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Exploration

Bill Gates On Moonshots And Inspiration

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
October 8, 2016
Filed under
Bill Gates On Moonshots And Inspiration

Accelerating Innovation with Leadership, Bill Gates
“One of the most indelible examples of a world leader unleashing innovation from both public and private sectors came in 1961 when President John F. Kennedy spoke to the U.S. Congress and challenged the country to put a man on the moon within the decade. That speech came at a time of cultural and political turmoil, when national and economic security dominated the headlines. President Kennedy believed looking to the skies would inspire the country to dream big and accomplish huge things. That speech didn’t just launch humankind on a successful journey to the moon. It also inspired America to build a satellite network that changed the way we communicate across the globe and produced new forms of weather mapping which made farmers far more productive. In the face of fear, President Kennedy successfully summoned our country to harness American ingenuity and advance human progress. It’s important to remember what made the moonshot the moonshot – that is, what transforms political rhetoric into game-changing breakthroughs. A moonshot challenge requires a clear, measurable objective that captures the imagination of the nation and fundamentally changes how we view what’s possible. And it requires marshaling the resources and intellect of both the public and private sectors. When we do that, we chart a course for a future that is safer, healthier, and stronger.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

47 responses to “Bill Gates On Moonshots And Inspiration”

  1. BeanCounterFromDownUnder says:
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    No Bill. Apollo was all bout projecting political power and not the rest. Even then, public support was pretty lukewarm and nothing much in HSF that the U.S. has done since has inspired many in politics or the public.
    Cheers

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      Apollo succeed because President Johnson was fixated with beating the Soviets to the Moon.

      • Jeff2Space says:
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        So was Kennedy (he really chewed out the then NASA Administrator over why we were spending so much money, and it was made clear that beating the Russians was the *only* reason).

  2. Michael Spencer says:
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    There is more to JFK’s speech, of course, including a unique set of international conditions; and I’m not certain that, while the smart people were informed, Americans really grokked the space race with the Soviets. Perhaps that’s the heart of it: getting a country and a Congress to devote 4% of the budget (yes?) to Apollo was certainly an example of leadership.

    Looking back, though, the purpose-built nature of Apollo was the seed of demise. This fact does not mean that Mr. Gates’ comment is incorrect, only that he left part of it out: “a clear, measurable objective” lives in an larger context.

    Example: the long discussion about how to get to the moon: earth orbit, moon orbit, etc. – could have added an option for refueling on orbit. Perhaps too much hindsight, but the certainly that landing a few guys on the moon in expendable machines does not a moon presence build was obvious even then. The use of a capsule has survived too many decades.

    And now, reaching Mars. Mr. Musk has included enabling technologies that allow us to go about anywhere. He has established the manner in which we will explore the solar system: with a small ship that is fueled in space and that can land. No big intra-solar machines. No capsules. Big rockets? Yes, but only from deep gravity wells (if he’s said that his landers can land on Earth, I’ve not seen it).

    It’s clean and, as the coders like to say, extensible.

  3. muomega0 says:
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    “A moonshot challenge requires a clear, measurable objective that captures the imagination of the nation and fundamentally changes how we view what’s possible” Space Grand Challenges state what is not possible today and all ‘to Mars’ focused. https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/50

    “..build a satellite network that changed the way we {globally} communicate … new .. weather mapping.. farmers…more productive.”

    A constellation of satellites could enable faster global communications, + SMART Electrical Grid, Transportation, Drone Delivery. Government Exploration and space junk missions (zero today) provide flight rate to reduce $/kg. What LVs and size reduce $/kg– In-space refueling required, not HLVs. http://www.spaceref.com/new

    “There is enormous potential to develop technologies that will make energy cheaper and reduce our energy imports without contributing to climate change or air pollution. ” World carbon free by 2100 new pact.
    The current estimate is that the world has 50 years of oil remaining at current consumption (1.5T barrels of oil/ 30B/yr = ~ 50 yrs). What space technologies will help power the future?

    https://www.youtube.com/wat

  4. Paul451 says:
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    Gah, the “Vision” myth again. Kennedy’s pretty speech was the same as any pretty political speech. Kennedy didn’t give a damn about space, and apparently made that clear to NASA management. The speech only achieved the status it did because NASA actually went to the freakin’ moon. Every later grand challenge (Freedom, Back to the Moon to Stay, Moon & Mars) became meaningless because the programs they spawned were rubbish.

