IN WHAT WAYS IS THE DEVELOPMENT OF SPACE TRAVEL BENEFICIAL, AND IS IT ECONOMICALLY FEASIBLE CONSIDERING WHAT WE STAND TO GAIN FROM IT?

"And how do you feel about 20 billion dollars of your money being used to put some clown on the moon?"
Tom Lehrer, satirist, addressing his audience in 1957

20th july, 1969

Wernher von braun - father of space flight

• Designed Aggregate Series of rockets for the Nazis in World War 2
• One of his rockets, the V2, reached altitudes of 100 km
• Unknowingly, he had reached the edge of space
• After Germany lost the war, he began work under American supervision

ussr'S DOMINANCE

• 21st August 1957 - first ICBM
• 4th October 1957 - Sputnik
• 3rd November 1957 - Laika the dog

The USA panicked!

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The sudden development of

my view:

• Defence and propaganda purposes
• Rival scheme
• 'Rivalry' vs 'Research'

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• National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• Relatively small
• Expanded rapidly
• Militarily controlled despite Eisenhower's statement

$527 billion

Money money money...

• $18.4 billion - (2011)
• $23.6 billion - (1959-1973)
• $196 billion - Space Shuttles

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but there have been benefits...

• boosted US economy by 2%
• created 800, 000 jobs
• national revenue increased
• an $8-10 return on every dollar spent

my view:

• Economic benefits
• Does any amount of money justify the lives lost?
• Other areas of progress?

Technological advances

• Computing
• Liquid Cooled Suit
• Intensive Care Units
• Hydrogen Fuel Cells
• Satellites

my view:

• World changed completely
• IMHO, for the better
• Money justified
• Strange way of making progress though

Virgin Galactic

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