Surely no one thought that NASA going to the moon would have a practical impact on many of us, but the innovations that are a direct result of those missions most definitely do impact us right now. My point is... it might not be today that is helps us, but maybe next century when we're exploring new technologies on the boundaries of physics that his research and insight most definitely does apply practically.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the manned programs are not where innovations are done and boundaries are pushed in space flight. The huge risks we took with humans on board in the past were driven by a Cold War that had everyone thinking the whole world was headed for a nuclear fireball, really.
But in any sane reason to send humans to space, the unmanned systems are where the new tech is normally tested. Even back then, the Titan and Atlas programs for blowing up the planet led the way and people crossed their fingers that Saturn wouldn’t kill the spam in a can but based the tech on the ICBM programs.
Most of the space program has been about blowing other humans up and spying on the ones we think are going to blow us up. The things that actually made a difference in day to day lives were communications satellites mostly.
Humans in space is highly inspiring but generally a huge PITA from an engineering standpoint. Keeping spam alive is hard. The most inspiring stories are dumb stuff like a docking gone wrong with a bad thruster and two guys trying like hell to get control of it before they passed out, totally unnecessary if the humans aren’t aboard, just disconnect and call it a day. No G force limits other than ripping the spacecraft apart and making space junk out of them.
Same with inspiring events on the ground, we all know the famous “SCE to Aux” call from John Aaron but we must wonder why we didn’t think an ionized smoke trail and a pointy metal thing would NOT be hit by lighting in the most lightning prolific State in the Union. Haha.
Most of what we find inspiring is that humans are continual morons and still managed to keep MOST of the astronauts alive. Minus a little over a dozen.
Probably the most amazing human space program event thus far is the Hubble repair mission, driven by one enormous screw up, and Story Musgrave’s role can’t be up-played enough. That man nearly singlehandedly through sheer persistence made sure that satellite was fixed.
The other amazing work is the simplicity and robustness of the Russian stuff. Still using Soyuz today. If you can’t afford bling, you figure out how to keep the spam alive in a very simple can. For the most part. They killed a few too.
Anyway... most of the practical stuff didn’t come from landing on the moon. Inspiration came from that, in a specific time in history when we wanted to believe we were better at space than the other people who we thought wanted to blow us all up. Many joke that we got Velcro but it was around prior to manned space flight.
And then there’s the stupid “space pen” crap... LOL.
Seeing people given a nearly impossible task accomplish it with huge risks and deadly consequences is worth the price of the ticket to watch maybe. It was awfully expensive.
Shuttle was my inspiration as a kid. As I got older and read up on it, the reasons it even existed were completely asinine. It was fully destined to kill people and it did. Still an impressive but ultimately deadly machine.
