Was the Apollo Program worth the cost?

[SkyRender]

I know, I'm a scientist and I work in an area which definitely qualifies as pure research. My point was that, as an example of a pure research experiment, particle colliders are a particularly expensive and very visible area of research to the public. They are certainly an area of important scientific research but identifying them as specific area where we should be spending more money is, in my opinion, probably a mistake. Assuming that ILC goes ahead, combined with LHC and others, the area should be fairly well covered for the immediate future. Diversity of research is critical.

One of the wonderful things about our species is that we always find some use for discoveries that seem at the time to be very limited in scope in terms of actual economic value. We are truly the masters of turning just about any discovery around and making it worthwhile. I sincerely hope we never lose that spark of creativity that follows each major scientific breakthrough.

[Nikolai]

You can explore much further and more intimately if you don't have to waste space and weight on taking a squidgy tube of fallibility up there with you.

Further, definitely. More intimately? We're still working on that. Especially if you compare technological apples to apples. The scientific return per dollar from Apollo was much greater than the scientific return per dollar from unmanned lunar exploration.

[Fractal_UK]

One of the wonderful things about our species is that we always find some use for discoveries that seem at the time to be very limited in scope in terms of actual economic value. We are truly the masters of turning just about any discovery around and making it worthwhile. I sincerely hope we never lose that spark of creativity that follows each major scientific breakthrough.

I wasn't disputing that and I think that's pretty clear from what I said.

[Luckless]

The wonderful thing about science is that it is the one field where failures are still a good thing. Assuming they're well documented.

Knowing what doesn't work, what doesn't happen, and what fails is just as important as the successes that spawn something directly profitable.

[The Stinger]

This thread just needs this graph.

[Brotoro]

As an American taxpayer who has actually paid in lots of money to the government over the years, I personally approve of the expenditure and would like even more money spent on space. But then again, I fly little green men around in virtual spaceships for fun, so I'm probably not a representative sample of the U.S. taxpayer.

I found the Apollo program very inspirational, I've personally benefitted from technologies that were developed or accelertated because of it, and there was actually useful science done on those missions. Sure, the main reason we did it was to show that our system of government and industry was better than the Soviets', but I'm fine with that, too.

Money well spent.

[JohnFKennedy]

"There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.

In the last 24 hours we have seen facilities now being created for the greatest and most complex exploration in man's history. We have felt the ground shake and the air shattered by the testing of a Saturn C-1 booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas which launched John Glenn, generating power equivalent to 10,000 automobiles with their accelerators on the floor. We have seen the site where the F-1 rocket engines, each one as powerful as all eight engines of the Saturn combined, will be clustered together to make the advanced Saturn missile, assembled in a new building to be built at Cape Canaveral as tall as a 48 story structure, as wide as a city block, and as long as two lengths of this field."

[karolus10]

Drunkrobot is right, many people think that space exploration is massive waste of money, but seems ignore how many money is wasted by military.

Some time ago on forums where topic about Utterly expensive R&D cost of F-35 fighter is about 1/3 of entire Apollo program cost in today money and whole jet program can nearly exceed Apollo cost by factor of 3 (Apollo $145B vs $396B, I hope that I just look at wrong data) .

Edited May 16, 2013 by karolus10

[SecondGuessing]

Drunkrobot is right, many people think that space exploration is massive waste of money, but seems ignore how many money is wasted by military.

Some time ago on forums where topic about Utterly expensive R&D cost of F-35 fighter is about 1/3 of entire Apollo program cost in today money and whole jet program can nearly exceed Apollo cost by factor of 3 (Apollo $145B vs $396B) .

All of the progress made by NASA in its early days was entirely military. It was a race for the high-ground.

And thinking that manned space flight is a waste of money and thinking that much of current military action is a waste of money are hardly mutually exclusive points.

[DerekL1963]

Apollo set the basis for miniaturization in computational technology

Nope. Apollo used components originally designed for the DoD missile programs. (Though, because the timing was wrong, the DoD wouldn't actually start fielding those units until the late 60's.)

Most people don't appreciate that NASA went out of it's way to minimize the number of new technologies developed for Apollo - there wasn't a great deal of time and there was a great deal of risk. They didn't even design new flight computers for the CSM and LM - they modified the computers used on the Polaris A2. Not to mention the F-1 (on which the entire program arguably depended) came from the USAF, and the Saturn series of boosters relied on work started when the Redstone Arsenal still belonged to the Army.

One of the great dirty secrets of Apollo is how much it relied on work done before Kennedy's decision that could be grabbed and modified quickly - and much of that originated with the DoD. (That's why Kennedy selected the moon landing in the first place.)

[Superluminaut]

I'm not talking about prestiege. I not talking about "science". I talking about real econimic growth of a nation.

So was the Apollo Program worth it?

And if it was, why did we renounce are claim to space. No competition means no mars landing. I would bet that if the "no territory in space treaty", don't know the real name, was renounced we would have over one hundred people prospecting on mars in less than a decade.

I don't have hard numbers, I doubt anyone does as it is hard to quantify every economic affect the Apollo program had. However when considering this I think its important to remember that the programs immediate purpose was to make the presidents crazy public statements about the moon true. What would the US have become if that had not been so?

Another thing to consider is that an alternative to the space race would have likely been total war with some use of nukes. The lives alone saved is most definitely worth it, and of course the program was still cheaper then direct combat with the soviets.

It is also interesting to think what the world would be like without Apollo. Spirit and opportunity on the moon? No KSP, or a KSP without kerbals. A ISS? What would computers be like? Would the EU and china be the top world powers? How would our world view be different?

