Why should space programs have any benefit for the populace in terms of transferable technology? Joe Public has no need for an ultra powerful rocket engine and the technology that runs that doesn&#x27;t really have a place in his car or waster&#x2F;dryer combo. The &quot;technology transfer&quot; argument has always been a bullshity way to get laypeople to support NASA. It has a dubious reality and no space program should have the goal of creating non-space innovations. How successful would SpaceX be if we had them worry about making the next velcro or whatever? Not very. It should just be a good space program. Funny I don&#x27;t see this this weird standard applied to the Soviet space program, which sites like HN and reddit applaud uncritically.<p>Also I completely disagree with the top-down central planning argument you&#x27;re suggesting. If we threw this kind of money at a better fridge, the government would have created a $10m fridge made by a dozen military contractors and each part made in each of the 50 states. You can&#x27;t just throw money at every problem at expect wonderful results. The history of government spending proves this. The government is only good at large scale edge cases. Everything else is best served by private industry, free markets, capitalism, etc.  There&#x27;s a reason the Soviets were sending spies by the boatload to copy US chip and industrial designs. They just couldn&#x27;t create this level of innovation via the top-down command method you think magically works.<p>If anything, Apollo is a tremendous success on so many levels. Its amusing that you consider putting a dozen men on the moon to be a &quot;meh&quot; accomplishment. I&#x27;ve noticed a lot of younger people have this strong anti-NASA view which is ahistorical and overly critical. Its a shame this level of angry contrarianism is in style as it diminishes the amazing accomplishments NASA was able to do, usually under strict budgetary concerns with endless political meddling.