# How has space travel helped life on earth? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 12, 2005, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316 "2005-09-12T20:15:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316/21 "2005-09-16T17:37:11Z")
Next time you visit someone in a hospital ICU, take a look at all the electronic equipment that’s used to monitor the patient’s condition. Nearly all of it is spun off from inventions developed to monitor the astronauts’ medical conditions. If you are reading this message board on a computer smaller than a house, you are enjoying the benefits of the space program. > [@](#): > > From Robert Heinlein’s essay “Spinoff”, published in the book _Expanded Universe_ : > > Here is a way to spot space-research spinoffs: If it involves microminiaturization of _any_ sort, minicomputers, miniaturized long-life power sources, highly reliable microswitches, remotely-controlled manipulators, image enhancers, small and sophisticated robotics or cybernetics, then _no matter where you find the item_, at a critical point in its development it was part of our space program. examples: image enhancer weather satellites portable kidney machine computerized axial tomagraphy (CAT scan) Doppler ultrasound stethoscope desktop computers portable television cameras boom-box—\>walkman—\>ipod ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316/22 "2005-09-16T17:51:42Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > If you are reading this message board on a computer smaller than a house, you are enjoying the benefits of the space program. Actually, you’re enjoying the benefits of the Minuteman II guidence set develpment, which drove Western research and development in integrated circuits and compact nonvolatile data storage in a production environment. High speed automated and decentralized data networks have their origin in the [SAGE](http://www.eskimo.com/~wow-ray/sage28.html) early warning and communication system. The space program by and large piggybacked upon technical developments initiated in pursuit of defense goals, rather than vice versa. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316/23 "2005-09-16T19:05:49Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > I haven’t had any 'tang since Christmas. ☹ Boo! ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316/24 "2005-09-16T19:25:17Z")
The universe is infinite in size, according to what I’ve been reading about cosmology in places like Scientific American and Sky andTelescope. The probability of civilized life existing on a random planet is nonzero, because it exists here on Earth. The probability of planets existing in a galaxy is also nonzero, because there are dozens we already know about. And so on. Given all these nonzero probabilities, and an infinite universe, there are an infinite number of civilized life forms in the universe. IIRC someone estimated that the number of subatomic particles in the observable universe was 10^85. That is similar enough to the 10^79 I saw elseswhere that I think of the two as being in the same ballpark. What’s a factor of a million among friends? I only know of one technology item that developed out of the manned space program that has helped us here on earth. This would be the availability of much larger sizes of polystyrene latex microspheres, which are microscopic plastic beads suspended in water (the stuff looks like milk). These are used for calibrating particle counting machines, scanning electron microscopes, and the like. The ordinary sizes up to a few dozen micrometers are made here on earth, but sizes bigger than that don’t form right in gravity, and they’re manufactured on the space shuttle. I doubt it’s a $1 million industry. Unmanned space exploration and astronomy have contributed a great deal to our overall understanding, which I think helps us solve lots of problems here on earth in large though indirect ways. I think the manned space program is just goofy. But if you want to stop waste, there are fifty better places to start. ---
**Author:** ![bobk2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@bobk2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobk2)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316/25 "2005-09-16T23:38:51Z")
> [@andrewdt85](#): > > But let’s say I’m one of the angry people who argue that that money should be spent on the homeless, on actual progress on earth. Not to contradict, but do keep in mind that money spent on space exploration isn’t just put in a pile and burned. Most of it goes into salaries of working people, and thus back into the economy, taxes, and elsewhere. Granted, a good chunk of it goes to the owners of companies and their stockholders, but eventually much of that makes its way back into the economy also. I’m not saying it’s a form of economic welfare, just saying it isn’t a _complete_ “waste” even if there weren’t any of the benefits folks have listed here. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2005, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316/26 "2005-09-17T00:23:16Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > The universe is infinite in size, according to what I’ve been reading about cosmology in places like Scientific American and Sky andTelescope. > > The probability of civilized life existing on a random planet is nonzero, because it exists here on Earth. The probability of planets existing in a galaxy is also nonzero, because there are dozens we already know about. And so on. Given all these nonzero probabilities, and an infinite universe, there are an infinite number of civilized life forms in the universe. This is wrong. It would appear by ‘infinite universe’ you mean an infinite number of particles/places where life could exist. In this case, the probability of civilized life existing on a random planet is zero. Probability is not equal to possibility. I always thought the universe was pretty big, but then again I think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s. ---
