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NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

cnn.com

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Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#741

Post by scrubs »

rayiner wrote: post #587
Waterluvian wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: 1. I think the America of Theseus mindset is a bit troubling. A lot of people like to identify with achievements that they played no role in. Based on zero expertise whatsoever, I have a sense that this is a bit self defeating. To be born a winner, to be taught you’re a winner… how can that be healthy? Today’s America scores zero points for its accomplishments of the past. But I think one way it can be a good thi…

My first job out of law school was at a 176 year old law firm. New lawyers were socialized to identify with the past achievements of the firm, like helping J.P. Morgan build the railroads. There was a good reason for that: it socializes people to adhere to a culture and practices that have proven to be effective. You’re right that, if overdone, it can lead to complacency. But if you treat every generation as a blank…

Totally agree: esp when films are old and ongoing there's got to be some good there to be lifted and internalized. Why start at zero and relearn burning out customers or staff. And I like how you are wary because complacency is the net normal background drift for orgs.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#742

Post by anarticle »

alistairSH wrote: post #476
heavyset_go wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The electronics we're typing these comments on were only rapidly miniaturized originally to be small and light enough to shoot into space. There are second, third, etc order effects to things like a space race.

Sure. So let’s do something useful and new. We know how to go to the moon - it’s just a matter of money (and political will). If there’s something else to do on the moon, let’s be clear that is the objective.

I would like to point out it is not a sure thing, rockets explode all the time. It is fantastically dangerous.

The matter of factness of the shuttle shows how good the program was, but we still had two explode completely.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#743

Post by contrarian1234 »

oreally wrote: post #735
contrarian1234 wrote: post #719

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do the Chinese view this as a race...? I've seen no indication that they see it in these terms. They've been pretty low-key about their progress. To me it looks like the US obsession with reframe everything in terms of a "new cold war". From the US perspective, in end you look stupid if you lose, and you look stupid if you just spend a ton of money to repeat what you did last time

In world history, it's a common case that the number 1 is always inclined to stay at number 1 while beating down would-be contenders. China has always been insular, and they don't think about space glories that much at the moment. It would take a couple more generations for them to care about something like that.

I just think it's about framing.

"Glory" can exist without comparing yourself to others. When they built the three-gorges dam they probably weren't thinking "our dam is better than those American dams". It's just impressive in its own right

They can be working on going to space without constantly bringing out the proverbial measuring tape to compare themselves to the US.

I'm not totally in the loop with the Chinese zeitgeist, so my post was a genuine question. Maybe they are comparing, maybe not. Both seem sensible reactions

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#744

Post by eru »

zdragnar wrote: post #630
eru wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting people eg born after 1980 footed the bill for the Apollo programme?

To the extent that the government runs on debt, that's something of a given.

Debt just shifts resources around in the present, but can't magic new resources into existence.

(Unless you borrow from foreigners, which taps resources from outside the country that later have to be paid back. But I'm not sure the Apollo programme was financed with foreign loans?)

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#745

Post by scrubs »

allenrb wrote: post #373

There is just so much wrong with this from start to finish. Here are a few things, by no means inclusive: 1. We’ve already beaten China to the moon by 56 years, 3 months, and some change. And counting. 2. Nothing based around SLS is remotely serious. The cost and timeline of doing anything with it are unreasonable. It is an absolute dead-end. The SpaceX Super Heavy has been more capable arguably as early as the secon…

The first time I ran into $ spent on manned missions v. space craft i was reflexively of course manned. That ended around Hubble (ok granted fixed by astronauts). I think better science is through robots to jupiter's moons, the next Webb, cosmolgy or dark matter experiments with probes, ligo in space etc. Going to the moon ... not feeling it ... even as a by way to mars

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#746

Post by jb1991 »

hinkley wrote: post #739
jb1991 wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so?

He wears high heels, he skips and jumps, he likes to press wildflowers. He puts on women’s clothing and hangs around in bars.

I’m confused who you are referring to.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#747

Post by amrocha »

zdragnar wrote: post #497
Waterluvian wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: 1. I think the America of Theseus mindset is a bit troubling. A lot of people like to identify with achievements that they played no role in. Based on zero expertise whatsoever, I have a sense that this is a bit self defeating. To be born a winner, to be taught you’re a winner… how can that be healthy? Today’s America scores zero points for its accomplishments of the past. But I think one way it can be a good thi…

America cannot possibly win the space race again, because it has already been won. The first to get there has already happened. The idea that we need to land on the moon once a generation just to say that we are as good at landing on the moon as our parents is absurd.

The USA lost the space race by every measure.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#748

Post by dash2 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #737
allenrb wrote: post #373

There is just so much wrong with this from start to finish. Here are a few things, by no means inclusive: 1. We’ve already beaten China to the moon by 56 years, 3 months, and some change. And counting. 2. Nothing based around SLS is remotely serious. The cost and timeline of doing anything with it are unreasonable. It is an absolute dead-end. The SpaceX Super Heavy has been more capable arguably as early as the secon…

This whole “race to the moon, part II” is almost criminally stupid. Land on the moon when we can accomplish something there, not just to prove we haven’t lost our mojo since Apollo. Not as criminally stupid as resting on our laurels and frittering away all the technical knowledge which we are now relearning the hard way. 'I can't think of things to do on the moon, therefore it's a waste of time' is an asinine argumen…

Going to the moon isn't like weightlifting! If you need to preserve the technical knowledge, write it down. (Or record it in other ways if you think writing is limited.)

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#749

Post by [deleted] »

georgeecollins wrote: post #640
testing22321 wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Literally every other nation is trying to catch up to Space-X and is nowhere close. An American company, based in American, primarily staffed by American engineers The whole point of this article, and the NASA admin steps to open up the contract and all of Berger’s recent reporting is that it’s almost a certainty China will beat the US back to the moon.

It is already too bad that the US's plan to get to the moon was so flawed that it has been delayed again and again and money was wasted. Let's imagine that China puts people on the moon next year in a method similar to the way the US did it in 1969 (but probably better in some ways). They still are mostly doing something that has been done before by the USA. In that same year, the USA will probably continue to launch…

[deleted]

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#750

Post by bruce511 »

mrheosuper wrote: post #668
skeeter2020 wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Apple didn't recreate the same mobile handset as Motorola or anybody else. There is very little value or scientific benefit in going back to the moon within the parameters of this mission; it's literally "do the same thing again".

What do you mean "the same thing"? Different rocket, different suits, and different budget. If we want to put people on Mars, we must prove we can put people on Moon, again.

Putting people on Mars US equally useless. Any colony on Mars would require enormous support from Earth. It would never be self-suffient.

Mars would need water, air, energy, raw materials, fuel and everything else for (basically) ever.

There is zero to be gained (here) from a Mars colony. Mars lacks a magnetic field, air to breath, water to drink or cultivate crops, a temperature suitable for plant or animal life, fuel sources to build industry, supply chains for the construction or maintainence of the simplest electrical systems.

Talk of Mars is purely a PR play. Someone will be first. Yay. But Mars will play no part in Earth's future.

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