That was a fun read, thanks for sharing! Rather amusing to see how the 1959 story imagines money in 1996—Knox notes each researcher on the moon base costs “90 dollars a day” implying that that is a huge expense.
The world was effectively still on a gold standard back then. Wrapping the mind around inflation seems to be innately very hard to do.
The first thing I thought of was the Cloaca (poop machine) at MONA Hobart which is a functional digestive system. The output is not quite as palatable.
This story was my first thought when I saw the headline.