Yes, let us celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, an amazing human achievement. But remember something else as well: The U.S. space program turned out to be one of the great economic and innovative failures of our time. For a decade it absorbed a big chunk of the country's scientific and technical resources, while producing very few economically useful spinoffs.
Yes, let us celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, an amazing human achievement.
But remember something else as well: The U.S. space program turned out to be one of the great economic and innovative failures of our time. For a decade it absorbed a big chunk of the country's scientific and technical resources, while producing very few economically useful spinoffs.
I'm just making the economic point that we used large amounts of scarce scientific and technical labor and money for one activity which at least up to now, has not produced big economic payoffs. Finally, how much of this problem was due to the heavy hand of government? I've got another post coming up where I'll look at the recent history of private-sector space activity.
Finally, how much of this problem was due to the heavy hand of government? I've got another post coming up where I'll look at the recent history of private-sector space activity.
It illustrates the risk of trying to sell big investments in basic science and engineering on the promise of "economic benefits". The peak-to-trough part of the business cycle is an outlier. Carnot would have died laughing.
And don't even mention the manned Mars space program!
It's harder to imagine plans to actually use anything we find out there without some manned component, barring a dramatic improvement in artificial intelligence. Even if it's just a handful of people at some intermediate point, we're still sufficiently smarter than any machine in existence that any sort of large scale operation would likely benefit from having some people closer than 40 minutes or an hour away, via radio.
Besides, we can't start living in space or on other planets without practicing, and we don't do that with robots.
Many don't consider these even vaguely realistic goals, and maybe they aren't. Many don't think them even particularly desirable, and maybe they aren't. Oh well.
