Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Doesn't Anybody Realize We're Going Back to the Moon?

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 162 posts

Re: Why Doesn't Anybody Realize We're Going Back to the Moon?

#111

Post by dingaling »

Gagarin1917 wrote: post #67
palata wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the comparison is not what people think about Apollo 11 right now , but what they thought back then . Back then, it was a big event that made the news worldwide. Artemis II launched yesterday, and my non-engineer relatives and friends don't even know it happened (they don't even know it was planned).

It WAS global news, I assure you. Every major news agency and local news channels talked about it. People don’t get their “news” from news agencies anymore, though. They get it from their social media algorithms, and if they have no prior interest in anything space or tangential to space, they won’t get news about it. And if they did hear about it, it probably didn’t connect whatsoever, and their brain filled it away…

I disagree, I work with a bunch of Gen Zs who live in TikTok and talk in meme-slang, and several of them stayed up late to watch the launch.

They're not anyway interested in spaceflight but they still got the news

Re: Why Doesn't Anybody Realize We're Going Back to the Moon?

#112

Post by desertrider12 »

palata wrote: post #61
autoexec wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought I'd heard they'd already made changes to the heat shield after the last failure. Hopefully whatever they learn from this trip will be useful for their next one.

So they made a first real test with Artemis I, and it was deemed unsafe because of the heat shield. So they modified the heat shield and didn't bother making a real test with it. "Move fast and break things", I guess? Sure, they tested it on the ground. But that's what they did for Artemis I, and we know how successful that was.

According to the article [0] that's been making the rounds, NASA didn't make any changes to Artemis 2's heat shield after getting data from 1's re-entry. NASA did change the trajectory for 2, and they made the compound "less permeable" but that change was made before 1 flew.

[0] https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly....>

Re: Why Doesn't Anybody Realize We're Going Back to the Moon?

#114

Post by siliconpotato »

1) nobody's landing on the moon this time

2) the article was an awful piece of hype, that felt like it was sponsored by the Whitehouse.

3) it's hard to see beyond the US imperialism that hangs heavy over space missions. Trump said "the US is winning in space" and he summed up the intent here

4) I might be a nerd but I really don't get the excitement from my fellow nerds. I wonder if they are simply taken in by the hype machine

Re: Why Doesn't Anybody Realize We're Going Back to the Moon?

#116

Post by siliconpotato »

zabzonk wrote: post #82
stickfigure wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather spend it on high speed rail projects.

Come and live in the UK :-(

They didn't say high speed rail projects that get cancelled and downgraded after doing all the hard bits

Re: Why Doesn't Anybody Realize We're Going Back to the Moon?

#117

Post by slavik81 »

mbgerring wrote: post #99

Probably because the first time we did it we were an optimistic country with a good economy and a bright future in front of us?

Not everyone was so optimistic. Many people argued that the money spent going to the moon would be better spent on problems here on Earth.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Tom_Lehrer_song_lyrics_(...

Re: Why Doesn't Anybody Realize We're Going Back to the Moon?

#118

Post by thiht »

zabzonk wrote: post #81
palata wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That, and most people don't care about the Apollo missions that happened after Apollo 11. Hell, nobody knows the name of the third guy who did not get to set foot on the Moon with Apollo 11.

> nobody knows the name I didn't have to google for it to know - Mike Collins. I also knew the the name of the third guy to walk on it - Pete Conrad, and what he said getting out of the LEM (perhaps not precisely): "That may be a small step for Neil, but it was a big one for me" Can I have my prize now??

Everybody understands that "nobody" doesn’t literally mean "nobody"

Re: Why Doesn't Anybody Realize We're Going Back to the Moon?

#119

Post by casefields »

razorbeamz wrote: post #90

It hasn't been very well marketed. NASA lost a lot of their budget and they're not spending so much on outreach. I didn't know it was happening at all until launch day.

Losing 1.1% is a lot in your mind? Really?

https://aas.org/posts/news/2026/01/congress-passes-fiscal-ye...

Re: Why Doesn't Anybody Realize We're Going Back to the Moon?

#120

Post by drivingmenuts »

I think the intent is there. I do not have faith that people, politics or events will cooperate with us. I also think this is NASA's last hurrah before space flight is subsumed by commercial interests, which will be the end of the dream of space science for the common good of mankind.
Post reply on HN