This isn't a fair comparison. The United States has always been able to muster its resources with great efficiency in an emergency. That hasn't changed with time. You'll remember about 9 years ago when we had a similar situation and we managed to establish a military presence, mobilize and to a certain extent complete a military operation half way around the world in just a few months.
But for a government to move that fast politicians have to act rashly and that can lead to some nasty side effects like putting Japanese citizens in internment camps. Preventing that rash behavior is why society becomes litigious under normal circumstances.
I'd be the first to admit we've become too litigious but I can't see that stopping us if we made the space program as much of a priority as Pearl Harbor or 9/11 was.
Edit: Just to prove the point there were apparently 40,000 deaths by industrial accident in the first year or WWII alone. So clearly there was a cost to that speed of production.
> Just to prove the point there were apparently 40,000 deaths by industrial accident in the first year or WWII alone. So clearly there was a cost to that speed of production.
How many industrial accident deaths were there in 1936-39?
But for a government to move that fast politicians have to act rashly and that can lead to some nasty side effects like putting Japanese citizens in internment camps. Preventing that rash behavior is why society becomes litigious under normal circumstances.
I'd be the first to admit we've become too litigious but I can't see that stopping us if we made the space program as much of a priority as Pearl Harbor or 9/11 was.
Edit: Just to prove the point there were apparently 40,000 deaths by industrial accident in the first year or WWII alone. So clearly there was a cost to that speed of production.
http://www.historykb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/world-war-ii/3992/de...