No stealing my idea's but...

Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface at 02:56:15 UT on 21 July 1969 (10:56:15 p.m. July 20 EDT)

Total funding for the Apollo program was approximately $20,443,600,000.

source (http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=1969-059A)


Currency notes of denominations above $100 are not available from the Department of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve System, or the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. On July 14, 1969, the Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve System announced that currency notes in denominations of $500, $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000 would be discontinued immediately due to lack of use.

source (http://www.bep.treas.gov/section.cfm/5/61)

Hey guess what each dollar became worth a lot more gold. They took their biggest notes out of circulation.

Joseph W. Barr served as Secretary of the Treasury from December 21, 1968 to January 20, 1969. There are fewer notes bearing his facsimile signature than notes imprinted with signatures of other Secretaries of the Treasury because of his short tenure in that office.

source (http://www.bep.treas.gov/document.cfm/5/44/130/95)

Oooh he served for only 1 month (almost exactly)

Neville what are you getting at? I don't see a conclusion...

Twenty billion dollars. There's your proof that it wasn't done on a Hollywood set, if you're following that thread. It also underscores my point that for that kind of investment we could have a great many UNMANNED spacecraft doing more important things than satisfying our romantic yearning to leave footprints on the moon.

And those were 1969 dollars!

I sort of agree with you that the money could have been spent better in either more variety of explorations, or in setting up a more permanent place in space. I think NASA was planning a next step, but when Congress got the bill, NASA had to be happy with a few shuttles.

But let me ask this: if the goal set had not been something like setting foot on the Moon, a simple goal to measure, but more set out to explore the universe, or work on building a better infrastructure into space, would the public and Congress been as eager to flip the bill? Sure it makes sense, but it doesn't make a great speech.

Hind sight is 20/20, but I wonder if we could have done it any different anyway, given the times...

I saw no ideas in the first post of this thread

i forgot to mention the fact that the Americans took their gold out of circulation in 1971. What i was trying to say people is that America used the moon landing as a diversion to what they were really doing: tying to sort out their finances once and for all. By taking the biggest notes out of currency they were increasing the value of the american dollar probably 2-fold (if not more) e.g. if there is 200 kilograms of Gold in storage and 200 dollars then each dollar is worth 1 kilogram of gold, however if there is 200 kilograms of gold and only 100 dolars then each dolar becomes worth 2 kilograms of gold. The Americans pretended to invest a lot of money into landing a man on the moon even though there was no way they could have caught the russians because the first 3 American rockets where a complete failure whereas the russians had already been up into space a few times. While the worlds eyes were fixed on mans greatest achievement so far the americans quietly took their largest currencies out of circulation while no one would notice. Then a couple of years later they took the gold out of circulation increasing its value again (because it became rarer) and just kept it there. I am saying something along these lines.

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
Twenty trillion dollars.Billion.

:m: Peace.

Yeah I was wondering about that...I thought there were only a few trillion US Dollars in existence...

Well if that's true then I doubt the rich people that own the houses will mind simply living in one of the other five that they own elsewhere. I'm not justifying destruction, I'm just saying, is all...