seems like we don't have any active or planned missions to land on the moon anymore. bummer. (happy to be proven wrong) https://www.nasa.gov/missions/?terms=10828%2C10873%2C10900%2...
NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon
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Re: NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon
#12450M just for building the robot seems a bit steep; its not like they're actually getting it to the moon for that price. How much cheaper is it than just sending 3 dudes in a tin can to just dig the holes themselves? Edit: I guess NASA says manned missions will cost billions. Still seems like half a billion is a lot for a glorified DJI drone thats only gotta make it to the moon lol. Regardless, money spent towards an…
The risk of losing 3 dudes is greater than $450m.
You're probably right in this specific example, or at least you're probably in-line with NASA's leadership's thinking.
I am willing to bet that other parts of society (e.g. traffic planners and automobile manufacturers) have a much lower cost of human life.
Re: NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon
#13450M just for building the robot seems a bit steep; its not like they're actually getting it to the moon for that price. How much cheaper is it than just sending 3 dudes in a tin can to just dig the holes themselves? Edit: I guess NASA says manned missions will cost billions. Still seems like half a billion is a lot for a glorified DJI drone thats only gotta make it to the moon lol. Regardless, money spent towards an…
The risk of losing 3 dudes is greater than $450m.
People put valuations on lives all the time in risk analysis and I've never seen a cost even close to $100m.
DOT puts it at 13.2m: https://www.transportation.gov/office-policy/transportation-...
Re: NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon
#14I'm all for avoiding sunk-cost thinking, but considering that nearly half a billion was spent on this thing and its launch was barely a year away, it's hard to wrap my head around scrapping it entirely. From the lost talent alone, this seems catastrophic - why would any of the country's best engineers want to work on ambitious NASA projects when they can be rug-pulled so close to completion? Also, where's the account…
Not entirely on NASA, Congress slashed their budget causing a -$500M hole, with future years budget not looking to fare much better so they had to make some tough decisions. Sounds like other missions in the same program are going to pick up VIPER's objectives though.
Re: NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon
#15seems like we don't have any active or planned missions to land on the moon anymore. bummer. (happy to be proven wrong) https://www.nasa.gov/missions/?terms=10828%2C10873%2C10900%2...
Artemis III will land on the moon (not before 2027 though).
Maybe faster if someone has an old spare Gameboy to lend to them.
Re: NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon
#16450M just for building the robot seems a bit steep; its not like they're actually getting it to the moon for that price. How much cheaper is it than just sending 3 dudes in a tin can to just dig the holes themselves? Edit: I guess NASA says manned missions will cost billions. Still seems like half a billion is a lot for a glorified DJI drone thats only gotta make it to the moon lol. Regardless, money spent towards an…
You're paying for provably guaranteed reliability.
When you're paying billions per rocket launch, you simply can't afford to have your robot break down on day 1 because of a software bug or because a component was accidently installed upside down.
(Also, "only gotta make it to the moon" makes it sound like that's a trivial task. There's a lot to unpack in that small sentence.)
Re: NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
The risk of losing 3 dudes is greater than $450m.
People put valuations on lives all the time in risk analysis and I've never seen a cost even close to $100m. DOT puts it at 13.2m: https://www.transportation.gov/office-policy/transportation-...
Finding someone who agrees to go to the moon with a risk of 1 out 2 of dying, and 1 of 2 of becoming a historical hero is really doable.
Plenty of volunteers, and no need for 100M USD.
People go to war for less than 50K USD.
Re: NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon
#18450M just for building the robot seems a bit steep; its not like they're actually getting it to the moon for that price. How much cheaper is it than just sending 3 dudes in a tin can to just dig the holes themselves? Edit: I guess NASA says manned missions will cost billions. Still seems like half a billion is a lot for a glorified DJI drone thats only gotta make it to the moon lol. Regardless, money spent towards an…
I think you underestimate the engineering complexity a bit of these rovers :)
Re: NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
The risk of losing 3 dudes is greater than $450m.
You're probably right in this specific example, or at least you're probably in-line with NASA's leadership's thinking. I am willing to bet that other parts of society (e.g. traffic planners and automobile manufacturers) have a much lower cost of human life.
For NASA the cost of dead people includes bad PR
Re: NASA cancels $450M mission to drill for ice on the Moon
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
The risk of losing 3 dudes is greater than $450m.
People put valuations on lives all the time in risk analysis and I've never seen a cost even close to $100m. DOT puts it at 13.2m: https://www.transportation.gov/office-policy/transportation-...
Astronauts are very visible deaths for politicians whose currency is points in the polls. Having your photo not show up on the news next to a photo of a dead square-jawed captain america astronaut is probably worth 100m of other peoples money.