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I don't know why you're getting downvoted. The camera work was atrocious. It's not just frilly video, it's how the world sees it, emotionally connects to it, and grows up loving it, and wanting to support more. We had black screens as it left the pad, they didn't know what camera to switch to and kept changing feeds every 2-3 seconds, they switched to a grainy feed of the crowd just looking up while booster separatio…
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Rather unfortunate timing that the original Apollo moon landing also happened in the middle of the Vietnam War.
Honestly, that coincidence was NOT lost on me. Part of me finds it inappropriate to do the two things at once. Advancement in scientific knowledge being somewhat at odds with blowing up one of the oldest civilizations in the World.
I do hope the doomers who think that the entire US government has been completely gutted will take note of this. The government workforce is in a bad spot for sure, SLS is far from a perfect program, but this still demonstrates that we are doing some real work still.
While the current administration has multiple areas of improvement and isnt really taking feedback in an adult manner, the federal workforce has some of the most competent people working for it inside certain parts of the organization. im thinking especially of NASA and NASA JPL.
Of course this is a drop in the bucket, the entire science research apparatus of the United States is being burned to the ground[2]. This administration is doing to the future of scientific research what the Mongols did to Baghdad.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/climate/nasa-goddard-libr...
[2] https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-026-00088-9/index.ht...
watched this with teary eyes. it truly shows what we can do when we come together and challenge ourselves for the greater good of humanity.
A real bright spot compared to lately. The messages of positivity and comradery in the live stream were a nice contrast (That being said, I can't believe they cut to people on the ground during SRB separation!) edit: here's better footage from Everyday Astronaut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOsSRRBMNoc&t=24512s
I do hope the doomers who think that the entire US government has been completely gutted will take note of this. The government workforce is in a bad spot for sure, SLS is far from a perfect program, but this still demonstrates that we are doing some real work still.
I have a really hard time telling if this is despite the current administration’s best efforts, because the current administration’s policies, or just an artifact of government inertia. Top level: Super excited to witness this in my lifetime. Edit: Also, my 40 years of life leads me towards the latter category.
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> if we go all the way in and establish permanent economic activity and eventually settlements in the space near Earth and beyond. Could you please explain exactly how these would help to stop war and inequality? As far as I can tell, space exploration is going to exacerbate inequality, for example, by making Elon Musk even more obscenely wealthy than he already is.
Is the problem inequality or rather poverty ? Because those are not the same thing. What we've done in space has absolutely helped with poverty. It makes weather forecasts possible, which helps even the poorest farmers. This can happen at the same time a handful of people become obscenely wealthy from it. Though in Musk's case, I suspect the wealth is a bubble which will pop before he can cash out more than 8% of it.
According to the OP, inequality: "Regardless of whether this particular mission is perfectly planned, this is precisely the kind of thing that will help humanity outgrow the dark age of war, inequality and climate mismanagement."
> What we've done in space has absolutely helped with poverty. It makes weather forecasts possible, which helps even the poorest farmers.
Are you talking about manned Moon missions or unmanned Earth-orbiting satellites? To use your own words, those are not the same thing.
In any case, poverty is a policy decision, a refusal to redistribute the wealth.
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Same. I watched Apollo 11 launch in 1969 when I was four. Watched on our neighbor's TV. We didn't have one. Imagine what we could accomplish if we didn't suck.
sending people to the moon was never useful. We can get more done with robots, both cheaper and safer. There are plenty of more useful things we can do instead. okay what is more useful is a matter of opinion. you can disagree, but I stand by it
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> we lowered safety standards to just launch Aren’t they still well above anything in the history of human space flight? We keep treating these systems in popular discourse as airliners. They’re not. They’re experimental craft. With mass production maybe SpaceX can bring launch closer to general aviation. But the notion that any loss of life is intolerable is (a) unsustainably expensive and (b) not a view shared by t…
They aren’t in the same magnitude as F9 and Dragon to ISS, so no. I question if they are as safe as the shuttle (final computed risk 1:90).
Fair enough. For a heat-shield discussion I guess we should talk about higher-energy missions. But conceded. LEO has normalized safe space travel.