**Author:** ![baloo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a87d85/32.png) [@baloo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/baloo)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2005, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316/27 "2005-09-17T02:28:18Z")
> [@Bytegeist](#): > > The figure I’ve seen is 10[sup]79[/sup] particles, give or take, in the _observable_ universe. Close enough though to 10[sup]100[/sup], once you get to numbers that large. uhmm… close enough? 10[sup]100[/sup] is 10[sup]21[/sup] times larger than 10[sup]79[/sup]. He missed by a factor of 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2005, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316/28 "2005-09-17T03:28:05Z")
> [@baloo](#): > > uhmm… close enough? 10[sup]100[/sup] is 10[sup]21[/sup] times larger than 10[sup]79[/sup]. He missed by a factor of 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 🙂 I know, but when even the ratio between two huge mind-boggling numbers is itself a pretty huge mind-boggling number, yet still tiny in comparison to the other two, then it’s time to just call both of them “pretty damn big”. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2005, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316/29 "2005-09-18T22:40:59Z")
\>This is wrong. It would appear by ‘infinite universe’ you mean an infinite number of particles/places where life could exist. In this case, the probability of civilized life existing on a random planet is zero. I don’t understand. Do you mean that a finite value divided by an infinite value equals zero? I don’t think this has been accepted in mathematics for a hundred years or so. The probability of life existing on a random planet would have to be nonzero even if Earth were the only inhabited planet in the observable universe (which is finite in size). I’m doing this in my head, and I just took more narcotics, but I think the best estimate of the density of inhabited planets would in this case be 8e-79 m^-3. Certainly nonzero. Drake’s equation predicts something much, much higher - but this is obviously a lower limit (if I ciphered it right, which might be optimistic). The entire universe, including observable and unobservable, is infinitely larger than just the observable universe. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2005, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316/30 "2005-09-19T17:23:30Z")
Sorry, I got confused and said the wrong thing. The probability doesn’t _have_ to be zero. It’s just that it might be zero. You seemed to be saying that because there’s an infinite amount of planets, there’s a nonzero probability of civilized ones out there. That’s not something that necessarily follows from the existence of a single planet such as ours. You can make some assumptions about the universe to make it seem likely (such as in Drake’s equation), but there’s nothing about the infinite space per se that makes it inevitable. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2005, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316/31 "2005-09-19T18:04:38Z")
> [@](#): > > You seemed to be saying that because there’s an infinite amount of planets, there’s a nonzero probability of civilized ones out there. If the Universe proceeds according to physical laws, this is correct. Life on Earth arose as a result of a complicated sequence of interactions between atoms. Any interaction between atoms must either have a nonzero probability (though possibly very small), or it must be absolutely impossible. We know that it’s not absolutely impossible, since it did happen. And we don’t yet know what the probability is, but we can say absolutely that there was some probability. On the other hand, we cannot set a lower bound of 8e-79 m^-3 on the density of inhabited planets, due to that pesky anthropic principle. No matter how sparse inhabited planets were, we’d be sure to be on one of them. So we gain no information from the fact that our own planet is inhabited. The relevant statistic would be “how many inhabited planets _other than our own_ are there in the observable Universe?”, and we have no data at all on that question. ---
**Author:** ![socalscot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ba9def/32.png) [@socalscot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/socalscot)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316/32 "2010-07-12T05:53:46Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > It got us lots of tang. Actually, Brian, Tang was in existence a while BEFORE our space program even started(during Eisenhower’s term…). The reason it was used on the missions? It made the water taste better, plain and simple–guess they bowed to the astronaut’s complaints. Then, Tang got on TV, but their claim was that it was the “drink of the astronauts”. I remember those commercials, but Tang is “gag” compared to real O.J. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316/33 "2010-07-12T06:21:45Z")
> [@socalscot](#): > > Actually, Brian, Tang was in existence a while BEFORE our space program even started(during Eisenhower’s term…). The reason it was used on the missions? It made the water taste better, plain and simple–guess they bowed to the astronaut’s complaints. Then, Tang got on TV, but their claim was that it was the “drink of the astronauts”. I remember those commercials, but Tang is “gag” compared to real O.J. Oh, but it’s delicious with… …BRAAAAIINS. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316/34 "2010-07-12T14:37:30Z")
