It is said that the technological spinoffs from the research necessary back in the 60s more than paid for the cost of the mission.
It will be the same again.
Hey fellas, I have my lines ready for the lunar landing ... one rather awkward step for me, one pretty significant advance for human technology. Whaddya think?
They never spent one thin dime on the Moon! It was all spent on Earth.
What is REALLY stupid, estimates vary, but it looks like NASA was, for a time, getting about 2.5% of the US GNP for a couple years. Spending actually peaked about 1965.
One of the big problems they had (among many) back then was with the thrusters. They are impossible to test effectively on earth, because they perform differently in the vacuum of space. Vacuum chambers exist, but the vacuum is gone as soon as you fire it, that kind of thing. The problems they had were with overheating of the teflon seals, which would swell, and cause an obstruction.
Fast forward 60 years. The Boeing craft has problems with the Thrusters. You’ll never guess what. Overheating. Swelling of the teflon seals, causing an obstruction.
Maybe they’ll have to scour the nursing homes down in Florida and find some of the guys who solved that problem 60 years ago. Sad. They threw away the “clearly leading role” in space as per the president’s directive, and now they can hardly get into orbit.
I figure there should be routine tourist flights in lunar orbit by now.