Provide me a one single benefit of going on moon ?

[oldbadger]

We could develop and launch a space dust-cart which just trundles about the Earth collecting the trash that we've dumped, dropped and bunged up there?

Useful.......

 

[Brickjectivity]

We could develop and launch a space dust-cart which just trundles about the Earth collecting the trash that we've dumped, dropped and bunged up there?

Useful.......

It should be made from bamboo. An equivalent plastic injection mold would be a 5 on on the richter scale every time we ran it. You see the irony right?

 

[74x12]

Its all wastage of time and money, nothing else.

Practice run for colonization of new planets. The moon is the first logical choice because it's so close. Next could be Mars. There could be natural resources there. Another thing is to prevent bad guys from getting there first. (But they are probably already there.) The thing is; world governments have already been on the moon. The public is not allowed to know yet.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Its all wastage of time and money, nothing else.

A short list off the top of my head:

## Transistor-- anything-- all modern transistors came directly from work that was fueled by the Space Program. Ironic, as you would never have been able to even complain, above, without transistors...

## All -- repeat -- all modern Medical Diagnosis technology came from the Space Program. All. Medical doctors needed to be able to monitor astronauts health (what? We were not the USSR, after all-- we wanted to get our astronauts back healthy). Since there wasn't room in the spacecraft for doctors? Remote health monitors had to be invented-- from that work, come all modern medical diagnosis equipment, either directly or indirectly.

Those are but two of the spin-off technology, but I think they are the two most significant.

Without which, it's quite likely that you, or someone close to you, would be dead about now.

OH! I thought of another:

## Modern Education in Science and Math -- Sputnick scared the bejeezus out of America, and inspired a strong push for Science, Math and Reading in Education.

The fruits of which we enjoyed right up until the late 1990's when greed returned to the Primary Goal of Politics. Thanks, Ronnie-greedy-guts-Ray-Gun. May you rot in hell.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Depends which moon your are talking about. If you're talking about Earth's moon, I hear it has a helluva view.

If you're talking about Saturn's moon Titan, seems to me a good resource for oil and natural gas should earth's resources ever be depleted.

Irony: The energy needed just to get to Titan, would exceed any and all that you might attempt to bring back....

... on the other hand? Hydrocarbons are far more valuable as chemical feed stocks... so I could see this as a wealth of chemical resources... just not energy. By the time it is possible to bring any reasonable mass of oil/gas back from Titan? The energy problem will have long been solved for good.

 

[Revoltingest]

Apollo 11 moon landing: top 15 Nasa inventions

I dont like dyson stuff, it is grossly overpriced and james dyson is something of a hypocrite with his "british made" advertising. He shipped production to the far east to reduce costs

Our cordless Dyson was a great Amazon deal.
It cost us less than a friend with a vacuum cleaner business pays wholesale.
I don't like their other difficult-to-use corded vacs.

 

[robocop (actually)]

Um... not sure why I didn't see this in the first page but our having traveled to the moon made a huge increase of technology. Computers got so much smaller for instance.

 

[QuestioningMind]

Its all wastage of time and money, nothing else.

If we hadn't gone to the moon, chances are you wouldn't be communicating via whatever computing machine you are using to post here.

 

[Vee]

Its all wastage of time and money, nothing else.

Makes for some cool pictures? It has to be prestigious to tell your buddies you've been to the moon

I agree that we could invest the money in more important things though.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It is the American probes that are costly. Israel and India have done it with a much cheaper cost.

And the only reason they could do that, was at least in part thanks to first field experience of NASA and alike.
They were able to learn from those trips and technologies - they didn't have to start from scratch.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

For brevity's sake, I'll address some things, but not others....

Going there isn't the goal.
- Learning about other planets & their formation.
- Possibly finding life elsewhere.

Who said anything about people?
You were talking about probes, right?
Ever heared of voyager? Launched in the 70s. Only just recently left the solar system.
Yes, it will take many lifetimes before it reaches the nearest star.

Making trips to the moon, helps us learn things within the next decade.

I'm actually taking the practical long view.
It's about exploring space in a manner which provides more information & understanding.

Information that won't be reaching us within our lifetimes, apparantly

For the foreseeable future, manned missions aren't cost effective.

And the best way to make them cost effective, is by doing them and learning from them and then improving the technology.

What do you expect to achieve by going to the moon...something
which can't be done more efficiently some other way?.

Improvement of space technology.
Which is a necessity if we want a lunar base one day from which to stage other types of flights, research, whatever etc.

