Having worked on another commercial lunar lander (Intuitive Machine's Nova-C), these things keep me up at night.
Commercial lunar lander presumed lost after moon landing attempt
111–120 of 190 posts
Re: Commercial lunar lander presumed lost after moon landing attempt
#112I am currently reading the gorgeous Folio Society edition of the A Man on the Moon The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts by Andrew Chaikin (worth a buy from https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/a-man-on-the-moon.html if you a) like the topic and b) have 235.00). I just finished the book 1 which ends with well known Apollo 13 disaster and the RCA of the explosion is that the liquid O2 tank for the fuel cell was intended fo…
This all reads like “they were racing to hit deadlines” to me.
Re: Commercial lunar lander presumed lost after moon landing attempt
#113I am currently reading the gorgeous Folio Society edition of the A Man on the Moon The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts by Andrew Chaikin (worth a buy from https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/a-man-on-the-moon.html if you a) like the topic and b) have 235.00). I just finished the book 1 which ends with well known Apollo 13 disaster and the RCA of the explosion is that the liquid O2 tank for the fuel cell was intended fo…
Dropping it 5cm shifted the position of the tube assembly far enough to cause more problems? Why wouldn't that disqualify the part for flight?
Re: Commercial lunar lander presumed lost after moon landing attempt
#114German national/public broadcasting service ARD reported the lunar lander has successfully landed while they watched a rendered animation[0] (from the perspective of the surface of the moon!!). Can't make this shit up. 0. https://pr0gramm.com/top/5662958 (German)
So you’re saying the moon landing was faked?
Re: Commercial lunar lander presumed lost after moon landing attempt
#115Lander, I hardly knew ‘er
Re: Commercial lunar lander presumed lost after moon landing attempt
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're a private company looking to build a mining base station, tourist hotel, or any other thing a private company might want to do, then it's best to get the kinks worked out by practicing with an unmanned lander a few times first
> mining base station What would you be mining on the moon and what for?
If I told you that, I'd break my NDA and lose my job. If you're so curious, go fund your own start up ;-)
I have no idea. One movie suggested H3. Others think mining water ice would be an idea. Others think you can use the regolith to 3D print stuff. I'm not the private company launching lunar landers, but I was just making up hypotheticals on why someone might want to practice landing things on the moon.
Re: Commercial lunar lander presumed lost after moon landing attempt
#117If you wanna see the disappointment in the control room, here is the video:
https://www.youtube.com/live/CpR1UUnix3g?feature=share&t=428...
Scrub to 1:11:20
And at 1:35:33 the folks in the background look like they're holding back tears.
Re: Commercial lunar lander presumed lost after moon landing attempt
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is why I do not understand people who would jump at the chance to live on a permanent Martian or Lunar colony.
Because everyone assumes they'd be an explorer or visionary scientist when they'd most likely just be taking out the trash in a frozen desert.
Indeed. It seems to be somewhat independent of political ideology as well.
There’s a couple screenshots floating around of some old Twitter threads: “what would your role be in a Communist society?” - where virtually every single reply was stuff like “valued author of liberation poetry and group leader of mindfulness sessions”
And then on the other side of the compass, you have the hordes of disaffected single young men glorifying the idealized “working the frontier with a wife and kids”, seemingly unaware/unconcerned that the average experience for young men was to die horribly, alone and unmourned.
Everyone is the main character of their own story, I guess.
Re: Commercial lunar lander presumed lost after moon landing attempt
#119German national/public broadcasting service ARD reported the lunar lander has successfully landed while they watched a rendered animation[0] (from the perspective of the surface of the moon!!). Can't make this shit up. 0. https://pr0gramm.com/top/5662958 (German)
So you’re saying the moon landing was faked?
The US Government tried to get Twentieth Century Fox and other studious involved but they were risk adverse after a series of big budget flops and financial problems. Von Braun's joking suggestion of shooting on location was inexplicably taken up. It would have involved sending six Saturn V moon rockets to moon with flim crews and sets. But due to cost overruns and the run up the Vietnam war it was reduced to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin shooting home movies of each other.
Re: Commercial lunar lander presumed lost after moon landing attempt
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of the things that have improved the human race have been done commercially, and those motivated by profit have done a hundredfold more for humanity than those who were motivated by idealism.
Weird considering idealism got us things like free insulin[1] when none existed, Linux, important things like human rights, democracy etc. [1] https://www.vox.com/2019/4/3/18293950/why-is-insulin-so-expe...
> free insulin[1] when none existed
Um, your reference is about how far from being free insulin is in the US.
> Linux
You think Linus built Linux out of idealism? Or that Linux is maintained at the quality level it has out of idealism?
It is to laugh.