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>The Apollo space program, which ended before most people were born (or thereabouts), affected our lives in a peripheral manner if at all. Tang, Velcro, and a big swinging "if we can put a man on the moon, we can put an ICBM on your capitol" dick to show for it. Umm, thanks, I guess. Too bad there's no real follow-through fifty years later.

This comment shows a lot of ignorance about the importance of the space program in general, and Apollo in particular.

From this[1] answer on StackExchange:

Here are some Apollo specific innovations: microchip, cordless tools, joystick, CAT scans, technology in MRI machines, modern shoe designs, freeze dried food, vacuum sealed packages, dampening material, retro-reflector (detects chemical leaks), water purification, silicon based storage of records, fly-by-wire, ground water cleaning, large fabric roofs used in landmark buildings, anti-tip rafts, insulation blankets, and countless others.

Here's a link to the NASA spinoff technology data base:

https://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff/database/

The iPhone was revolutionary in a particular field. The space program was revolutionary in a broad spectrum of fields, and the iPhone wouldn't be possible without the innovation required by NASA and the Apollo program.

[1] http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/411/what-are-the-ev...

As someone who once worked at NASA, I would take everything said by the spinoff office with a huge grain of salt. They count anything and everything even the most peripherally related to a NASA contract.

EDIT: The spinoff office is a clever workaround for government regulations that prevent agencies from doing PR to voters, but it is essentially just that. "Support NASA because we make the economy grow." The problem is that as a PR / propaganda organization, the spinoff office really has absolutely no accountability for what they claim. NASA Watch, an unaffiliated news service and watchdog organization, routinely asks for clarification on many of these spinoffs which NASA is unable to justify.

To give you an example of how this plays out, NASA-Ames bought a D-Wave machine. They don't really use it for anything, just a couple of researchers that found money in a budget for a toy, really. Nominally they are evaluating it to see if any NASA applications might benefit from using it. If D-Wave ever amounts to anything, or if it totally fails but some other quantum computer takes off I have no doubt that the spinoff office of 2027 will be claiming that "NASA's early investment in quantum computing technology helped birth the $X billion dollar quantum computing industry," if they haven't already.

This comment shows a lot of ignorance about the importance of the space program in general

That comment also showed a lot of literary license to make a point. Of course we got more out of it than a breakfast drink and an alternative to show laces. But one must first convince me that your list of innovations would not have been developed without the space program. I argue it simply accelerated the process.

But I still hold that whatever came out of Apollo effected my life in a peripheral way, if at all. The iPhone is an example. It was over ten years after Apollo 11 that I owned something with an integrated circuit (to my knowledge). 38 years until the iPhone. In contrast, it was a matter of a few years before the mobile computing device post-iPhone changed the way we communicate and gather knowledge. The mobile phone had a direct impact in many ways, and almost immediately. The space program had indirect impact, and took years in most cases.

But I imagine we're both right in our own way, and just talking past each other. Like any other nerd battle in the vein of "Star Wars vs. Star Trek".

> The mobile phone had a direct impact in many ways, and almost immediately. The space program had indirect impact, and took years in most cases.

I think this temporal disconnect happened for two reasons. First, the NASA was involved with foundational research. The microchip is a prime example of this. NASA gave a lot of money out to companies to invent technologies that didn't exist before hand, and 10 or so years down the line, industry figured out how to make them affordable/found a market for them. Apple didn't invent anything new with the iPhone - smart phones and phones with touchscreens and computers existed before the iPhone. Apple 'simply'[1] did it better than anyone else.

Second - technology moves faster now. Of course the iPhone is going to immediately move the market/general population forward because we have the infrastructure to build such things at scale. No such industry existed when NASA was doing its work Foundational research/technology takes forever to percolate into the markets.

> But I imagine we're both right in our own way, and just talking past each other. Like any other nerd battle in the vein of "Star Wars vs. Star Trek".

I know that feel. I apologize if I came off aggressive!

I know that feel. I apologize if I came off aggressive!

Meh, no worries. I'm a veteran of early Usenet and /., you'll have to do better to come across as aggressive to me. :-)

It doesn't exactly take a giant leap of imagination to stick a battery onto a DC motor.

How many of those attributions were simply things that Apollo brought forward months or years and how many wouldn't have happened without Apollo?

You left a four paragraph reply after beginning by announcing that you hadn't read the article, then ending by saying you don't care regardless. Those are strange motivations.

In any case, Thiel has outright declared Star Trek communism, and Star Wars capitalism.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/fashion/peter-thiel-confi...

You left a four paragraph reply after beginning by announcing that you hadn't read the article, then ending by saying you don't care regardless. Those are strange motivations.

Boy, nothing slips past you, eh? Were I to give an honest self-assessment, it's because the article I didn't care about (but did, in fact, read albeit skimmed) gave me a jumping off point to talk about what I want to talk about. It's a common human affliction.

>I didn't see where Theil "fears" _Star Trek_.

It was hard to find. Here's where they finally state their case:

"What is anathema to Thiel in “Star Trek” is the notion, drawn from Isaac Asimov’s fiction, that the market is but a temporary solution to imbalances in supply and demand, and that technology and plenty will eventually make it obsolete"

So, he "fears" that capitalism will go away...according the them anyway. They seem to source some of that thought from what they call his "Cato Essay", here: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...