To me you sound like people complaining to Columbus "what do you hope to achieve by crossing the ocean?" or the wright brothers "what do you hope to achieve by being able to fly for a few yards?"

I said it's "meh....", not pointless, my theme being that there
are more interesting things to do with NASA's budget.

In the big scheme of things, NASA's budget is like... nothing.
It's ridiculously low compared to budgets of other things. Like maintainance budgets of ICBM nuke silo's.

Let's do the basic research, but not set unreasonable goals (as some have suggested).
The ISS is far more useful in that regard than an actual trip to Mars. We're learning the
many many details of the humans-in-spaceships systems. It's worth spending many
decades with such ventures because we can afford to make mistakes with something
easily resupplied, as opposed to a ship on its way to or from Mars....if it ever becomes
worth sending people there.

Why not do both?

So you speculate.

No. I'm extremely positive that doing more manned missions will improve manned space flight to the point where it eventually is going to be possible to say "surprise kids, we're going to the MOON today!!!" and then the kids: "YEEEEEY!!!!"

Not doing manned missions, is definatly not going to help improve manned space flight.

But seeing unanticipated historical technological progress doesn't mean
that everything imagined is actually worth doing or even achievable.

The thing about exploration (both in location as in technology) is that you won't know until you actually do it.
And history has shown that, in the big scheme of things, it is worth doing it.

We explore space not for the enjoyment of the few who go there,
but rather for the embiggenment of the rest of us. So if we can
get better results without humans in space, this should be preferred.

But the goal is to have a human base on the moon and eventually on Mars as well. And beyond.

 

[sealchan]

Practice run for colonization of new planets. The moon is the first logical choice because it's so close. Next could be Mars. There could be natural resources there. Another thing is to prevent bad guys from getting there first. (But they are probably already there.) The thing is; world governments have already been on the moon. The public is not allowed to know yet.

Yes, supplies could be delivered to the moon from Earth in one optimized way while interplanetary travel between the moon and other more distant destinations could be configured and optimized for that environment.

the moon is a very large and free platform to build a space station on.

 

[Revoltingest]

A short list off the top of my head:

## Transistor-- anything-- all modern transistors came directly from work that was fueled by the Space Program. Ironic, as you would never have been able to even complain, above, without transistors...

I disagree, recalling that the transistor pre-dated space exploration.
History of the transistor - Wikipedia

## All -- repeat -- all modern Medical Diagnosis technology came from the Space Program. All. Medical doctors needed to be able to monitor astronauts health (what? We were not the USSR, after all-- we wanted to get our astronauts back healthy). Since there wasn't room in the spacecraft for doctors? Remote health monitors had to be invented-- from that work, come all modern medical diagnosis equipment, either directly or indirectly.

All...not just remote diagnosis?
That's rather hard to believe.

## Modern Education in Science and Math -- Sputnick scared the bejeezus out of America, and inspired a strong push for Science, Math and Reading in Education.

That wasn't an offshoot of our space program.
And I'd wager that Star Trek did even more to inspire careers in science.
But it also created unrealistic expectations for what it's like & what's practical.

The fruits of which we enjoyed right up until the late 1990's when greed returned to the Primary Goal of Politics. Thanks, Ronnie-greedy-guts-Ray-Gun. May you rot in hell.

Reagan was Prez from 1981 to 89 so you can't blame him for 90s space policy.
But the 80s lead to a revolution in space exploration in the 90s, ie, the faster-better-cheaper philosophy.
Faster, Better, Cheaper: A maligned era of NASA's history

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

I disagree, recalling that the transistor pre-dated space exploration.
History of the transistor - Wikipedia
.

The transistor was just a curiosity at Bell Labs. Nobody thought it had any use-- until the Space Race pushed technology forward, and required miniaturization.

Technical History isn't your thing, is it?

All...not just remote diagnosis?
That's rather hard to believe..

See above.

That wasn't an offshoot of our space program.
And I'd wager that Star Trek did even more to inspire careers in science.
But it also created unrealistic expectations for what it's like & what's practical..

Our space program helped inspire improvements in Education. But you likely dismiss JFK's many speeches on the subject, because he was liberal and sh-- right?

Reagan was Prez from 1981 to 89 so you can't blame him for 90s space policy..

I not only can, I do-- because he was the beginning of the shift from Emphasis In Science Education back to GREEED-GREEEED-GREEED, like what got is behind the USSR in the first place...

