Thread by @ZachWeiner

So, I've mentioned a couple times that there's a pretty solid case that the US should never have undertaken the Apollo Program. A number of prominent people have agreed over the years - Clarke, G Harry Stine, John Logsdon, others.

A few people asked for the argument

There are variations, but the basic deal goes like this:

If you go back to the 50s, when there's a strong desire by space advocates for a human presence in space, space scientists produced plans for the best way to build space infrastructure.

By space infrastructure, I mean a system of vehicles and stations that work together to make the process of space launch cheaper. For instance, starting around 1952, von Braun and others push for a large rotating space station ~1000 miles high.

This is be paired with a reusable vehicle. By having these things, you lower the cost of construction and build out capacity for things like refueling for a Moon or deep space launch. Piece by piece, each step builds toward the next. Slow progress, bigger missions, more science.

This changes after Sputnik, basically because the US sets an arbitrary deadline for a Moon race, and that deadline gets set in stone with JFK gets assassinated. So, instead of building a system, you get giant expendable launch vehicles and no space station.

As an analogy, imagine you want to sail around the world. First thing you probably want to do is learn how to build boats and set up ports at intermediate points. OR, you could build a giant boat that breaks into smaller boats as it goes, until at the end a canoe arrives home.

The second option might get you there sooner because you can just scale up existing tech, but it leaves you with a dead end technologically. "Dead end" was the phrase Logsdon used, as I recall.

Now, many will counter "you're assuming we can get all this money by some other means, but you only get funding for giant projects with military/geopolitical value." This is true, however, Spudis made a really interesting counter argument in his 2016 book.

In short, he says once you do Apollo, you instantiate a model - giant projects that achieve "firsts" at any cost. Hence, according to him, repeated cash-burn for Mars or asteroid crewed trip ideas, without building intermediate steps. He wanted Moon infrastructure to supply this.

Another argument, using a lens from geopolitical theory is that once you have a Moon race, launch becomes what's called "securitized." It's a national security issue, so it gets lots of funds and efficiency concerns are off the table.

This leads to situations like the Space Shuttle, where you're having to meet competing demands from military agencies and congress, which leads to choices that are bad for developing the system. So, yes, we needed the money for Apollo, but perhaps it was a Faustian bargain.

Now, I don't know what would've happened if there wasn't a space race. But, the argument for Anti-Apollo people would be that we could have had a slow but steady ramp-up, with government funding the risky/basic science, then industry making it cheap/safe.

Along that track, maybe you don't have a Moon landing until much later, but you DO have more advanced reusable systems, perhaps much cheaper satellites. Most importantly, you have a stepwise system that's ultimately less wasteful more self-sustaining.

Again, I dunno the counterfactual, and much of the above could be argued over. Apollo was rendered sacred for obvious reasons, so people get mad. But, I've been surprised how many of the most thoughtful space people over the years have either partially or fully opposed it.

Incidentally, I don't think of myself as anti anything in particular. My biggest view is that I think the future of space is fairly weird/dangerous, so being clear-eyed about our sacred stories is of greater value than ever.