    Likewise, Reagan’s “Tear down this wall” speech, became historic only because of the later Berlin revolution. Or, flip side, Bush Jr’s “Mission Accomplished” banner became a meme-of-failure only because the Iraq war didn’t work out the way the neo-cons thought it would.

    (Indeed, the “Vision” myth is largely why you had the 2nd Iraq war. The neo-con philosophy is based on the Straussian idea that myths create reality; which itself is based on things like Kennedy’s Rice speech.)

    • Egad says:
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      Kennedy’s sentiments are, in fact, fairly clearly spelled out in an existing document:

      http://history.nasa.gov/JFK

      President Kennedy:

      “The only…. We’re not going to settle the four hundred million this morning. I want to take a look closely at what Dave Bell…. But I do think we ought get it, you know, really clear that the policy ought to be that this [the moon landing] is the top-priority program of the Agency, and one of the two things, except for defense, the top priority of the United States government. I think that that is the position we ought to take. Now, this may not change anything about that schedule, but at least we ought to be clear, otherwise we shouldn’t be spending this kind of money because I’m not that interested in space. I think it’s good; I think we ought to know about it; we’re ready to spend reasonable amounts of money. But we’re talking about these *fantastic* expenditures which wreck our budget and all these other domestic programs and the only justification for it, in my opinion, to do it in this time or fashion, is because we hope to beat them and demonstrate that starting behind, as we did by a couple years, by God, we passed them.”

    • muomega0 says:
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      Compare the present visionless program to a moonshot. “A moonshot challenge requires a clear, measurable objective that captures the imagination of the nation and fundamentally changes how we view what’s possible.”

      Apollo R&D provided additional funds to ICs in the quest to reduce power, mass, volume to improve performance–a measurable objective, not vision, as is lower $/kg.

      Inspace refueling *reduces* LV size and enables reuse to further reduce costs by flying NASA and DOD payloads. http://www.spaceref.com/new

      “The space program’s demand for improved ICs had another consequence: the high demand for ICs drove down the price. Early ICs were much more expensive than circuits made from individual transistors, with the first chips costing about $1000 each in 1960. By 1963, demand created by the Apollo program had driven the price down to about $25. This helped other industries find applications for ICs, and use of the technology spread.”
      http://ethw.org/Integrated_

  5. Daniel Woodard says:
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  6. Donald Barker says:
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    Bill has 87 Billion lying around, right? couldn’t he lend us 20 billion to kick-start a human Mars program? I bet he has some really rich friends also, and it would be amazing what a small group of rich, dedicated people might accomplish. But I wont hold my breath.

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      He is too busy giving it away to the third world, not that its making any more difference than the hundreds of billions the West has already given. But yes, I agree, if he thinks it is so visionary he could join the other billionaires trying to build a real future for humanity by going into space.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        Nothing will change in the third world until we see far fewer babies on the hips of young mothers, both living in destitution.

        • rktsci says:
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          Or more importantly, we see the rule of law established in those countries.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Yes, they need Common Law based legal systems that focus on strong private property rights, governments built around protecting personal rights and economic systems based on market competition. Economic authors like William Bernstein, Eric Beinhocker, Nathan Rosenburg and Hernando De Soto among others have documented well why the West developed and industrialized successfully and what emerging nations need to do to follow. Mindlessly pouring money into emerging nations just works against these nations making the reforms needed.

            On a related note, ideas on space governance based on global cooperation instead of competition and global control of space resources versus the individual control permitted by the OST and the recent Space Resource Act just export these failed practices and economic systems to space. ESA’s Moon Village is a prime example. It is far past time for space policy experts to start studying economic history instead of wasting time on outdated social rhetoric and policy models long outdated.