[Superluminaut]

double post

[SecondGuessing]

Another thing to consider is that an alternative to the space race would have likely been total war with some use of nukes. The lives alone saved is most definitely worth it, and of course the program was still cheaper then direct combat with the soviets.

Nuclear weapons would have never been used, both sides were far too aware of the MAD principle.

It is also interesting to think what the world would be like without Apollo. Spirit and opportunity on the moon? No KSP, or a KSP without kerbals. A ISS? What would computers be like? Would the EU and china be the top world powers? How would our world view be different?

Computers would be just the same, as would global politics. The Cold War may have continued for a while, but the Soviet Union wasn't defeated because you managed to land on the Moon, so it would have still ended just the same. Except for some pretty good films and cool photos I very much doubt the world would be very different.

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

This thread just needs this graph.

So, on a science per dollar basis, Luna blows Apollo out of the water?

Seriously though, if you look on web of knowledge (one of the biggest research databases) and you search "moon" as a keyword the top 10 most cited papers aren't by any of these programmes... the're all from Cassini-Huygens and Gallileo

[The Stinger]

Nuclear weapons would have never been used, both sides were far too aware of the MAD principle.

The Cuban missile crisis, look it up.

[SecondGuessing]

The Cuban missile crisis, look it up.

I'm well aware of it, note how it didn't ended in a nuclear exchange, and note that the reason there wasn't a nuclear exchange wasn't because American managed to put a man on the Moon.

[The Stinger]

I'm well aware of it, note how it didn't ended in a nuclear exchange, and note that the reason there wasn't a nuclear exchange wasn't because American managed to put a man on the Moon.

Oops, misread your post. Sorry.

[itsme86]

The moon landing was a hoax.

</troll>

[Superluminaut]

Nuclear weapons would have never been used, both sides were far too aware of the MAD principle.

Computers would be just the same, as would global politics. The Cold War may have continued for a while, but the Soviet Union wasn't defeated because you managed to land on the Moon, so it would have still ended just the same. Except for some pretty good films and cool photos I very much doubt the world would be very different.

I don’t know, I think things would turn out different. If the US was not spending on Apollo, I expect the money would go to war. The US had already dropped two nukes at this point. If it had not been for sputnik that would have probably been a few more.

Apollo was the peaceful way out.

[SecondGuessing]

I don’t know, I think things would turn out different. If the US was not spending on Apollo, I expect the money would go to war. The US had already dropped two nukes at this point. If it had not been for sputnik that would have probably been a few more.

Apollo was the peaceful way out.

Nonsense. The two nuclear bombs used by America in WWII were cowardly weapons, launched because it was obvious Japan had absolutely no hope of retaliation. This clearly wasn't true in the Cold War. In fact, Sputnik clarified this even more, as it showed the Russia's missile and ballistic technology surpassed that of America. Sputnik was launched in a modified ICBM, it was a purely military gesture but it was an ingenious military gesture in that it was public, and as such it was impossible for America to refute, or to attack it as a military move. Thus, NASA was formed so that America could, just the same, show off its ability in intercontinental warfare whilst boosting morale and patriotism, just as Sputnik had done for the Soviets. However, it was peaceful, not in the slightest. The space-race was a military expletive-measuring contest that masqueraded as an innocent contest to explore space.

[Jokurr]

I don’t know, I think things would turn out different. If the US was not spending on Apollo, I expect the money would go to war. The US had already dropped two nukes at this point. If it had not been for sputnik that would have probably been a few more.

Apollo was the peaceful way out.

I am really failing to see the logic in that argument. Why would the lack of an Apollo program result in the USA dropping more nukes? As mentioned above me, the Apollo program was already an extension of the nuclear arms race and I fail to see how its existence prevented further bombings. Even if ICBMs were never invented the possibility of mutual assured destruction with the USSR still exists and that should be enough to prevent the USA from using anymore nukes.

[ZedNova]

The space-race was a military expletive-measuring contest that masqueraded as an innocent contest to explore space.

Yup, and that's why we collaborated with the Russians on several occasions during the "Space race".

[SecondGuessing]

Yup, and that's why we collaborated with the Russians on several occasions during the "Space race".

Which only happened after the Cuban Missile crisis had shown that neither country was actually willing to use intercontinental weaponry, and that it would almost certainly remain a Cold War. So, both countries decided that it would be in their best interests to show a willingness to co-operate, which would make each leader appear benevolent and kind-hearted given the potentials for violence, and meant that it was much easier to keep a check on the other side's technological advancements. If you want to know how good your enemy are at rocketry, first hand contact with their most advanced rocketry program is probably about the best way to do so.

[CleverClothe]

Nonsense. The two nuclear bombs used by America in WWII were cowardly weapons, launched because it was obvious Japan had absolutely no hope of retaliation. This clearly wasn't true in the Cold War. In fact, Sputnik clarified this even more, as it showed the Russia's missile and ballistic technology surpassed that of America. Sputnik was launched in a modified ICBM, it was a purely military gesture but it was an ingenious military gesture in that it was public, and as such it was impossible for America to refute, or to attack it as a military move. Thus, NASA was formed so that America could, just the same, show off its ability in intercontinental warfare whilst boosting morale and patriotism, just as Sputnik had done for the Soviets. However, it was peaceful, not in the slightest. The space-race was a military expletive-measuring contest that masqueraded as an innocent contest to explore space.

In reading this thread, I have been trying to figure out what version of propaganda SecondGuessing grew up with. But maybe there isn't a right answer to that question (i.e. trolling).

However, this has started an interesting discussion. I would of course vote "definitely worth it" to the original question.

[Jokurr]

How is that propaganda or trolling? I agree with everything Secondguessing said in that post.