Moon is part of Mars

[Anomalocaris]

These examples you cite in your own defense are rhetorically fundamentally different from the statement you attempt to defend.    In the examples you cite, the statement itself is not indispute.   So while the "full stop"s that follow may exhibit a rather unpleasantly emphatic speaking style, it serves as rhetorical dead wood that plays no substantive part, and can thus be ignored.

In what you attempt to defend, the statement itself is the core of contention.   So the full stop plays the rhetorically discreditable role of attempting to browbeat the opposition side into agreement without first offering any reason why the original statement is in any way creditable.

It would have done, if I hadn't given you reasons why it is a demonstrably true statement.  Reasons which, I might add, you chose to ignore.

Boru

I have not ignored any reasons why it is demonstrably true, because none of the reasons you gave demonstrates it is true.

"USians spent more on cosmetics over the same period. The cost per day in then-dollars was about .05 for every person in the US - one could argue that the US got to the moon on a cup of coffee."  - That does not demonstrate what was spent on the Apollo program came at the expense of cosmetics or coffees, and not other potentially more targeted and efficient R&D, or other non R&D activities, such as infrastructure or education, which in the long run can bring comparable value.


 "The resulting spinoff technologies in insulating materials, industrial monitoring systems, remote health sensors, microminiaturization, lubricants, anti-corrosion surfactants, flame retarding textiles, improved dialysis, athletic wear, medical devices, and too many more to mention - have generated far more economic activity than the money spent getting to the moon. " - Again it is not clear what percentage of the spin off actually was responsible for majority of the additional economic activity, whether the the potential of a subset of the R&D to spur economic activity would have been recognized anyway, and specifically useful R&D targeted to achieve these would have been done anyway with and without Apollo, all Apollo did that no-Apollo would not have done was to spur a series of spin offs of limited value outside Apollo itself.

I do not subscribe to the build it ("a dream") and they will come model of scientific development.    I think they will generally come sooner, come in better shape, and come with fewer deadbeats and hangers on if you are thoughtful in assessing what you wish to achieve and practical in picking what to build to achieve it.