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Apollo astronaut Frank Borman has died

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Re: Apollo astronaut Frank Borman has died

#91

Post by pfdietz »

moffkalast wrote: post #90
pfdietz wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give examples and explain why? BTW, integrated circuits are not such a technology. A general problem with all such claims is establishing that without the space program, the technologies would never have been invented.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies It's a decently long list, though not all of them from Apollo obviously.

Again, the problem with all those is establishing they would not have arisen without NASA.

Another problem is the transition from "NASA was involved with this technology somehow" to "NASA is entirely responsible for this technology".

Behind all this is the presumption that technological advancement is limited by the availability of inventions rather than the availability of markets.

Re: Apollo astronaut Frank Borman has died

#92

Post by ArnoVW »

closewith wrote: post #85
ArnoVW wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

only for retro-grade orbits, meaning you lose the "boost" from the rotation of the earth (in fact, you have to work against it) there's a reason that there are launch sites in French Guiana and Florida.

Where do you think Venezuela is?

ah. serves me right for geeking out during boring meeting. confused it in my head with Colombia. Visited both, should have known better =)

Re: Apollo astronaut Frank Borman has died

#93

Post by Someone »

ArnoVW wrote: post #83
GolfPopper wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Venezuela would make a pretty attractive launch site.

only for retro-grade orbits, meaning you lose the "boost" from the rotation of the earth (in fact, you have to work against it) there's a reason that there are launch sites in French Guiana and Florida.

Venezuela has an eastern coast that, I think, would be suitable for a launch site if you put it south of Trinidad and Tobago.

It’s far from population centers, though (1), so it would require building/growing a city for personnel to live. It also appears to be swampy (not a show stopper, as Florida shows, but not ideal, either), and it has monsoons, so the weather may be a showstopper.

I also would be worried about political stability of the country.

(1) Apple Maps shows Tucupita as about the only thing near that coast. It’s about 100km away and, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucupita has a population of less than 100,000.

Re: Apollo astronaut Frank Borman has died

#94

Post by moffkalast »

pfdietz wrote: post #91
moffkalast wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies It's a decently long list, though not all of them from Apollo obviously.

Again, the problem with all those is establishing they would not have arisen without NASA. Another problem is the transition from "NASA was involved with this technology somehow" to "NASA is entirely responsible for this technology". Behind all this is the presumption that technological advancement is limited by the availability of inventions rather than the availability of markets.

Ah in that respect I'm sure just about all would have been invented eventually, just like aviation or calculus were by different people during the same time period, albeit a lot later and likely tied to a corporation with exclusive rights for 20 years (like FDM 3D printing was for example, which I still kinda consider almost a crime against humanity) instead of being freely available for licensing.

There are a few that are completely space dependant however, like GPS, orbital weather monitoring, communications, satelite imagery, knowledge about other planets, etc. the kind of thing that has space travel as a prerequisite. Before GNSS and satelite maps navigation was pretty much hell, detecting tropical cyclones early and evacuating has certainly saved a lot of lives.

Of course if NASA hadn't done these, then ESA or Roscosmos or whoever would've, but in terms of argument I think we're talking about space agencies in general.

Re: Apollo astronaut Frank Borman has died

#95

Post by sirsinsalot »

ZaoLahma wrote: post #78
heresie-dabord wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is thought-provoking to consider how much the success of the Apollo programme depended on courage as well as other qualities of character : "When Shepard was grounded in October 1963, Grissom and Borman became the prime crew of Gemini 3.[41] Grissom invited Borman to his house to talk to him about the mission, and after a long discussion, decided that he could not work with Borman.[34] According to Gene Cernan, "t…

> ... and after a long discussion, decided that he could not work with Borman. This I wish was (still?) acceptable. It's like somewhere along the way we decided that everyone must be able to cooperate effectively and efficiently with everyone, and largely (do our very best to) ignore all the problems that brings. I've only been at one company where they tried to address this, and actually let us form our own teams. I…

Not working together in a situation where character differences can mean life-or-death in a high-stakes mission that depends on a few souls ...

... is not the same as refusing to work with someone in an office doing low-stakes work.

That said, humans cooperate better when they get along, but the lines are in totally different places and the degree to which character differences matter in those two settings is radically different too.

Assembling a team, I would take care to pick people who get along, just to lower day-to-day friction. But if two people can't leave some of their emotional baggage at the door to write some code ... well, they need help frankly.

The office isn't and shouldn't be a high enough stress environment that character flaws are involuntarily amplified, therefore different rules of thumb apply.

Be an adult.

Re: Apollo astronaut Frank Borman has died

#96

Post by novalis78 »

somenameforme wrote: post #61
chihuahua wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense; if you want to build a lunar base, you gotta have Venezuela and Azerbaijan on your team, otherwise it's basically futile.

In living memory of most of us, China was just a deeply impoverished nation known for little more than exporting cheap unreliable crap. Any achievement they did make was framed as being stolen from somebody else. Yet now, their successes in space, industry, science, and technology are completely taken for granted. Funny how quickly things change! The status quo of the world is constantly shifting. Those nations which…

Aehm… living memory of an impoverished nation that didn’t export anything else than propaganda - not even cheap crap yet. It’s been incredible to watch Capitalism and hard work rescue and empower a nation that was literally completely destroyed by communism in the past 50 years.

Re: Apollo astronaut Frank Borman has died

#97

Post by tekla »

Shawnj2 wrote: post #74
szundi wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe one could just decide that concrete blocks and debris can be collected any time int the future from a field area and just allow it to launch

The bigger issue is that part of the reason why Starship didn’t make it to orbit is because debris from the launch pad being destroyed was kicked back into the engines.

There was never any evidence of that. Starship failed because a internal fuel leak causing a fire.

Re: Apollo astronaut Frank Borman has died

#98

Post by ZaoLahma »

sirsinsalot wrote: post #95
ZaoLahma wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... and after a long discussion, decided that he could not work with Borman. This I wish was (still?) acceptable. It's like somewhere along the way we decided that everyone must be able to cooperate effectively and efficiently with everyone, and largely (do our very best to) ignore all the problems that brings. I've only been at one company where they tried to address this, and actually let us form our own teams. I…

Not working together in a situation where character differences can mean life-or-death in a high-stakes mission that depends on a few souls ... ... is not the same as refusing to work with someone in an office doing low-stakes work. That said, humans cooperate better when they get along, but the lines are in totally different places and the degree to which character differences matter in those two settings is radical…

> Be an adult.

Funny. That was the EXACT advice / instruction we got from management when I was in such a team. It had already been going on for years when I went there, to the point where half of the team (the ones not involved in the clashes) rotated out on a yearly basis.

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