Only a wealthy capitalist could see a downside to their relative wealth being diminished as technology and trade ensures that all necessities for human life are provided as human rights.

But I guess some middle class people always dream of being the one great king who isn't starving.

Bashing "wealthy capitalists"?

Declaring most of my hard-earned paycheck to be someone else's "human right"?

Attacking the middle class for not being receptive to class warfare rhetoric?

Hopefully you can see why Thiel might characterize these sorts of opinions about the future as Marxist ideology, long ago discredited by history.

Go back enough time and we're all just hunting and gathering for our next meal. There is no wealth, just our health, until we die.

You put many words in my mouth, so I am unable to respond to them without legitimizing the incorrect.

All I ask: is this, the world and structure of it, truly the best that humanity can accomplish? Or were we misled on a guided path by powers that preferred the world to fit according to a scheme that benefited them? Can we do better? Can we dream of a world of shared prosperity precisely without the benefits to one coming from another's hard-earned paycheck.

I do not advocate for a return to a system that did not work (Russian/Soviet state managed economy, I assume you mean to say), but rather that we should not simply give up and assume the world we have is the best we can come up with. Our ancient ancestors overcame great adversity to build a better future unrecognizable from their present day, as did our distant ancestors, as did our grandparents, as did our parents, and so can we.

Are we talking about the same Apollo space program that brought us satellites? Do you appreciate weather forecasts, satellite TV and improved trans-oceanic telecommunications? That "supercomputer in your pocket" wouldn't be able to give directions if it didn't know where it was, and for that you can thank GPS satellites.

We have honestly not followed through in space the way that many of us would like. But our space programs have changed our world. For the better.

> The Apollo space program, which ended before most people were born (or thereabouts), affected our lives in a peripheral manner if at all. Tang, Velcro, and a big swinging "if we can put a man on the moon, we can put an ICBM on your capitol" dick to show for it. Umm, thanks, I guess. Too bad there's no real follow-through fifty years later.

That's an extremely pessimistic view on it. Space exploration has created tens of thousand of new materials, science, and products as a result.

The biggest impact that it made was in the hearts and minds of young children that grew up dreaming to be scientists and astronauts that would one-day go to space. Our society has lost that vision for the most part.

If you think Ayn Rand is an insightful novelist, then ST:NG probably isn't going to be your preferred brand of entertainment.

I think Rand may be the single most important novelist in recent history, but I love Star Trek:TNG. And honestly, I'm not seeing much connection between those two things. Maybe you could expand on how you think they relate?

Ayn Rand's novels are not-even-veiled polemic for objectivist politico-economic ideology, whereas ST:TNG is grounded in (though not, mostly, polemic for) a nearly diametrically opposed ideology.

So, there's probably some tension between appreciation of those two things.

I have many objectivists among my friends. They love ST:TNG nearly universally. Yes, they recognize their political disagreements with the show's system. But the show is not in your face about it and they don't care about it.

Actual people who subscribe to a philosophy don't generally look like the cardboard cutouts that we might imagine based on our personal knowledge of said philosophy.

Yeah, I'd don't disagree that the original claim of incompatibility was overstated; it's quite easy to enjoy ST:TNG without agreeing with Roddenberry's political philosophy, because, again, while it shapes the background and stories to some extent, the work isn't heavy-handed polemic.

And honestly, I'm not seeing much connection between those two things.

I view the economic philosophy of the two to be contradictory. Though I suppose one could argue that a post-scarcity economy would be a Randian dream (one is now truly free to does as one wishes without bowing to the necessity of collecting resources and the social structures that go with that), I think ST:TNG would eliminate the imagined need for Rand to have written anything at all.

Its pretty obvious that the Federation is collectivist and has many characteristics of idealized post-state communism. In many of the episodes, greed or money are motivators of the less-advanced species or the adversary.

There are some choice quotes here: http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Money

"Post-state"? They're flying around the galaxy in giant war machines and observe a strict militarist command hierarchy. It takes more than a village to hire Boeing and Lockheed. I doubt this is what Kropotkin had in mind...

I didn't say the Federation was post-state. I said it had many characteristics of post-state communism. These include:

- No money -- everything is free

- Housing provided for free

- A post-scarcity society in which civilians do not need to work and are free to pursue their own interests

- Complete social equality for civilians (who are outside the military chain of command)

The existence of a military is not one of the post-state communist features, but on balance, society in Star Trek is closer to post-state communism than any real communist society has ever been. Besides, even the "military" is supposed to be for exploration and not war, according to the statements of the characters in the show.

Probably because the world of TNG, at least that of the Federation, is the diametric opposite of the Randian universe?

Is it really though? Like somebody else said, they don't really expose a lot of the "behind the scenes" details of the political system of that world. I mean, most of the scenes are set on a military vessel and isolated to a small snippet of the overall society. I think it's dangerous to assume too much about the Federation world as a whole.

OTOH, it's been years, if not decades, since I watched, so maybe there's more of that than I'm remembering.