Les Jones

Teflon is an example of how hard it is to separate fact from fiction about the space program's collateral contributions to industry. There's no doubt that we received a lot of important benefits, but I'm continually amazed at how much technology was conceived or invented years or decades before being used in the space program.

The artifical horizon was invented in 1911, and Tang was invented about the time I guessed, in 1957. You can see more here:
http://inventors.about.com/library/blexpertarchives3.htm

I once participated in a group discussion on what the absolute earliest point in history was that you could land people on the moon. Many of the individual technologies existed in small bits prior to the 1960s. But it took countless man hours of engineering research, manufacturing and practical experience to make it just barely possible. The general concensus of our group discussion (yeah, we achieved one) was that our first expedition to the moon happened pretty much at the earliest point that it was 'safely' possible.

And it didn't even really give us Tang.

However, most of what we know about physical planetary geology and a whole ton of what we know about Earth's early formation comes from lunar and Martian exploration.

I should have said extraterrestrial planetary geology. Obviously we can learn a bunch about one planet in particular without leaving the ground.