201–210 of 513 posts
Finally the tin-foil hats can be satiated when these tourists see the 50-ish year old flag on the moon.
They'll just say the new images are faked, just as they say the original missions were.
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I'd like to know the thought process of people who have this much money and don't want to orbit the moon.
I think you're missing the point, of course in an ideal situation where risk is minimized that would be a good question. But by focusing on money I think you neglected to address the obvious point that I raised namely what if it blows up.
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Isn't the exhaust just water?!?
Is it? I know very little about rocket fuel, but I always assumed that CO2 is involved. A short bit of Googling "composition of rocket fuel exhaust" wasn't immediately helpful. :/
The expensive, exotic, high-specific-impulse, but low-density and dangerous option is liquid hydrogen + liquid oxygen (hydrolox), which does indeed create water vapor as exhaust. This particular rocket, however, uses RP-1 (similar to jet fuel - just highly refined kerosene) + liquid oxygen - still burning hydrocarbons, still releasing CO2, but favored because it's cheap, dense, safe, and doesn't need cryogenic cooling.
For comparison, the ITS (and many other Mars mission concepts) use liquid methane + liquid oxygen (methalox), which also outputs CO2, needs cryogenic cooling and is not as safe or dense as RP-1/LOX, but is still safer and denser than hydrogen, doesn't need to be kept quite as cold, and is easy to synthesize on-site on another planet.
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NASA agreed to do a study to see if they could place humans on the test flight. That seems to me like the NASA equivalent of saying "Sure, I'll look into that" while trying to not look horrified. I'm pretty sure that study will conclude that this is a bad idea.
I sure hope so! I wouldn't want to be on that flight. The NASA article brought to mind a story of a well-known Cosmonaut knowingly launching in an unreliable vehicle because the politicians insisted. He died. He flew because he didn't want his understudy to be killed in his place. (I'm sure someone on HN knows the story better than I do ...).
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I don't think anyone is missing that, cutesy little jokes like that just don't tend to do well here on HN.
I think possibly lots of people are missing it. How well known is Kennedy's speech for those who weren't alive at the time? And yes it was a joke, but contained within the joke is a pointed commentary.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_Moon
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> I also think that spending money on a roundtrip to the moon is way better for humanity than spending it on champagne, caviar and cars. How? I'm not saying you're wrong, but gut instinct is that automobiles are more useful to humans. I'd like to hear your thought process.
Fair question. In short: Unless you're buying Tesla your car expenditures won't fund any significant research into improving cars in a way that benefits humankind.
(As for the other expenditures proposed above: real AOC Champagne supports the vineyards and traditional practices of the Champagne province of France; caviar... supports sturgeon fishermen? But consuming both together is just conspicuous consumption -- Champagne is a dessert wine. :) )
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I don't think anyone is missing that, cutesy little jokes like that just don't tend to do well here on HN.
I think possibly lots of people are missing it. How well known is Kennedy's speech for those who weren't alive at the time? And yes it was a joke, but contained within the joke is a pointed commentary.