Reply to What was the point of going to the moon?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This thread is so depressing.  Americans really have lost any sense of exploration and curiosity.

OP, do you like using your cell phone?  Do you like knowing when a hurricane is going to hit? Do you like mamograms? How about camera phones? GPS? Tang?

Thank the space program.

Landing on the moon gave us a target through which all sorts or rocket science and space operations developed.[/quote]

Which of those technologies could have been developed without landing on the moon? (Hint: All of them)

Why do you think there's only one way to show curiosity?

And to the loon who is comparing the space program with European exploration: You look back at that and think "Wow, really worked out great for most of the planet!"?[/quote]

Landing on the moon was somewhat pointless. We already had satellites which would have driven the technologies mentioned. Robotic landers would have been a better choice as far as safety, but less interesting to the general public. It is generally claimed that humans as expert systems were necessary to find the interesting material on the moon. But we sent test pilots, not geologists.[/quote]

Mostly. Harrison Schmitt (Apollo 17) is a geologist. [/quote]

https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/strategies/Phinney_NASA-SP-2015-626.pdf describes the specific scientific training these guys underwent for the missions, but IIRC they all had advanced degrees in what we now call STEM fields. 
I doubt 1960s robots would have had the capabilities of the ones we send to Mars. 
But it was all political as well. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. 
[/quote]

You are correct: Texas Instruments' did develop integrated circuits before the Apollo Program used them. The TI chips were used for the Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. Designed to send multiple nukes to the USSR. A better question would be, "Why do Russia, China, North Korea, the US, and a few other nations spend so much of their GNP on thermonuclear weapons and the ICBMs needed to deliver them?"[/quote]

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