[BushCountry]

I am getting sick of this crap!

First, if NASA didn't prefect rocket technology and make its launch pads available there would not have been private industry satellites.

No satellites means very little private sector communication improvements, and no GPS. More people dead due to sevre weather! How many of you non-believers use satellite tv? Cell phones? GPSs?

Without NASA there would have been a much smaller advance in electronics (e.g. three-dimensional semiconductor package and microlasers). CCD chips! Geez, you guys ever heard of digital cameras? Medical equipment advancement! How many companies would have developed the highly profitable air quality monitors? NONE!

The funny thing is, the spinoffs are everyday household items, the clowns that protest these advancements and shrug that someone else would have done it, haven't a clue! They just take advantage of these technologies b^%tch and moan about them! Irony?

[Atlas Sneezed]

First, if NASA didn't prefect rocket technology and make its launch pads available there would not have been private industry satellites.

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Are you forgetting the military's lauch capability?

[SauronOfMordor]

The developments would have happened eventually, but not nearly as quickly. A large percentage of the cost of the space program is the R&D costs. All that expertise, all that engineering knowledge and experience, once the space program was done, flowed into the private sector

[Ophiucus]

I am getting sick of this crap! ....

The funny thing is, the spinoffs are everyday household items, the clowns that protest these advancements and shrug that someone else would have done it, haven't a clue! They just take advantage of these technologies b^%tch and moan about them! Irony?

Bravo, keep fighting the good fight.