering between then and now has changed. Present day gives more chance to avoid manned missions.

True, but the hype is for a manned mission to Mars and I just don't see that happening any time soon. Too dangerous, too expensive. I hope we DO get serious and send more unmanned missions and drop this nonsense about sending people in the next couple of decades.

 

[dragoneyes001]

At some point we will need to be in space if for no other reason than to collect resources to sustain humanity. If nothing else it'll probably come down to water that hasn't been polluted beyond recovery. the longer we put off manned stations outside of Earth's orbit the less likely we'll be able to get to and retrieve anything in quantities worth the effort.
not sure Mars is the best starting point for it. we should have in the last 40 years already established a working long stay self supporting base on the moon.

 

[phinds]

At some point we will need to be in space if for no other reason than to collect resources to sustain humanity. If nothing else it'll probably come down to water that hasn't been polluted beyond recovery. the longer we put off manned stations outside of Earth's orbit the less likely we'll be able to get to and retrieve anything in quantities worth the effort.
not sure Mars is the best starting point for it. we should have in the last 40 years already established a working long stay self supporting base on the moon.

WHAT resources? You seriously think bringing water from space will be more economically feasible than building desalination plants and other clear water recovery efforts? I think that's a joke.

 

[dragoneyes001]

its pretty hard to clean up some forms of poisons especially if we make the water a genetic soup that can't be recovered as potable. desalination is only useful if the water hasn't turned toxic beyond recovery. yes we may be able to come up with some antigens but with the amount of medical waste and super bugs water could become our biggest problem. in England a study of some rivers points the finger at the polymer industry for the break down of X chromosome in the fish living in those rivers the companies bank on.(regardless of this studies voracity or not) its an example of how water can be made unsafe to consume and less likely to be cleaned by current means.