[HenryBemis]

I will just pick this one to set (some) record straight

> Rechargeable Hearing Aids

Apparently you don't have a family member that has hearing problems, making it difficult for them to have a 'normal life'. I have one. I remember buying a €4k (a few many years ago) pair of hearing aids and see the tears coming down when one was able to hear again.

I see this as a prosthetic leg. You lose a basic function, this technology helps go back to having a slightly better life. Some stats on the matter. DDG returned US statistics on the top results; I believe these can be proportional for all other countries.

https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/statistics/quick-statistics...

-About 28.8 million U.S. adults could benefit from using hearing aids. (HB Note: isn't that 9% of the population? - that's a big number - almost 29 million people??)

-Among adults aged 70 and older with hearing loss who could benefit from hearing aids, fewer than one in three (30 percent) has ever used them. Even fewer adults aged 20 to 69 (approximately 16 percent) who could benefit from wearing hearing aids have ever used them.

-As of December 2019, approximately 736,900 cochlear implants have been implanted worldwide. In the United States, roughly 118,100 devices have been implanted in adults and 65,000 in children.

[002445]

You are correct that my family members do not need hearing aids. But I am also not saying hearing aids are useless. I am just saying it is not worth going to the moon for.

Since it would've been cheaper to not go to the moon and let a private company step in to provide the need there would have been more resources to spend on improving more lives than were improved now.

[onion2k]

The research necessary to make a better hearing aid (improved batteries, noise cancelling circuitry, miniaturization of electronics, etc) cost billions. I imagine it was inevitable that the research would have happened eventually, but it would have taken longer and it would have been patented and expensive to license. It's very likely that the hearing aid industry wouldn't have had the resources to buy in the necessary tech to make a cost effective product until several decades later than it has. They might not even have done it by now if we hadn't reached the moon.

It's all speculation of course, but if you look at the rate of technological advancement pre-Moon landings compared to post-Moon landings, it does look a lot like the Apollo programme was an inflection point.

[HenryBemis]

You are reversing it. We didn't go to the moon to create/improve hearing aids.

But it was an effort that cost X amount of dollars, and since then it has helped 20-50-100 (?) million people globally to have a better life, go shopping, talk with friends and loved ones, listen to music, etc.

Not everything is about being profitable on day1. But if we do put a price tag to everything.. think of the jobs/profits/dividends/taxes created by the "hearing aids" industries. We now have 20-50-100 (?) million people that are 'more' integrated to society. That generates money to recover the 'losses' of the moon efforts.

https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/hea...

-The global hearing aids market size was $6.47bn in 2020.

If you run this number for the past 30-40-50 years, it adds up. And now add the $bn that the (hearing aids) users contribute to the global economy by integrating more/better to society.

I see this as a win-win. We explored the moon. We improved people's lives here on earth.