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Much less than you suppose. The manned space program drew heavily on technology that had already been developed by military programs and ongoing military development contracts. It’s not easy to tease out collateral benefits coming from the manned space programs, because much of the basic technology was developed under classified military contracts. Obviously the Saturn V first stage main engines and the J-2 engines on the upper stages cost several billion dollars to develop. That technology had zero civilian economy implications (But it did have military implications, and military funding likely paid for much of it.). The LH2 J-2 engine program fed technology into the future Shuttle main engine program, but it’s hard to argue Shuttle ever returned more than a dime for every dollar invested.

The US Navy had already paid for basic hermetic life support system development, and that was essentially what was used in the LEM and Apollo capsule. Interestingly, the Apollo program’s only fatalities caused by flight operations, the burning alive of astronauts Grissom, Chaffee, and White, in Apollo-1 on top of the S1B stack sitting on Pad 34. The fire resulted from a calculated risk and serious departure by NASA from Navy standards (100% oxygen at 14.7 PSI and normal Earth gravity). This was done to produce the simplest solution to transition cabin atmosphere from 14.7 PSIA 20% oxygen 80% nitrogen on the surface to 4.7 PSIA pure oxygen in orbit. By starting with pure oxygen before launch it was a simple matter to merely vent oxygen during ascent until the cabin pressure reached 4.7 PSIA.

NASA, North American Aviation, and the flight crew that died were aware they were tickling the dragon’s tail with the pure oxygen on the ground, but they were in a hurry to make the first orbital flight.

Before the accident I was employed by NAA and bitched to senior management about the pure oxygen risks. Management’s guarded response was that NASA had already signed off on the 100% oxygen procedure and system, and that in the event I wanted to make more waves about the Apollo capsule life support system I should think about where I might go to find another “job” I liked as well as Saturn V launch operations.

Curiously, the post mortem accident investigation never discovered anyone who would take credit for the pure oxygen scheme.

I fully get your point. AI and robotic investment have collateral value here on Earth. But all the stuff you did with NASA both manned and unmanned has collateral value as well.

Focusing on solving our problems here on Earth should be our main priority. But every once in awhile we should express our curiosity about what lies beyond the gravity well of our planet.

Curiosity won’t find a fossil as dramatic as an alien with a backbone. It isn’t even designed to find biology. But it will tell us a lot more about Mars and that scientific gain is added knowledge, as is Keppler and Cassini and Hubble and Dawn and the probes on the way to Pluto.

Turning inward has historically always led to the demise of a culture. It happened with China in the 15th and early 16th century. It happened with the Ottomans in the 17th century. One can argue that overreach is the common factor that caused their demise in subsequent centuries. But in fact a conscious decision was made to turn inward. These cultures stopped innovating.

“The United States sent men to the Moon during the middle of a war in Southeast Asia, a war that served little purpose, and ended up with Vietnam now a software outsource market for U.S. companies. And this is a war the U.S. lost.”

You make my case for me. About the time Vietnam began to heat up, and the US announced its “man on the moon space race” ambitions, I was a USAF ICBM launch team member. In the full flower of my youthful yahooness, I did not share my government’s ill-considered ambitions for S. E. Asia, and in fact I figured the best outcome for the people of Viet Nam, would be a united country under the pragmatic despotism of Ho Chi Min. The Moon Mission seemed a noble enough cause to join. I ended my contribution to my nation’s military efforts and carried my military rocket training over to the manned space program.

I really enjoyed playing with rockets and camaraderie with a rare breed of others that shared the enjoyment. No one playing with rockets was seriously concerned that millions of persons that couldn’t care less about either rockets or Vietnam were working to pay the bills so that we could play. All of us, along with our families, enjoyed full rice bowls, and we all knew the “work” was really “play.” Any of us could have delivered some extemporaneous sophist’s rational for the manned space program. (Just as the military industrial participants could have rationalized the S.E. Asia War.)

But, the shameful truth is we were all ethically irresponsible and self-indulgent yahoos. The manned lunar missions cost about $300 billion in today’s money. Suppose the US had decided to invest the $300 billion making S.E. Asia a better place instead of funding the rocket game. Had the US doled out $30 billion a year to Ho each year from 63 to 73, we wouldn’t have had a lost war, killed over a million innocents, destroyed the credibility of the US government, supercharged the “Cold War,” and fertilized the “killing fields” of Cambodia. And the tangible “price” for all that would have been less than 1,000 pounds of dirt and rock from the moon.

