Not Goofy. Pluto!

[boatdetective]

throw out your GPS

Knock it off. You all know precisely what I mean. Whether Titan is made from methane or blue cheese is essentially meaningless. Are you saying that none of the advances mentioned could have been conceived of if the engineers did not have the mission to send a tiny probe bajillions of gigalons into space to take pictures of gas balls?

The "knowledge for knowledge sake" argument, in essence, is an admission that the scientists involved are just coming up with pictures of blue vs white gas balls and they have to make us all feel that this is a momentous step for mankind.

Sorry about my total incapacity for abstract thought, but if you want to develop GPS, radial tires, flush toilets, etc- awesome. Just don't shuck and jive me into believing that the bajillions of dollars spent on counting the angels dancing on the tenth moon of Venus have enriched my life.

-Cro magnon man

[Penderic]

The program cost $720 million.

That's less than the cost of the $1 billion Vikings stadium.


Who is winning?

[Triple Jim]

There was a whole era when technology was partially driven by the space program.  That's generally over now, and it's driven by the consumers' willingness to pay for it.  The computers that most of us have at home are newer and more powerful than the ones in the space station.

Dusty, from Wikipedia:   "Once patent priority was resolved, in Bayer's favor, Bayer began commercial production under the trade name Makrolon in 1958 and GE began production under the name Lexan in 1960."

The Apollo program was conceived in 1960.

[Penderic]

Wouldnt have had the Industrial Revolution without the early Space program!

 

[malik]

Much, much better the space programs for tech impetus than wars, it produces such neat stuff.

I like us having frontiers, and regret not having access to that next one in my lifetime. We may well bugger it up along the the way with our fumbling, but it has, is & will produce such glorious moments.

Mal

[Muzz]

If you look carefully at the white mass on the bottom of the planet I am sure you can see Pluto's face!