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Dear Moon

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Re: Dear Moon

#91

Post by wilsonnb3 »

rubicon33 wrote: post #84
wilsonnb3 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nelson Mandela? Barack Obama? Martin Luther King Jr? Neil Armstrong? Bill Gates? Stephen Hawking? Steve Jobs? Rosa Parks? Elon would be lucky to make the top ten.

Seriously, Barack Obama? I'm neither republican, not democrat, but you've got to be kidding me with that recommendation. He was a politician, through and through. Yes, the first black one, but aside from that he presented very little that was materially difference from previous politicians. Just being first at something, given the random nature of the universe, isn't enough to wow me. Your ability to make things happ…

> isn't enough to wow me

I wasn't creating a list of people that wow you, or even a list of people that wow me.

The metric was "how many people did this person inspire in a positive way?" and Barack Obama undeniably did that by being the first black POTUS.

Re: Dear Moon

#92

Post by bhhaskin »

rsync wrote: post #75
komali2 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those missing the reference: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ben_Affleck Ben Affleck, talking to Michael Bay about the movie Armageddon, in which oil drillers are sent to an asteroid to drill a hole in it, drop a nuclear bomb into the hole, and then detonate that bomb: >I asked Michael (Bay) why it was easier to train oil drillers to become astronauts than it was to train astronauts to become oil drillers. He told…

It really is worth your time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ahtp0sjA5U

Thanks for sharing! It was pretty good.

Re: Dear Moon

#93

Post by yesenadam »

adtac wrote: post #8
consz wrote: post #5

Wouldn't it be easier to train astronauts to be artists than to train artists to be astronauts?

Can you even train artistic talent? Doesn't it require a natural gift that you're born with? Not to belittle astronauts, but space travel training is more teachable than true art.

Can you even train artistic talent? Doesn't it require a natural gift that you're born with?

(musician/artist here) I don't believe in 'talent' or 'gifts', and I don't believe art/music, like a lot of things, is something you can teach (mostly). You can learn it, but you can't teach it. (Botvinnik - founder of the 'Russian School of Chess' (!) - said that about chess, I keep seeing people in different fields saying that.)

You learn it by doing it. A lot. And learning from what you love, e.g. the greats in your field. And you won't do that day after day for decades unless you really love doing it. No-one else knows what you should be working on, or what you love. Everyone's bad at anything when they start. I hear a lot of people saying they wished they played flute (or something), but they're not talented. That myth does a lot of harm. I tell them, well, just start!. It's all anyone can do. Art is essentially about doing your own thing, not willfully, but following what your nature dictates. 'You' don't create it; it just flows out of you.

So I'd also think that space travel training is more teachable than art, for different reasons.

A (probably apocryphal) story: ...a woman once came up to Fritz Kreisler after one of his concerts and said to him, “I’d give my life to play as beautifully as you do.” To which Kreisler replied, “I did.”

One's own path. - If we take the decisive step and enter upon the path which is called our 'own path', a secret is suddenly revealed to us: all those who have hitherto been our friends and familiars have imagined themselves superior to us, and are now offended. The best of them are lenient with us and wait patiently for us soon to find our way back to the 'right path' - they know, it seems, what the right path is... - Nietzsche, Daybreak, 484

Re: Dear Moon

#94

Post by maxander »

Impressive- it's a sample-return mission. Sending up cameras to capture photons or sample enclosures to capture bits of dirt is too pedestrian for SpaceX. Instead they'll send up artists to capture samples of space-ness, to be studied by humanity back on Earth.

Re: Dear Moon

#95

Post by askafriend »

tomcam wrote: post #87
askafriend wrote: post #4

Honestly, this is beautiful. Let's fucking do it. No seriously...let's do it. We're humans - this is the kind of funny, beautiful, impossible stuff we can uniquely do. Capital allocation? Bleh, don't be so boring and uninspired!

How much of your capital do you plan to allocate? And do you plan to allocate any of mine (i.e., the taxpayer)?