At any given time there exists only a limited amount of resources to invest into problematic pure science or species aggrandizement programs that promise few immediate returns. (I’ll give you that Hubble and Kepler are both scientifically and philosophically worthwhile even if they were ten-times overpriced. Though one should notice neither program was intended to be “man in space.”)

Whenever funds are expended on one program, some other program must go unfunded. I’ll proudly confess I’d rather see the funds go toward elimination of innumeracy, scientific illiteracy, political oppression, demonic possession, poverty, and disease here on Earth than toward manned space exploration. Whenever funds for space exploration are allocated, they should go toward programs with collateral effects that seem to promise improvements in human interests on Earth.

AI and robots that would do something useful in space could also do something useful here on Earth. That’s why 99% of the space exploration funds should be directed toward AI and robotic development. I’m hopefully guessing that will be the increasing trend. If Curiosity discovers a fossil of a backboned Martian alien, hundreds of billions will be wasted on stupid misallocation of funds to send men to Mars.

I gather some of what you have suggested is meant to demonstrate irony. We have lots of problems to address on Earth. We always have had lots of problems. The United States sent men to the Moon during the middle of a war in Southeast Asia, a war that served little purpose, and ended up with Vietnam now a software outsource market for U.S. companies. And this is a war the U.S. lost.

Worldwide literacy and numeracy will always be a challenge. We will always have a portion of humanity that does not achieve. We will always have a portion of humanity that chases gold rather than finds sustainability a worthy goal.

And we will always have dreamers who want to journey beyond the existing frontier. Humans are complex.

We will develop AI, self-replicating robots who will join us in our space journeys, who will be our eyes and ears before we arrive to see things for ourselves.

Building a self-contained biome in the middle of the Sahara may be a great way to demonstrate our ability to get a closed, self regenerative environmental model down pat. We tried it in Arizona and somehow didn’t make it work. Why not the Sahara this time?

The Sun is lots more interesting and vital to Earthly life than Mars. If only 30% of US voters were functionally numerate, they would insist the next $2.6 billion of NASA’s space exploration budget would fund sending several hundred “man in space” enthusiasts to establish a manned base on the Sun, or at least on Mercury. Just think of the benefit to mankind as the heroic Solarnauts discover in detail how the Sun’s fusion reactor works, how the sun produces such a powerful gravitational field, and how to build light and cheap materials that shield against powerful radiation and resist high temperatures. Even if the colonization of the Sun/Mercury project were to fail in achieving all it’s stated objectives, at least there would be several hundred less “man on Mars” apostles left here on Earth to encourage the wasting away of countless billions more in pointless space” projects.

If 30% of Americans were functionally numerate, they would see overcoming the technical problems of setting up a manned, profitable, hermetically sealed, self-sustaining base in some place with normal gravity, normal atmosphere, plenty of solar radiation, minerals and water aplenty, at great-distances from humanity’s centers of civilization, would be much easier and cheaper than sending men to Mars. Why doesn’t NASA just set up a profitable self-sustaining manned colony in the middle of the Sahara Desert? If they should get that working OK and turning a profit, the functionally numerate 30% might more seriously entertain pleadings for a manned Mars or Lunar expedition.

To be fair, the fervent AI robot camp should be held to the same standard. If they can’t turn a profit landing robots in the middle of the Sahara, they sure as hell won’t turn much of a profit landing them on Mars, and their future funding should be diverted to quasi-scientific literacy education for the masses. It’s at least plausible that AI robots of sufficient sophistication could eventually turn a profit mining the asteroid belt, it’s not at all plausible that men in space suits could ever turn a profit mining the asteroid belt.

If humanity can’t develop self-replicating AI robots to voyage to the Asteroid Belt, there to mine materials and construct artificial gravity, solar powered, rotating space habitats for humans (in effect the habitats would be giant interplanetary space ships that use mass from the Asteroid Belt for reactive propulsion and radiation shielding), humanity should forget about space and restrict its endeavors to improving conditions on Planet Earth. Should be obvious that self-replicating robots smart enough to mine the Asteroids would be smart enough to mine copper in the Andes, grow crops in the Sahara, and mow my lawn right here on Planet Earth.