          • Todd Austin says:
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            Funny how countries without such systems have also developed and pulled their citizens out of poverty. (The USSR and PRC come to mind.) Education and health care are far more important than any particular system of government. Free democracies tend to follow from such development, but they do not necessarily precede it.

          • fcrary says:
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            I think we are getting a bit off-topic for a blog about NASA and space policy.

            The “common law” is a compilation of English, traditional practices. It has some good points, but this really isn’t the place to debate its virtues compared to, for example, the Napoleonic code.

            Similarly, I could say some things about the governments of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, and how they did or did not “pull their citizens out of poverty.” Uncharitable phrases like “Mao’s Great Leap Backward” come to mind. But this isn’t really the right forum to debate that.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            True, and the key take away is a nation could still have most of its citizens living in poverty and still have a vision for space and a space program.

            The key is that the U.S. reached the Moon while still expanding the consumer economy and lifting the national standard of living because of its free enterprise based economy. And in the U.S. individual citizens are able to dream of buying rides into space, something missing from most of the other space faring nations.

            Unlike the Soviet Union it was never a question of Guns or Butter, perhaps more accurately “Rockets or Butter” for the United States going to the Moon. Our economy was able to do both.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            The USSR and PRC, along with a number of Eastern European countries, were known as the “Second World” because they managed to reach “First World” standards in technology, Defense and Science while the majority of citizens were left to continue living in poverty for the good of the “revolution”.

            Or do you consider 15-20 folks living in communal apartments with single bathrooms, standing in line for hours for bread, meat and other basic needs and having no real access to any of the basic luxuries of life as reflecting a “wealthy” lifestyle?

            I once had the occasional many years ago to take a couple from Poland that emigrated to America shopping for the first time. The were staying temporary with my father while they got settled. I started them off slow, first taking them to Kmart, then a supermarket, then a car dealership on auto row and then to a large shopping mall. They could not believe their eyes at the products available. They told me how they would stay in line for hours for just a loft of bread, what ever was available. Just seeing shelves of different types of breads blew their minds…

            So summation, No, I don’t see the USSR or PRC as exceptions to the research that has been done on economists on ending poverty.

            Yes, the Soviets had a space program, but the average worker still lived in conditions of poverty.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            That conclusion depends at least in part with the Weltanschauung of the investigator.

          • Todd Austin says:
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            A very broad statement – whose rule with what law?

          • fcrary says:
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            “Rule of law” usually means the existence of laws, preferably written but certainly concrete in some way, which apply to everyone. The term is used in contrast to the “rule of man” which means the rules are whatever the guy in charge (e.g. a king) decides they are. And what he decides the rules are can change, at whim, on a day to day and case by case basis.

          • Todd Austin says:
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            It’s also become a phrase bandied about by those intent on scaring voters with non-existent threats. Such political actors tend to be far more interested in power they can wield than on laws, rules, or norms of decency.

            While it has a solid meaning in the study of social science, in common usage it’s become rather squishy.

          • fcrary says:
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            Fair enough. Just about anything can be turned into political rhetoric. But I’m willing to give “rktsci” the benefit of the doubt. Many third world nations could really use “rule of law” in the sense of rules based on actual laws rather than rules based on the whims of a dictator. While “rule of law” can be misused to mean something different, I don’t see that implication in the original remark.

          • rktsci says:
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            Thanks, I guess.

            Most of the third world needs a legal system that respects private property and human rights. Without that, you have no confidence that any capital you accumulate will be available in the future.

          • rktsci says:
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            Rule of law by Western standards. Common law would be a good start.

        • Donald Barker says:
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          Brave New World, THX1138, Blade Runner, Fahrenheit 451, Soylent Green, 1984… prophetic images of our future if we dont all change.

          • fcrary says:
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            The original isn’t nearly as pessimistic: “Oh what a brave new world which hath such creatures in it!” (Miranda, in Shakespeare’s _The Tempest_.)

        • savuporo says:
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          You may want to look at fertility rates vs female education data then, and then look into who is investing into women’s education in undeveloped countries.

