111–120 of 138 posts
I think there are now only eight men still alive that flew to the moon and only four that walked on it. I hope there'll be some still alive to see the next person walk on the moon.
I have no idea what physical shape Aldrin is in these days at 90 years old, but it's really interesting to think if he holds out another few years, he might be able to return if there's any realistic chance he could withstand the g forces and zero gravity.
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I'm nowhere near the age of an Apollo astronaut, and I hope I'm alive to see the next person on the moon.
If Artemis goes on as planned, hopefully you'll just have to hold on at least a few more years!
Michael Collins—who was bumped from Apollo 8 due to a medical issue and of course ended up flying Apollo 11 instead—became increasingly convinced with time that it was Apollo 8, more so than 11, that represented the true landmark in human history. Apollo 11 was when we first arrived somewhere new, yes, but it was Apollo 8 when we first dared to venture out into the dark. For the first time we surrendered the ability…
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> Any achievement they did make was... stolen from somebody else. Yet now their successes in space, industry, science, and technology are completely taken for granted. The two aren't necessarily in contradiction, you may note. Do we have reliable evidence showing Chinese IP theft has slowed? Many nations "bootstrap" internal industry with organized mass IP theft. The US extensively (and quite intentionally) stole fro…
Besides the often quoted IP stealing from GB, there are also more recent examples. At the end of WWII, not only the Soviet Union has moved piece by piece many industrial factories from Germany to Russia, but also USA and GB have "stolen" massive amounts of IP from the occupied Germany. One of the most notorious cases in how the American industry of making magnetic tape recorders (e.g. Ampex) and of making magnetic ta…
They've made a lot of progress but still lag behind in these fundamental areas, for example bulk, precise fabrication of exotic materials for more complex items (jet engines). There is an enormous gap between having the specifics of the design and implementing it effectively when it comes to advanced fabs. There is a bit of 'arcane magic' to it unfortunately.
>I do not believe that sabotaging the Chinese companies that were on the brink to take most of the market share from US companies like Qualcomm and Micron has been the right strategy for counteracting the Chinese threat.
I knew a lawyer in DC who was part of a defense team for a US aerospace company accused of assisting China with their missile and space program. Among the things he learned were: 1) China is working pretty hard on improving its technology without necessarily relying on tech transfers (although they still at the time required certain Western machining tools), 2) sincerely concerned US members of Congress have no understanding of the technologies involved so they messed it all up and 3) there are many who are not so sincere and are just grandstanding and most importantly 4) it's never going to be a matter of stopping China's progress, just a matter of saying a couple of years ahead of them (ie. does it matter if they have 7nm chips when we have been using them for a decade already?)
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No, we need those benefits for the whole of humanity.
Much of humanity depends on the US. You save the US, you save the world.
Michael Collins—who was bumped from Apollo 8 due to a medical issue and of course ended up flying Apollo 11 instead—became increasingly convinced with time that it was Apollo 8, more so than 11, that represented the true landmark in human history. Apollo 11 was when we first arrived somewhere new, yes, but it was Apollo 8 when we first dared to venture out into the dark. For the first time we surrendered the ability…
Michael Collins was also CAPCOM (capsule communicator - the one who was actually talking to the astronauts) when they initiated TLI (translunar injection - leaving earth's orbit for the first time). He was the one who said "Apollo 8, go for TLI".
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JAXA and ESA (among others) are part of the Artemis program's human spaceflight component.
I didn't realize that. NASA really needs to fix their PR department. Highlighting international cooperation with Japan, UK, Germany, France, etc is a massive PR coup Edit: they signed the Artemis Accords, not part of the Artemis Program
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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…
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Fix the immigration system
We don't necessarily need to do that. We just need less anti-intellectualism and to reduce the power/influence of the religious right in the US.
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I'm nowhere near the age of an Apollo astronaut, and I hope I'm alive to see the next person on the moon.
If Artemis goes on as planned, hopefully you'll just have to hold on at least a few more years!