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Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

cnn.com

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Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#21

Post by tombert »

SoftTalker wrote: post #18
tombert wrote: post #8

Hell yeah! It would be very cool if we are able to properly colonize the moon in my lifetime. Even if we don't have humans living there like in Futurama (as cool as that would be), it would be unbelievably cool if we have constant back-and-forth trips to the moon. Or we could just blow it up, which might be fun in its own right: https://youtu.be/GTJ3LIA5LmA

There is no reason for humans to ever return to the moon. The cost and risks are not justified. Drones and robots can do anything that needs to be done. They don’t need to breathe, they don’t need to sleep, or eat.

I think it would be cool, and I don't know that I care if there's a "reason" to do it other than "human achievement".

I mean, there wasn't really a "reason" to go to the moon in the 60's either. I think I more or less agree with JFK on this:

"Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, 'Because it is there'. Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it"

I could try and find a lot of justifications about medical research or something, and those might be cool, but it would be dishonest if I pitched those as a "reason" to go, because I would want us to return even if those reasons weren't there.

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#22

Post by jjk166 »

consumer451 wrote: post #6
nothrowaways wrote: post #5

“Firefly is literally and figuratively over the Moon,”

I really like "Our Blue Ghost lunar lander now has a permanent home on the lunar surface..." It's rare that usage of word "permanent" has this close to an accurate meaning. Complete development of the moon's surface aside, what are the factors what will destroy it? Solar and cosmic radiation? What timescale are we talking about here?

The're a surprisingly high flux of micrometeoroid impacts at the lunar surface. Most of these are too small to do much damage, but there will probably be measurable erosion in centuries and genuine damage within about 1 million years. The timeline for it to be destroyed/completely broken down is much longer.

For context, there's roughly a 50% chance of an astronaut being hit by a micrometeoroid large enough to kill them every 1.3 million years of time spent on the moon's surface. There's roughly a 50% chance of a square meter of the moon being hit by a micrometeoroid equavalent to 3 kg on TNT in a billion years.

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#23

Post by agentkilo »

Congrats to everyone involved!

I planned to watch the live stream but wasn't able to. The moment of successful landing was quite modest, only a mostly-static screen with telemetrics was shown to the public, but it absolutely felt magical. It feels like the moon is well within humankind's reach by now.

Coincidentally, I found a copy of Uchu Kyodai (by Chuya Koyama) in my local library, and started reading it recently. It's fun to compare the perspectives from more than a decade ago, to the actual development we have right now, regarding space exploration.

(This was posted to another thread, but I moved it here after I realized comments were moved)

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#25

Post by koolala »

inamberclad wrote: post #13

As a former Intuitive Machines employee, I feel obligated to correct the title! IM-1 landed on the moon last February and although it didn't stay upright, it was still operational and returned some decent scientific data.

It was flipped upside-down like a Turtle?

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#26

Post by scubatubafuba »

agentkilo wrote: post #23

Congrats to everyone involved! I planned to watch the live stream but wasn't able to. The moment of successful landing was quite modest, only a mostly-static screen with telemetrics was shown to the public, but it absolutely felt magical. It feels like the moon is well within humankind's reach by now. Coincidentally, I found a copy of Uchu Kyodai (by Chuya Koyama) in my local library, and started reading it recently.…

> It feels like the moon is well within humankind's reach by now.

It has been for the last 65 years. ;)

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#30

Post by Salgat »

SoftTalker wrote: post #18
tombert wrote: post #8

Hell yeah! It would be very cool if we are able to properly colonize the moon in my lifetime. Even if we don't have humans living there like in Futurama (as cool as that would be), it would be unbelievably cool if we have constant back-and-forth trips to the moon. Or we could just blow it up, which might be fun in its own right: https://youtu.be/GTJ3LIA5LmA

There is no reason for humans to ever return to the moon. The cost and risks are not justified. Drones and robots can do anything that needs to be done. They don’t need to breathe, they don’t need to sleep, or eat.

Robotics is unfortunately not there yet, unless we plan to send everything there fully assembled with zero maintenance ever. Unless you mean purely for basic exploration.
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