[The Great RJ]

I agree the shuttle is the proverbial horse designed by a committee, but as a whole the US manned space program has reaped many benefits that we take for granted. Technologies developed for the space program gave us home computers, cell phones, CT scans, improved cardiac monitoring in hospitals, more fuel efficient and lower maintenance cars etc.

What plagues the US space program today is politics and bureacracy. Back in the early days engineers drove the program toward clear goals, i.e., putting a man on the moon. The Saturn V rocket was an engineering marvel that functioned flawlessly thanks to Warner Von Braun and his engineers.

[Strategerist]

Technologies developed for the space program gave us home computers, cell phones, CT scans, improved cardiac monitoring in hospitals, more fuel efficient and lower maintenance cars etc.

This argument is often a massive overstretch. You can't make a case that none of the above wouldn't have existed without the space program, and also it would have been more efficient to spend the same amount of money on simply developing medical technology without the roundabout method of having a space program and hoping for spinoffs.

[Frank L]

"I agree the shuttle is the proverbial horse designed by a committee, but as a whole the US manned space program has reaped many benefits that we take for granted. Technologies developed for the space program gave us home computers, cell phones, CT scans, improved cardiac monitoring in hospitals, more fuel efficient and lower maintenance cars etc."

Tang. You forgot Tang.

[Mark17]

Technologies developed for the space program gave us home computers, cell phones, CT scans, improved cardiac monitoring in hospitals, more fuel efficient and lower maintenance cars etc.

And the tempurpedic mattress material. I swear by mine.