"Space Research" Given reasons and Actual reasonz

In the practical sense, space really is about spin-offs, as many have argued. But it's not about spin-offs like Teflon, Tang and Velcro as the public is so often told and which in fact did not come from the space program. And it's not about spin-offs in the form of better heart monitors or cheaper prices for liquid oxygen for hospitals. Yes, you get those things and many more; and they are real benefits. But that's not the right level on which to View the matter. The real spin-offs are at a higher level. We need to look at a broader landscape. What is the economic value to a scenery of upgrading the precision to which the entire industrial base of that society works? Anyone who wants to.. .be a subcontractor or supplier or who even wants to supply nuts, bolts and screws to the space industry, must work to a higher level of precision than human beings had to do before the space industry came along. And that fact absolutely resonates throughout our entire industrial base. What is the value of that? I can't calculate it, but I know it‘s there.

What is the scientific value of discovering the origins of our universe? Or of discovering that literally 95 percent of the universe consists of dark energy or dark matter, terms for things that we as yet know nothing about?.. .15 it even conceivable that one day we won‘t learn to harness them? As cavemen lcamed to harness lire. as people two centuries ago learned to harness electricity. we will learn to hamess these new things. It was just a few years ago that we discovered them, and we would not have done so without the space program. What is the value of knowledge like that? I cannot begin to guess. A thousand years from now there will be human beings who don‘t have to guess; they will know; and they will know we gave this to them.