        • fcrary says:
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          Overpopulation is a concern, but I’m not comfortable about limiting this to the third world.

          First, I once heard a focus on third world overpopulation (while saying nothing about the first world) described as “just enough of us; way too much of them.” That has implication I am not comfortable with.

          Second, simply looking at environmental impact, I think population growth in the first world may be more of a concern. Who has a greater carbon footprint? A Bangladeshi farmer or a US citizen with a daily, one hour commute in a SUV?

          Of course, this could be a moot point. Population growth does drop with development. Retirement plans remove the need for large numbers of children to take care of their parents in their later years. Access to education and medicine, especially for women, tends to reduce population growth. So maybe the first world population bomb diffuses itself.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            We have problems in the west, problems we are bringing to heel; our environmental attitude since the 1970s in the US for instance has turned remarkably.

            But have a look at the western part of Hispaniola, a country denuded of forest and cover; reports of persistent flooding ignore the underlying reason.

            Or simply spend some time in India, in any of her cities. People are everywhere in ways that westerners cannot envision without experience. Every single patch of earth is trodden with feet over and over every day; rivers are polluted beyond redemption; animal life suffers where extant.

            We are a scourge.

          • Todd Austin says:
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            Poverty is the scourge in Haiti. The people are smart, hard-working, kind, and they care about their country. Without education and opportunities, they have no path out of their destitution. The people know what they need and succeed best when they are given the tools to achieve those aims.

        • Todd Austin says:
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          Birth rates fall in conjunction with economic development. To lower birth rates, you support the development of strong independent economies through health care and education.

      • Todd Austin says:
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        The Gates Foundation does not give large sums of money to developing countries. They DO give grants to various organizations that are either experimenting with programs to alleviate disease, hunger, etc., or to programs with demonstrated successes.

        • ThomasLMatula says:
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          Same thing. Short term success but they fail to address the long term institutional reforms needed.

  7. Michael Spencer says:
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    Or, it could take the discovery of money in space.

  8. Zen Puck says:
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    Great read: “The Innovators Way”; by Denning and Dunham, debunks many myths about what is innovation, and what it takes to innovate. Quoting from the book
    “Innovation is the adoption of a new practice by a community”

    Most leaders think innovation is invention, or investing in technology, making something new. Nope. If those inventions don’t get adopted, then no innovation.

    Its a great read.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      That’s just plain silly.
      If a tree falls in the forest does it make a big crash? Maybe we need a new word,

  9. Brian_M2525 says:
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    Kennedy did not have a Vision, at least not about space. His Vision was for political conquest. He led the way for several others towards success and ultimately Reagan and Bush saw the demise of socialism in the USSR. Unfortunately because of his rush to get it in within a decade (2 Pres terms?) It may have shortchanged what space might have become more quickly.

    I think there was another negative effect. The US aerospace contractors (and NASA) started trying to equally spread the wealth of human spaceflight, and to increase it. They failed to listen to Nixon, who said something under 1% was an adequate government when it came to something with no certain ROI. NASA and its contractors started getting spoiled; exactly the military/industrial complex Eisenhower warned about.

    Shuttle was done in reasonable fashion, time and money. Really remarkable given its advancement of techhnology. By the time of ISS, they were getting greedy and wanted more money for less work. Tens of billions were spent before hardware went into orbit. Though eventually there was a million pounds of hardware, just on a very long schedule. And not a real excuse for it. There wàs nothing too technologically sophisticated, and the launch systems had been in place. A lot of the design was in place within just a few years after program start, but little went into orbit for 15 years. Constellation, and its legacy, Orion, became even worse, with little sophistication, and a ridiculously long development schedule for ridiculously little hardware.

    I think the error and lack of Vision revolves around NASA and its supporters thinking the government or even multiple governments will pay the way for moving civilization to the planets. Government has its roles: seed money for new industries and new technologies, helping to establish new transportation systems, perhaps even organizing investment mechanisms, but ultimately the people, whether individually or through companies, have to pay the way.