But conservatives LOVE them their GREEED, right? Short-sighted, what's the bottom line PROFIT this week? Screw the future-- how much $$$ did we make today?

 

[Revoltingest]

Who said anything about people?
You were talking about probes, right?
Ever heared of voyager? Launched in the 70s. Only just recently left the solar system.
Yes, it will take many lifetimes before it reaches the nearest star.

I've heard rumors of it.
It's useful for exploring the solar system, but not beyond.
Remote sensing is necessary for farther out.

Making trips to the moon, helps us learn things within the next decade.

It's critical to have specific goals.
Any project can be justified by the possibility of serendipitous benefits.
I'd prefer to have both.

Information that won't be reaching us within our lifetimes, apparantly

Remote sensing info reaches us immediately.

To me you sound like people complaining to Columbus "what do you hope to achieve by crossing the ocean?" or the wright brothers "what do you hope to achieve by being able to fly for a few yards?"

Oh, you went there, eh.

Spoiler: What you sound like to me

You've no aerospace experience.
You've watched too much Star Trek & Star Wars.
You have an undisciplined approach to space
exploration, just wanting to do what seems cool,
hoping for undetermined benefits.

This is why we generally don't tell others here what they "sound like".
Things get too personal.

In the big scheme of things, NASA's budget is like... nothing.
It's ridiculously low compared to budgets of other things. Like maintainance budgets of ICBM nuke silo's.

The budget will what it will be.
The question is what to spend it on.

Not doing manned missions, is definatly not going to help improve manned space flight.

I disagree.
We're seeing private heavy lift technology developing already.

The thing about exploration (both in location as in technology) is that you won't know until you actually do it.
And history has shown that, in the big scheme of things, it is worth doing it.

This doesn't justify pursuing ill defined goals when well
defined projects with greater benefit per cost is apparent.

But the goal is to have a human base on the moon and eventually on Mars as well. And beyond.

That's your goal.
I don't thing that's worth the expense.
Moreover, I don't believe that going to Mars is best served by a Moon base.
How would the orbital mechanics or logistics of that make sense compared
to assembling the craft in Earth orbit?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

So I can finally get away from all these people and all this noise and finally for once in my life have zero chances of being interrupted by someone pestering me.

 

[Revoltingest]

The transistor was just a curiosity at Bell Labs. Nobody thought it had any use-- until the Space Race pushed technology forward, and required miniaturization.

I see a different history there.

Technical History isn't your thing, is it?

Not space exploration.
But having worked in aerospace & other industries since the 70s, I've seen some things.
As your your tech history expertise.....I recommend against claiming it.

Our space program helped inspire improvements in Education. But you likely dismiss JFK's many speeches on the subject, because he was liberal and sh-- right?
I not only can, I do-- because he was the beginning of the shift from Emphasis In Science Education back to GREEED-GREEEED-GREEED, like what got is behind the USSR in the first place...

But conservatives LOVE them their GREEED, right? Short-sighted, what's the bottom line PROFIT this week? Screw the future-- how much $$$ did we make today?

Dang man...don't get all angry & political at me.
I'm not even proposing profit from space exploration.
It's about knowledge & understanding.

 

[Revoltingest]

So I can finally get away from all these people and all this noise and finally for once in my life have zero chances of being interrupted by someone pestering me.

And so you come here to this hornets' nest?

 

[exchemist]

That we know how to do.
The trick is to bring the cost down.
It currently costs us about $10K or more to launch a pound of stuff into orbit.
Get that down to $100, & it will radically change our perceptions & goals.

True. But we had to learn, and Mercury, Gemini and Apollo were part of that learning curve. What is interesting is that benefits flowing from space launches now make it worthwhile for profit-making enterprises to get involved. No doubt the costs will come down further. Musk seems to be doing some very interesting things. Beardie Branson less so......

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I'm not even proposing profit from space exploration.
It's about knowledge & understanding.

It shouldn't surprise me, but it's heartbreaking that even space exploration is becoming politicized. It used to unite us, it used to get us all excited, but now it's something we argue about.

And I'd wager that Star Trek did even more to inspire careers in science.

I do believe you are correct. We were already looking at space exploration when Sputnik went up. That stirred fear. Star Trek has inspired generations into science, engineering, and computers.
The real contest comes down to did Gene Rodenberry or Carl Sagan inspire more people into science? Natural curiosity I suspect reigns supreme as the number one reason as to why people get into science, but it's undeniable our current state of technology and science would be very different (and perhaps a decade or so behind) had those two not inspired and influenced millions in during their lives.