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If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

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Re: If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

#31

Post by drdeca »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #27
Pica_soO wrote: post #17

Because capitalism, as religion while in its optimization frenzy- cripples the ability's of mankind? Reaching the moon already was only done to compete with a faction outside the reference system. Without commies to race and lean against, the western system decayed to just another nice decorated, well managed cotton plantation. There is no price on the far future events, such as bollide strikes. If there where, sudde…

Nicely put. Though this is not caused by the religious aspects of modern capitalism, but by its core mechanism of work - people are forced to work on what earns them and protects their short-term profit (poor people to eat, rich people to not become poor people). There seem to be only few people on the planet with simultaneously enough wealth and focused will to tell the market where to go, as opposed to being direct…

Politicians play the politics game.

This game involves people acting with self interest, and relates in some ways to access to/control of resources. This is the case regardless of economic system.

"Capitalism is moloch, yes, but government is also moloch. Anarchy is also moloch."

Re: If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

#32

Post by njharman »

coliveira wrote: post #5

We can't because the USA prefers to create more bombs and other war machines rather than invest in science.

China manages to do both:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_Prog...

https://www.google.com/search?q=china+weapons+development

Re: If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

#33

Post by TeMPOraL »

drdeca wrote: post #31
TeMPOraL wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nicely put. Though this is not caused by the religious aspects of modern capitalism, but by its core mechanism of work - people are forced to work on what earns them and protects their short-term profit (poor people to eat, rich people to not become poor people). There seem to be only few people on the planet with simultaneously enough wealth and focused will to tell the market where to go, as opposed to being direct…

Politicians play the politics game. This game involves people acting with self interest, and relates in some ways to access to/control of resources. This is the case regardless of economic system. "Capitalism is moloch, yes, but government is also moloch. Anarchy is also moloch."

That's why I wrote "indirectly". Politicians play the politics game, but the particulars of that game is in big way determined by the economic system of a country. In the US, politicians try to game the election process, and that involves allocating resources in a way that ensures their electability. The end result is things like turning NASA's space efforts into a giant jobs program. Politicians under a (hypothetical) different economic system would face different pressures, maybe even aligned with pursuing longer-term projects.

Re: If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

#36

Post by make3 »

solatic wrote: post #25
gozur88 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Doing anything ambitious in space would require a lot of material, which has limited our ambitions since the 1970s. We go to the moon because materials are cheap because... we want to build what?

That's like going back to the 17th century and decrying the exploration of the New World because you're not certain just how much gold there may be and you can't predict what the New World economy might look like. Barring drastic efficiency increases in launch technology (to a Star Wars style level of ease) a lunar base is essential to enabling a space economy not suffocated by heavy shipping and transaction costs in…

Except that back then they couldn't see what was in the new world. Now we can (on the moon), and know that there isn't much.

Also, it would take a lot more than just sending people there for them to be mostly be self sufficient like in the 17th century, because: - there is no oxygen, - there is no food, - there is no water, - there is no magnetosphere.

Re: If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

#37

Post by nickik »

TylerE wrote: post #8

THere is little POINT in putting a man on the moon after you've done it. We have plenty of moon rock to run experiments on. Any micro/low gravity experiment can be run cheaper in LEO. There aren't any valuable resources there to exploit. It's a bit like asking why we don't build a habitat on the bottom of the Marians Trench - we COULD, but why WOUDL we?

That is just false. Did we take just one sample of our own earth and only work with that?

I'm a Mars first guy but going to the moon would require building up vital tech in launch and space habitation.

Also its false that 'we CLOULD, but why WOULD we' the fact is currently NASA simply can not do and all their efforts to work in that direction again have pretty much been failures.

Re: If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

#38

Post by T-A »

Edit: nope, looks like it's this one: "Stepping Stones: Economic Analysis of Space Transportation Supplied From NEO Resources"

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/eso_fin...

---

I think the report in question is "NASA's In Space Manufacturing Initiatives: Conquering the Challenges of In-Space Manufacturing":

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?print=yes&R=20170011108

These may also be interesting:

"NASA's In Space Manufacturing Initiatives: Overview and Update", https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?print=yes&R=20170011109

"Additive Manufacturing for Human Space Exploration", https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?print=yes&R=20170011644

Re: If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

#39

Post by nickik »

Pica_soO wrote: post #17

Because capitalism, as religion while in its optimization frenzy- cripples the ability's of mankind? Reaching the moon already was only done to compete with a faction outside the reference system. Without commies to race and lean against, the western system decayed to just another nice decorated, well managed cotton plantation. There is no price on the far future events, such as bollide strikes. If there where, sudde…

I'm sorry but that is a bunch of nonsense.

> Reaching the moon already was only done to compete with a faction outside the reference system.

Yes, going to the moon had to do with geopolitics but all this stuff about the 'reference system' is nonsense. Any geopolitical opponent could have led to the same result.

> Without commies to race and lean against, the western system decayed to just another nice decorated, well managed cotton plantation.

You are again trying to shoehorn your larged philiosophy about 'modern capitalism' into the argument. First of all it is absolutly clear to anybody with idioligical glasses on that NASA started to perfom less well long before it was clear to most people that the Soviet system was going to collapse.

NASA was young, flexible had lots of budget and thanks to a set of luck circumstances. The reality is that NASA has been burocratiesed and and largly been controlled by congress and presidents trying to use NASA for anything but space exploration.

Non of that has anything to do with the Soviet Union and some problem with 'capitalism'.

> There is no price on the far future events, such as bollide strikes. If there where, suddenly the moon would have holiday resorts.

Just like in democracy things only happen if large numbers of people can support it, neither capitalism nor democracy has done mutch to defend against meteors.

And nowdays it is actually capitalism that is driving the push towards people living of planet.

Re: If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?

#40

Post by dang »

Pica_soO wrote: post #17

Because capitalism, as religion while in its optimization frenzy- cripples the ability's of mankind? Reaching the moon already was only done to compete with a faction outside the reference system. Without commies to race and lean against, the western system decayed to just another nice decorated, well managed cotton plantation. There is no price on the far future events, such as bollide strikes. If there where, sudde…

Would you please not post ideological boilerplate to Hacker News, regardless of which ideology?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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