In the article “Why do we travel in space?”, ** The Master** mentions a list of 74 innovations that spun off the US Space Program. I wanted to check if the idea I had was on this list, but I can’t seem to find that particular list.
One thing we learned A LOT about was firing rockets into orbit, which is just burning the rocket motor a little longer than say … a ballistic trajectory into Soviet Russia. I always assumed that the space program was to bring back rocks from the Moon, but it was also testing the hardware equipped on our ICBM arsenal, without being completely obvious about it. I suppose then that this isn’t really a “spin-off” technology so much as one of the primary missions.
Anyway, my comment is about hindsight being 20/20 … if we put ourselves in the early 1960’s I think we would anticipate a large number of terrestrial applications developed from the space program. By this time many of the really cool things we developed for WWII were on the shelves. Why wouldn’t the people think the space program would be much the same. There has been a distinct improvement on how NFL officials communicate with the audiences, that’s a good thing.
We’ve known for a long time that human space exploration is prohibitively expensive, and the ISS is just some bullshit political unification project so everyone has someplace to shoot their missiles other than at each other. I’m sure we could send a half dozen high tech robots to the Moon for the price of a couple fellas dancing and prancing up there.
And we should explore space, we are curious, and there’s nothing wrong with exploring space simply for the science …
… and some cool pictures … Orion Nebula from Hubble
