The Dark Side of the Moon

I've just read a book - title above - which is not the history of Pink Floyd (Nick Mason wrote the best one of those), but is all about sending men to the moon.

When you read reviews for it on various websites, you will find a bunch of picky people, who have taken joy in finding inaccuracies in the book, and franlkly the author (a Professor of Modern History), should have checked his facts better. However, for me they have all missed the point, which is what did the world get for the $35 billion it cost to send people up there? I've nothing against unmanned space exploration, it's the manned part that doesn't add up for me. I heard this question asked of a NAS spokesman at a conference a few years ago, and he couldn't give a satisfactory answer either.

Now, I don't want to get into arguments here over whether it was a necessary part of the Cold War, raised American prestige/morale or whatever. The point I am making is that when you are asked to run a project, e.g. in IT, then shouldn't the first questions be why? and what's it worth? And, if you can't answer those, then the project IMHO should not go ahead.

By the way Teflon was developed in 1938, Velcro was also not a by-product, the first weather satellite was launched on April 1st, 1960, the first navigation satellite was launched twelve days later, and twelve people (including my relation) have walked on the moon, according to the book and Wikipedia.

Now, if you could just remind me what the Large Haldron Collider is going to do for me?

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tags: Apollo |  Moon |  Portfolio Management |  Project Management |  Space