    • Daniel Woodard says:
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      The announcement of a date was necessary to force the Soviets to commit vast resources to the Moon race and ultimately to lose prestige in the Cold War struggle. I agree with you on the problem of cost.

  10. Jeff2Space says:
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    I’m quite glad to see that most people here realize that Apollo/Saturn was about beating the Russians, not about fulfilling the “vision” in Kennedy’s speech. If I had a dime every time some space advocate said “NASA just needs a new vision”…

    • muomega0 says:
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      The *only* reason?! Fortunately, others saw the opportunity of improving the performance of ICs for new markets, a knowledge apparently lost to most people here? Any defectors head to New Space? The vision is quite clear: develop technology to explore for the benefit of all supported by long range studies that identify the benefits per NASA’s Charter. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/ame

      “In 1957 a group of eight brilliant young men defected from the Shockley Semiconductor Company in order to start their own transistor business. On October 4, 1957, the young founders of the newly minted start-up heard some startling news: the Soviet Union had just launched the first artificial satellite into orbit around the Earth. With the United States scrambling to catch up, the timing could not have been better for the upstarts at Fairchild, who got the opportunity of a lifetime when President Eisenhower and Congress created NASA a year later.

      The new availability of government contracts immediately gave Fairchild a client who had both a great demand for their products and the deep pockets to purchase them.

      In fewer than two years, Noyce co-created a groundbreaking invention that helped put men on the moon, and it had an impact far beyond the Apollo program. The integrated circuit, also known as the microchip, would re-shape the future, and launch the world into the Information Age by paving the way for the invention of microwaves, pacemakers, digital video recorders, and smart phones.”

      • Daniel Woodard says:
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        Collaboration between government and industry to advance American technology was a primary mission of the NACA, the predecessor of NASA, from its founding in 1912. It did not begin with the Moon race.

      • Jeff2Space says:
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        Certainly Apollo used ICs, which were bleeding edge technology at the time, in the CSM and LEM computers. In fact, besides their use in ICBM guidance systems, the Apollo computers were a fairly significant consumer of ICs. But the fact remains that absent Apollo, their use in ICBM guidance systems would insure that the tech was developed in the first place.

        • muomega0 says:
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          The power density requirement was more severe for Apollo, and the potential (today’s phones!) for further improvements was huge, FWIW.

    • Daniel Woodard says:
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      I am not aware that Kennedy used the word “vision”. The US and USSR were locked in an ideological struggle. Much of the Third World was moving to the Soviet camp. The Cold War had become focused on a perilous race in nuclear arms that could easily have destroyed civilization.

      Kennedy saw that our best chance for survival was to substitute a symbolic contest for the nuclear arms race. But it had to involve a goal so spectacular that the Soviets could not ignore it, and so difficult that it would require all their resources. His letter to von Braun did not ask for a vision. It asked for a dramatic goal the US could annouce then, in 1963, and achieve before the Soviets. His speech to the joint session of Congress was concise. “The nonaligned nations of the world are looking to the US and the Soviets to see which path they should take, and we cannot ignore the effect that thier recent achievements in space have had on men’s minds. ….. Therefore, I believe this nation should set itself the goal, before this decade is out, of sending a man to the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” Period.

      The part NASA did not understand was the period. Once Armstrong and his crew landed, the mission was over. The goal was not to explore space. The goal was to prevent nuclear war. The US won unprecedented prestige, and the USSR bankrupted itself trying to catch up. Apollo was a master stroke in its time. But times have changed.

  11. Donald Barker says:
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    If Bush (2) had cared anything about the space program in any measurable way, he would have at least visited JSC before Columbia, like, when he was governor. I was at his speech, and not to diminish the high regards for our lost crew, but this was his only visit and he personally had no vision of the future. The whole concept was kluged political back fill from lobbyists and mired and guided by unattainable goals as a result of the governments general lack of interest in space exploration.

  12. fcrary says:
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    Do you mean, what if he had said something like, “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” That’s quite close to your, “just to show that Americans can do hard, unnecessary things,” and it is something he said.