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Spinning Spinoffs
Fox News ^ | January 9, 2003 | Rand Simberg

Posted on 01/09/2003 11:33:24 AM PST by NonZeroSum

Edited on 04/22/2004 12:35:22 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

Since the dawn of the space age, both proponents and opponents of the manned space program have used the "spinoff" argument to buttress their respective cases.

Many fans of Apollo, and the space shuttle and the International Space Station, and whatever the NASA manned space program happens to be doing at the time, make grandiose claims about the many benefits showered upon our nation because we sent a few people to the moon, or into orbit.


(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: apollo; military; nasa; shuttle; space; spacestation; spinoff

1 posted on 01/09/2003 11:33:25 AM PST by NonZeroSum
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To: NonZeroSum
Without the space program, would there be Tang?
2 posted on 01/09/2003 11:45:56 AM PST by My2Cents
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To: My2Cents
Yes. It was introduced by General Foods in 1965. It was then selected by NASA to go to the Moon. It probably wouldn't have been as popular, but it would have existed.
3 posted on 01/09/2003 11:52:39 AM PST by NonZeroSum
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To: NonZeroSum
But, in all seriousness, I think the space program is one of the few federal programs worth doing. Spinoffs aside, exploration for its own purpose should be justification enough. And for those with limited imagination regarding such things and who only view things in terms of economic return, spinoffs and new technologies always follow new scientific discoveries, eventually.

BTW, I remember the glory days of Apollo, when every launch was questioned by the poverty pimps who said that the money for each launch would be better spent in the "War on Poverty," and after one launch, one of the pimps mused, "Consider all that fuel that is used to launch these rockets into space. That fuel would be better used in the cars of poor people who could use it to look for work." I've always wondered how the poor could afford vehicles that ran on liquid oxygen.

4 posted on 01/09/2003 11:52:47 AM PST by My2Cents
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To: NonZeroSum
1965...the same year that Shake-n-Bake was introduced, and Franco-American SpaghettiOs. Yum...
5 posted on 01/09/2003 11:55:20 AM PST by My2Cents
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To: NonZeroSum
While I'd be the first to concede that NASA, like most government agancies waste tons of money, ground breaking research is EXPENSIVE! Why? Because we're spending money to probe the unknown.


Everything from polymers to cells phone to weather forcasting to PCs ARE an outcropping of the defense and space programs. There are literally thousands of items that were invented that later found a useful outlet, therefore a reason to be made in abundance, and in turn be applied to other areas. Science invents, engineering applies. These are often mutually exclusive endeavors, but both are necessary to bring products and technology to market.


The new science brought about by such changes saves lives, saves the environment, makes us more productive, and creates enormous amouts of wealth, which in turn does the same in a self-feeding cycle.

6 posted on 01/09/2003 12:00:46 PM PST by fuente
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To: NonZeroSum
Life is more than utilitarian work alone; humans need the occasional escape, too - movies, travel, daydreaming. Similarly, nations also need to dream, and Apollo (among other purposes it served) helped all people, for a while, look a little higher. How many ideas have since been inspired by the logic: "If they can put a man on the moon...."?

You can't put a price tag on that. Exploration of new ideas and frontiers in our human nature.
7 posted on 01/09/2003 12:06:54 PM PST by canuck_conservative
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To: fuente
While I'd be the first to concede that NASA, like most government agancies waste tons of money, ground breaking research is EXPENSIVE! Why? Because we're spending money to probe the unknown.

There is very little that is unknown about low earth orbit, which is all that astronauts have been exploring for the past thirty years, since the last man walked on the Moon.

NASA's manned space program is expensive because it's designed to be. It's a jobs program. In the minds of Congress, the high cost isn't a bug, it's a feature.

8 posted on 01/09/2003 12:10:44 PM PST by NonZeroSum
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To: NonZeroSum
Thus, many assume that there is no division between America's military and civilian space programs...

There is no "civilian space program," there are only government space programs.

This is another area government should not be in. Private enterprise could have done a better, less expensive, and ultimately profitable job of it.

Hank

9 posted on 01/09/2003 12:11:58 PM PST by Hank Kerchief
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To: NonZeroSum
I can give one example of a significant spinoff from my field (high energy physics): the World Wide Web. The wealth created from that one spinoff technology--including this website--has paid for every activity in the field (added up since its very beginning) many times over.
10 posted on 01/09/2003 12:15:38 PM PST by Physicist
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To: Physicist
I can give one example of a significant spinoff from my field (high energy physics): the World Wide Web. The wealth created from that one spinoff technology--including this website--has paid for every activity in the field (added up since its very beginning) many times over.

