Space. What now?

Remember the race to put a man into space and, then, to put a man on the moon? OK, we lost the first heat, but ran away in the final.

Those were the incredible days early days of NASA, when U.S. citizens looked on with chest-pounding pride at rocket liftoffs and eventually, a televised moonwalk. So much seemed to be happening as U.S. scientists pieced together progressive missions and experiments that made sense to the public, who shared in success celebrations and major lessons learned. Later, SkyLab, Space Shuttle, Space Station, Explorer, Mariner, Hubble........all inspirational.

Meanwhile, the public also learned about "spinoff" commercial products and technologies that developed with the help of NASA's needs for new solutions -- and dollars spent to meet these needs. Spinoffs helped justify to some extent the huge spending that was taking place.

Beginning in 1976, NASA created a publication entitled "Spinoff" to document such products and technologies, and to maintain a database. As of 2015, there are over 1,800 spinoff products in the database dating back to 1976. Spinoff examples include:

Infrared ear thermometers; heart pump for patients awaiting heart transplants; development of artificial muscle systems with robotic sensing and actuation capabilities; temper foam technology (memory foam); scratch-resistant eyeglass lenses; lightweight super effective space blankets often used in first aid kits; small aircraft anti-icing systems; highway safety surface grooving; much improved radial tires; moisture and chemical detection sensors; video enhancing and analysis systems and image stabilization; intumescent epoxy material, which expands in volume when exposed to heat or flames, acting as an insulating barrier and dissipating heat through burn-off; baby food, commonly enriched with microalgae food supplement; freeze drying; water purification systems; solar cells; microencapsulating technology enabling the creation of a "Petroleum Remediation Product" for oil spills on water; structural analysis software; powdered lubricants; "OpenStack" cloud computing technology, and about 1,770 more....

At its peak in 1965, NASA employed 411,000 in-house and contractor-dedicated people. In 1966, NASA spending made up 4.41% of the federal budget! In 2012 NASA employed 79,000 in-house and contractor-dedicated people and made up roughly 
0.5% of the federal budget.

Relatively speaking, the aeronautical frontiers back then were much closer to home and easier to understand than the vast gallactic and astronomical frontiers we're exploring now. The spinoffs were more tangible in many instances -- memory foam mattresses vs. cloud software. And, frankly, it's tough to attach a direct personal benefit to a discovery such as this:

"MACS0647-JD is a candidate, based on a photometric redshift estimate,[1][2] for the farthest known galaxy from Earth at a redshift of about z = 10.7,[3] equivalent to a light travel distance of 13.3 billion light-years (4 billion parsecs). If the distance estimate is correct, it formed 420 million years after the Big Bang.[4] It is less than 600 light-years wide."

But there's no disputing the decline in NASA spending, and a disconnect with the American public that wonders "What now? What next?"

Lastly, for those of us involved in design and manufacturing who have benefitted from the many discoveries from NASA efforts over the years, the question arises -- how much of those millions and billions was spending, and how much was actually investment in the nation's future?

Note: Many thanks to Wikipedia and it's contributors and editors for much of the above-noted information.