Please peruse this thread on the JREF, notably around post #44:

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=84117&page=2

My contention is that the funding for NASA, and the push for NASA to exist in the first place, came about as a result of the cold war, and that funding has never been as high back then.

The argument itself is incredible off topic from the original topic (having to deal with atheism), but the nature of the discussion has dramatically altered into one involving NASA and the effects of the cold war, and wars in general (via WWI and WWII) on technological and scientific progress.

Larsen's point... well, I don't know his point, he's usually vague with it, and seems to like to argue. Still, I would like for any experts to purvey the conversation and give your opinions (either here or on the JREF).

Thank you for your education.

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

Purvey?You're welcome

PS: If you haven't noticed, we tend to create "conflicts". Just before 9/11, there was a lot of economic saber-rattling to the effect that we were "at war" with Japan/China/whomever. After, no need--we have "our conflict". So, your point that the Cold War provided impetus for the funding of the space program is probably valid, but so is his--that the funding would have come about some how. We'll just never know.

There's no way that Kennedy's "man-moon-decade" decree would have happened without the competition with the Russians. Without the Cold War, I think that the unmanned program would have been little changed (maybe not quite so many missions to the Moon, since those were justified as scouting missions for Apollo), but by 1970 we would probably have been more at the mid-Gemini stage rather than landing men on the Moon every few months.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

True, but the point is, how do we know that we wouldn't have manufactured some other competition? It happens all the time.