So?

You miss the point. The article doesn't say there is no spinoff--just that this is a poor justication for a manned space program. If your only justification for doing something is serendipity, it doesn't really matter what you do, because you'll always get that.

11 posted on 01/09/2003 12:20:42 PM PST by NonZeroSum
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To: canuck_conservative
Life is more than utilitarian work alone; humans need the occasional escape, too - movies, travel, daydreaming.

Our country supplies, for those who wish to do so, the freedom to explore on their own dime.

To insist that the government subsidize our leisure is wrong. Just as wrong as insisting that the government subsidize health care, another "human need".

If there is a definite universal desire to explore space, private industry will capitalize on it.

12 posted on 01/09/2003 12:32:50 PM PST by avg_freeper
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To: NonZeroSum
If your only justification for doing something is serendipity, it doesn't really matter what you do, because you'll always get that.

So then what are the spinoffs of the welfare program? With all those dollars spent, surely there must be some.

Spinoffs come from solving challenging technical problems. NASA certainly does that. While I wouldn't claim that spinoffs justify anything, they can be significant, and do offset some of the real cost.

13 posted on 01/09/2003 12:35:43 PM PST by Physicist
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To: Physicist
So then what are the spinoffs of the welfare program? With all those dollars spent, surely there must be some.

Hard to know. Some child may have lived, or gotten to college, who wouldn't otherwise have, who came up with some medical breakthrough.

Spinoffs come from solving challenging technical problems. NASA certainly does that. While I wouldn't claim that spinoffs justify anything, they can be significant, and do offset some of the real cost.

Which remains beside the point of the column.

14 posted on 01/09/2003 12:56:39 PM PST by NonZeroSum
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To: NonZeroSum
The point of the column seems simply that choices sometimes have to be made - that was done, and the choice was made to go ahead the Apollo program and the ISS. Arguments about hypotheticals can go on forever.

You seem to have some pre-conceived bias against government-funded space exploration. What, excactly, do think the government should be spending "its" money on?
15 posted on 01/09/2003 1:56:26 PM PST by canuck_conservative
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To: canuck_conservative
The point of the column seems simply that choices sometimes have to be made - that was done, and the choice was made to go ahead the Apollo program and the ISS.

If you believe that's the point, I suggest that you reread it. The point of the column is that "spinoff" is a lousy way to justify expenditures on manned space.

You seem to have some pre-conceived bias against government-funded space exploration. What, excactly, do think the government should be spending "its" money on?

I'm all in favor of government-funded space exploration. What we're doing with the current manned space program has very little to do with space exploration, and everything to do with high-tech welfare and foreign aid. The ISS should have been funded by the State Department--not NASA.

16 posted on 01/09/2003 2:02:13 PM PST by NonZeroSum
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To: NonZeroSum
I agree with you that the program is currently drifting, but I'm not sure State should be running it! Of course, NASA is a big bureaucracy now, so there is waste there ....

The problem with space exploration is that there's really only a few ways to do it: earth-orbit or deep-space, and manned vs unmanned. So for cash-strapped governments, the current focus is on earth orbit - boring, yes, but cheaper.

BTW, I heard that the real stumbling block to deep-space exploration goes like this: if you put four rats in a box and leave them overnite, by morning only one will be alive. Do the same thing with humans, it'll take longer, but the end result will be the same (remember those stories about people freaking out in BioDome and those Antarctic bases?)

With a return trip to Mars taking 15 months minimum, that problem is currently unsolvable.
17 posted on 01/09/2003 2:13:48 PM PST by canuck_conservative
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To: canuck_conservative
I didn't say State should be running it. I said that they essentially are (or at least, they were during the Clinton Administration). What I said is that given that they are, they should be footing the bill, so NASA could use their own money for something useful.

BTW, I heard that the real stumbling block to deep-space exploration goes like this: if you put four rats in a box and leave them overnite, by morning only one will be alive. Do the same thing with humans, it'll take longer, but the end result will be the same (remember those stories about people freaking out in BioDome and those Antarctic bases?)

That's the least of their current problems.

18 posted on 01/09/2003 2:41:37 PM PST by NonZeroSum
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