121–130 of 138 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Artemis goes on as planned, hopefully you'll just have to hold on at least a few more years!
Considering the moon landing craft they've chosen is one that hasn't even reached space, I'd adjust your outlook to "decades."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Artemis goes on as planned, hopefully you'll just have to hold on at least a few more years!
Has anything about Artemis occurred as planned? Why would we be silly enough to expect it to start now?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Much of humanity depends on the US. You save the US, you save the world.
Oh, Please. Don't put the US on a pedestal. There is a shitload of issues that the US needs to fix and a little humility in accepting that others have better solutions, is one of them.
Apollo 8 was the greatest of all the Apollo missions. The greatest leap into the unknown with the greatest number of unknowns! For me, Borman and his crewmates never quite got the kudos they deserved. A true loss.
During the Apollo 1 investigation, he said something that suck with me when thinking of begrudging users who are willing to look past faults for utility: "There's no question that it was a coffin, and I'd have flown it gladly."
This reminded me too of Jim Lovell's reaction when they switched the Apollo 8 plan at "the last minute" to actually be the first TLI mission. Something about the way he tells it, and just the sheer (and apparently extremely genuine) reaction of awe, wonder, excitement, mixed with a seeming complete lack of worry, concern, self-preservation instinct, just kinda signals to me those guys were just built different.
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.
Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/893/ Looks like about 7 years until the expected number of moon walkers drops below 1.0.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Much of humanity depends on the US. You save the US, you save the world.
Oh, Please. Don't put the US on a pedestal. There is a shitload of issues that the US needs to fix and a little humility in accepting that others have better solutions, is one of them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When were obits ever free? The family typically paid to run an obit in the paper. I can't imagine why it would be any different. After that, people had to pay $0.25 to $2.00 for the paper to see them.
Newspapers used to cost a lot less than $0.25 and the ones still printed today tend to cost more than $2.
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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.
This is one of the biggest advantages of spending lots of money on ambitious projects. It has the potential to creates a market where none currently exists, because the market doesn't realize there is potential. Also, there are situations where the barriers to entry are so high, and the potential risk so great, that no private investment would likely have ever done it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Considering the moon landing craft they've chosen is one that hasn't even reached space, I'd adjust your outlook to "decades."
I have something to tell you about literally the Apollo program (October 27, 1961 -> December 19, 1972)
Today just development of the SLS has been going for as long as the 11 years of Apollo program. We have exactly one uncrewed test launch to show for it, with another not planned for 24 months later (next November) and a landing looking like 2028 at the earliest and no reason to think it won't be delayed.