dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA (03/29/84)
Talk about flawed arguments! Do you think that new plastics, materials, glues, etc. come out of thin air? No! Have you ever heard the saying "Necessity is the mother of invention", i.e., things do not get done until somebody wants them. Of course I don't believe that new plastics, materials, glues, etc. come out of thin air. What I do believe is that a space program is a stupid way to get these spinoffs. Platitudes aside, do you have any evidence that the Apollo program produced 7 x 60 billion dollars (1984) (or indeed, any significant fraction of $60 billion) in spinoffs? Is there any reason to believe that these new materials would have been discovered without the space program? Of course there is. People have been discovering things on their own for thousands of years. Do you believe that government programs are the source of all knowledge, and that work done at NASA is somehow better at producing new technologies than work done in the private sector? Even if you do, wouldn't you think that a government program with the purpose of developing new materials would be far more efficient than NASA at doing so? As an example, look at the Japanese effort in high temperature ceramics. I fully expect most Japanese automobile engines to be made from these ceramics soon and will operate at higher temperatures (up to 2300 F) with greatly increased thermodynamic efficiency. The US auto industry will have to buy Japanese engines or die. Let's get some hard facts into this argument. Will someone document that claim of 7-14x payback from the space program? Also, could someone document that actual value of spinoffs?