The whole Tang thing is a bit of an urban myth. It was an option for the early astronauts, but wasn’t the favoured flavour, apparently there was a non-commercial grapefuit flavour that most of them preferred. OTOH, during an early mission some astornauts had some subtle heartbeat anomolies, that was sheeted home to a lack of potassium, and subsequent drinks had added potassium salts and tasted awful. There are all sorts of technologies that are claimed to derive from the space programme. Look deeper and it isn’t as easy. The CAT scanner was cited above. It wasn’t even invented in the US, and owes more to the Beatles than to Apollo. However, the commercial reality is simple. NASA has been out of the commercial booster business for decades. If NASA was to wink out of existence tomorrow, the commercial and military space programmes would continue. The Europeans have never lofted a human into space themselves, yet have a successful business of satelites, science missions and their own (slightly troubled) version of GPS. The value to the human polulace of earth observation satelites is quite clear - so much so that they are explictly funded by the benefiting agencies. If you remove the manned space programmes from the question there is a clear answer. It has been very successful and continues to be so - with benefits to humanity that are easily justifiable, including in commercial terms. As noted above, the big technological boost for its sucess and maturity rode on the back of military needs. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316/35 "2010-07-12T15:34:17Z")
Well, the bottom line argument; that if we weren’t wasting money on one thing, we could spend it on something more useful; is utter crap. It is a Straw Man argument. The world doesn’t work that way. It isn’t a choice between A and B and we chose to do A rather than B. There is absolutely NO evidence that if we didn’t spend it on NASA, we’d be spending it on giving malnourished kids milk or giving homeless people liquor money. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316/36 "2010-07-12T23:34:37Z")
The investment in scientific discovery in general drives progress and wealth - space exploration is at one of the forefronts of this. If you look back in history the enlightenment was the driving factor behind the enlightenment; the discovery of elements and the creation of chemistry as a serious science (rather than alchemy) was a driving factor for the industrial revolution; the quantum science of the early 20th century has allowed for our current communications and technological revolution. Every time there’s a major scientific breakthrough it precipitates a new era for human kind, and new breakthroughs may be more and more frequent. Ironically though the next breakthrough may not come from space but rather from CERNs LHC under the ground… ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316/37 "2010-07-13T00:03:17Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Well, the bottom line argument; that if we weren’t wasting money on one thing, we could spend it on something more useful; is utter crap. It is a Straw Man argument. The world doesn’t work that way. It isn’t a choice between A and B and we chose to do A rather than B. There is absolutely NO evidence that if we didn’t spend it on NASA, we’d be spending it on giving malnourished kids milk or giving homeless people liquor money. Huh? I don’t think anyone is seriously saying that NASA should be axed, and all the money sent to random charities/NGOs instead. The fact is that the government has to choose how to spend a limited amount of money, and there are more than enough ways to do that – cut taxes, fund social programs, take your pick. The government rightly has to justify how it spends your tax dollars. NASA, like any other agency, better make a damn good case about why they spend so much money on something that doesn’t provide tangible benefits to the taxpayers. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316/38 "2010-07-13T00:26:06Z")
> [@lazybratsche](#): > > Huh? I don’t think anyone is seriously saying that NASA should be axed, and all the money sent to random charities/NGOs instead. Wrong. People do say that. In fact, the OP said; > [@](#): > > But let’s say I’m one of the angry people who argue that that money should be spent on the homeless, on actual progress on earth And that is what I was addressing. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316/39 "2010-07-13T01:43:08Z")
“This is Astronaut Buck Gordon–as we return to our mother planet, after nearly 5 years in deep space, naturally we wonder what we’ll find, what changes have been wrought in our long absence. Will the human race still be…human? Will–Hey, wait–what’s all that in the Gulf of Mexico? Oh my God! It’s…it’s full of oil! You maniacs! Damn you–God damn you all to hell!” ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316/40 "2010-07-13T02:19:28Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > I haven’t had any 'tang since Christmas. ☹ You could probably get some, but you’d have to be willing to go where no man has gone before. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-space-travel-helped-life-on-earth/321316.md?page=3)