Earthly Benefits of the Space Program?

In order to make a case for supporting the space program, I'd like to
find information regarding direct benefits to human life as a result
of research or discoveries gained by the space program - either
benfits already realized, or benefits hoped to be realized in the near
future.

Anyone know of such benefits off-hand, or where I can find this
information?

Thank you,
-RS

RS wrote:
In order to make a case for supporting the space program, I'd like to
find information regarding direct benefits to human life as a result
of research or discoveries gained by the space program - either
benfits already realized, or benefits hoped to be realized in the near
future.

Anyone know of such benefits off-hand, or where I can find this
information?

Thank you,
-RS

The most obvious are communications satellites, weather satellites,
reconnaissance, and positioning (each of which has had enormous
economic impacts - if you think the Cold War was expensive,
contemplate how much the West could have spent without secure
information on Soviet missile construction). It seems hard to
believe now that as late as the 1950s a hurricane could sneak
up on even the US coast with almost no warning.

The "spinoff" game is a very slippery one - there have been some useful
spinoffs from human spaceflight, but it is usually true that we
could have gotten them cheaper by simply developing, say, small
medical sensors, for Earthly purposes.

In a broader sense, planetary exploration had a deep effect on
studies of Earth - it seems to have been looking at Venus that
drove atmspheric scientists to clearly recognize how the'
greenhouse effect happens, for example, and we have been
learning a lot as well from comparison of surface geology
in the four worlds for which we know something useful.

Bill Keel

"RS" wrote in message news
In order to make a case for supporting the space program, I'd like to
find information regarding direct benefits to human life as a result
of research or discoveries gained by the space program - either
benfits already realized, or benefits hoped to be realized in the near
future.

Anyone know of such benefits off-hand,

I would guess the biggest payoffs have been with Earth sensing
satellites (e.g. weather, spy and ground imaging) and communications
satellites.


--

Hilton Evans
---------------------------------------------------------------
Lon -71° 04' 35.3"
Lat +42° 11' 06.7"
---------------------------------------------------------------
Webcam Astroimaging
http://home.earthlink.net/~hiltoneva...troimaging.htm
---------------------------------------------------------------
ChemPen Chemical Structure Software
http://www.chempensoftware.com

RS wrote:
In order to make a case for supporting the space program, I'd like to
find information regarding direct benefits to human life as a result
of research or discoveries gained by the space program - either
benfits already realized, or benefits hoped to be realized in the near
future.

Anyone know of such benefits off-hand, or where I can find this
information?

Thank you,
-RS


RS;

I would refer you to NASA itself for information on spin-offs from the
space program. By law all of NASA's development are available to anyone
at no or very little cost. This is the biggest spin-off in my opinion
(Remember opinions from everyone except lawyers are free and all are
worth what you paid for them).

NASA Public Affairs maintains an exhaustive listing of development
available to the public. Call or write them (snail or email) and they
will be happy to help you. Do a internet search on the subject.

Dave Nagel

BTW: Teflon is not a space related development. Dupont developed it
before the space program got started. Neither is the transistor.

I might refer you to your home office. The computer sitting in there is
a cirect result of the technology invented to enable the Apollo program
to reach the moon and return safely. You remember--integrated circuits!

RS wrote:
In order to make a case for supporting the space program, I'd like to
find information regarding direct benefits to human life as a result
of research or discoveries gained by the space program - either
benfits already realized, or benefits hoped to be realized in the near
future.

Anyone know of such benefits off-hand, or where I can find this
information?

Thank you,
-RS
In the very earliest stages of the space program I was a close friend of
an Air Force R&D guy....caution restrains me from going any deeper into
his position. Because of him, I invested in a small company with the
absurd name of "Space Craft Inc.". This outfit was developing a
specific wire recorder for data storage. They eventually received a
quite nice contract related to the space program.

As a result of the work they did for their space program work, they then
went into monitoring and data collection equipment, and had much to do
with the medical monitoring of astronauts. Later, the company name was
changed to "SCI" and they were (and, still are) major producers of human
monitoring equipment such as used in ICU's, CCU's, etc.

This is a direct spin-off from the space program. Incidentally, I made
a nice return on my investment.

Wayne Howell
Photon Phlats Observatory
Port Townsend, WA

Wayne Howell wrote:
RS wrote:
In order to make a case for supporting the space program, I'd like to
find information regarding direct benefits to human life as a result
of research or discoveries gained by the space program - either
benfits already realized, or benefits hoped to be realized in the near
future.

Anyone know of such benefits off-hand, or where I can find this
information?

In the very earliest stages of the space program I was a close friend of
an Air Force R&D guy....caution restrains me from going any deeper into
his position. Because of him, I invested in a small company with the
absurd name of "Space Craft Inc.".

Isn't that insider trading?


Tim
--
Today's message was brought to you by Mary, Jane and a big number two.

The "spinoff" game is a very slippery one - there have been some useful
spinoffs from human spaceflight, but it is usually true that we
could have gotten them cheaper by simply developing, say, small
medical sensors, for Earthly purposes.

It's hard to say what we have as a *direct* result of the space program.

One line of thought is to look at the people. When Sputnik went up, a lot of
money went into education to "catch up." This, along with the jobs created
through the whole space industry, pushed a lot more people into engineering
fields. They entered the field when NASA and contractors were doing some of
their best work. Later, they left the space field and entered other
industries. So the combined result of the space race, starting with Sputnik
and continuing through unmanned, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and beyond is a
vast number of engineers, technicians and leaders who then went into other
fields and produces benefits that we might not have if those people hadn't
started out in the space field.

Short version: It gave a big push to the education and training of a large
group of capable people who then entered other fields.

That's a lot harder to measure (not sure it can be measured or even more
than roughly estimated), but may be the biggest "benefit" to come out of the
program.

Clear Skies

Chuck Taylor
Do you observe the moon?
Try http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lunar-observing/

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"Tim Auton" wrote in message ...
Wayne Howell wrote:
RS wrote:
In the very earliest stages of the space program I was a close friend of
an Air Force R&D guy....caution restrains me from going any deeper into
his position. Because of him, I invested in a small company with the
absurd name of "Space Craft Inc.".

Isn't that insider trading?
He doesn't say it was a publicly traded company. If it wasn't
it's not insider trading. Even if it was and the info. about
the company available to Wayne was in the public domain, it's
not.

--

Hilton Evans
---------------------------------------------------------------
Lon -71° 04' 35.3"
Lat +42° 11' 06.7"
---------------------------------------------------------------
Webcam Astroimaging
http://home.earthlink.net/~hiltoneva...troimaging.htm
---------------------------------------------------------------
ChemPen Chemical Structure Software
http://www.chempensoftware.com

Tim Auton wrote:

Isn't that insider trading?

Nope....neither he nor I had any knowledge of the future awarding of
contracts. He simply mentioned visiting this strange named
company---out of curiosity I did some research on the company and
decided to invest in it. I owned the stock for nearly a year before the
contracts were awarded and the price of the stock moved upwards.

Unfortunately, I sold off the stock after about five years--making a
nice return on my investment (nearly 400%). It was another 3-4 years
before it really took off. If I had retained ownership, I would have
made many times more than I did.

Wayne Howell
Photon Phlats Observatory
Port Townsend, WA