I think the technology and learning that will come out of this will be more than worth the cost. It's short sighted to only consider the immediate ROI. A substantial portion of development is also currently being funded by a private citizen (approx $1.5B of the final cost).

And honestly, humanity could use a sense of humor sometimes. We spent trillions going to war in just the past 2 decades when we could have spent a couple billion doing seemingly impossible projects like this. Projects like this also provide jobs and have the added benefit of directing our efforts into something far more useful and far less disastrous than something like war.

Re: Dear Moon

#96

Post by tern »

colordrops wrote: post #85
tern wrote: post #74

What a shame that such a unique opportunity is wasted on such a mediocre curator. This nouveau-rich collector could have sent a curator of renown in his place rather than making the project all about himself. Aside from the fact that he obviously lacks experience or any actual taste, it's widely considered unacceptable for any curator to highlight themselves in their work in this way. The exhibition is and should be…

How do you know that he isn't going to have a renown creator help select the artists? Furthermore, there is plenty of evidence that singular profound experiences can drive the creation of art or change the nature of an artist's future work. Your cynicism is not much different from those that complain that the immense resources spent by engineers at SpaceX could better go to helping the impoverished. I don't think it…

> How do you know that he isn't going to have a renown creator help select the artists?

He has already done half the job by framing the entire project (around himself). Involving a curator would mean allowing them to frame the project around the practices of the actual artists involved.

> Your cynicism is not much different from those that complain that the immense resources spent by engineers at SpaceX could better go to helping the impoverished.

My position would be more analogous to someone arguing that it's a shame people don't use the service offered by SpaceX to attempt more ambitious projects.

> Furthermore, there is plenty of evidence that singular profound experiences can drive the creation of art or change the nature of an artist's future work.

I did not contradict this.

With regard to an "ivory tower team," I'm just a bit surprised you would think that any competent curator would necessarily be comparable to elitist academics. In actual practice, the kind of respected artists and curators I have in mind are habitually humble and thoughtful people.

Re: Dear Moon

#97

Post by basicplus2 »

tomcam wrote: post #87
askafriend wrote: post #4

Honestly, this is beautiful. Let's fucking do it. No seriously...let's do it. We're humans - this is the kind of funny, beautiful, impossible stuff we can uniquely do. Capital allocation? Bleh, don't be so boring and uninspired!

How much of your capital do you plan to allocate? And do you plan to allocate any of mine (i.e., the taxpayer)?

Essentially pretty much most of it.. tax deductions cost you more of your own money to pay for higher profit margins on privatised services and on lost maintenance on public infrastructure, and so you are definitely paying for it..

Re: Dear Moon

#98

Post by robertAngst »

daeken wrote: post #2

This may go down in history as the most amazing (and maybe most expensive) art project of all time. I am just flabbergasted; this is astounding. I sincerely hope that the BFR comes to fruition in the way SpaceX has been billing it, and reasonably close in terms of timeline.

Its an Elon project?

1 in 10 odds it happens?

Re: Dear Moon

#99

Post by hiccuphippo »

consz wrote: post #5

Wouldn't it be easier to train astronauts to be artists than to train artists to be astronauts?

Are they really training to be astronauts though? I understand training for the physical endurance they'll need but they'll be passengers not pilots.

Re: Dear Moon

#100

Post by markdown »

adtac wrote: post #28
zherbert wrote: post #25

This guy is only worth $3B, he may be spending half of his entire net worth to make this happen. I hope he inspires the richest billionaires of the world to fund such lofty ventures.

$10M-$20M is more than sufficient for a few generations (in a 100-200 years, our current understanding of the concept of money might not even be relevant, so it's pointless to plan for anything more than that). Anything more is just throwaway cash IMO. If you had the opportunity to become the first private citizen to go to the moon, you'd be stupid to not cement your legacy like that.

> If you had the opportunity to become the first private citizen to go to the moon, you'd be stupid to not cement your legacy like that.

He decided to share the trip, so he won't be "the first private citizen", merely "one of the first private citizens".

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