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Originally Posted by Slon
Then they should have financed it privately.
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Try again. I said we were FOR it back then.
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What exactly does putting a flag on the moon do? "Claiming" it? How do you claim it if you can't live there and defend it? What difference does it make?
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It showed the Soviets that since we were the first there, should it have been necessary to do so, we could have gone back. Symbolically it was the right thing to do. Realistically, we showed them they could not have gained superiority in space and as such we felt it would be a deterrent to TRY.
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Are you saying it could not have been done privately or without going to space/to the moon?
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Some things could, but there's no guarantee most of the things WOULD have been done. And a lot of things that spun off from the space program were intended specifically
for the space program. They found other uses later. Many inventions do not supply a need, they CREATE a need. Like the microwave oven. There was no need for it, because everybody already had ovens and were quite happy with them. But when someone noticed the magnetron tube (the WW2 RADAR tube) could melt chocolate and the microwave was born. Nobody needed it, most couldn't afford it originally, but it made its own market. NASA spinoffs are much the same.