I have to admit, I've been an Artemis hater ($4 billion per launch lol) but the experience of watching people go back around the Moon has been incredibly inspiring, and it proves to me that maybe we can still do hard things
> $4 billion per launch lol The US spends almost that much on net debt interest each day (~$3 billion/day[0]). Not that adding to the debt helps at all, but the old proverb about being penny wise and pound foolish seems relevant 0. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61951
Lunar Flyby
161–170 of 262 posts
Re: Lunar Flyby
#162> Lunar Flyby I though they were going _to the moon_, not "flyby". NASA is a pale reminiscent of its former self. Sad.
Re: Lunar Flyby
#163Can someone ELI5 how it is one side of the moon is never seen on Earth? The moon orbits and also rotates, does it not?
It has to do with the tides. Except in this case it isn't ocean tides - it's lunar tides. Just as the Moon's gravity creates a bulge in Earth's oceans, Earth's gravity creates a bulge in the material that makes up the moon.
If Earth and the Moon didn't rotate, the bulges would "point" directly at the other body. But with rotation, the tidal bulge is a little bit offset in the direction of rotation. And the Moon used to rotate.
That offset creates a torque. Earth's gravity tries to pull the bulge into perfect alignment. Over time this slows the rotation of the moon until it stopped rotating at all.
(Technically the Moon does rotate, but it does so at the same rate that it orbits Earth. So it doesn't rotate from our perspective.)
Re: Lunar Flyby
#164Re: Lunar Flyby
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
The gravitational pull of the moon lifts up the ocean to cause tides. Well the Earth's gravitational pull is so strong on the moon that the heavier side of the moon always faces the Earth. This is called tidal locking. So the only way to ever see the far side of the moon is to go there. Humans have gone there before, but almost always during an Earth "full moon", which means the far side is unlit. We do have full ima…
But why does this not happen to planets themselves in relation to the sun?
Re: Lunar Flyby
#166This is the best animation of the trajectory I've seen: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260406.html
https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/noaas-space-weather-mission...
Re: Lunar Flyby
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
I cannot wait until we get 4k video of people walking on the surface, kicking up dust.
The existing 16mm film from Apollo is roughly equivalent to 2K, and you can see dust kicked up pretty nicely!
Re: Lunar Flyby
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Defense LAPS every other budget category. I suppose it matters how you lump things, but for federal spending: - $678 B, Social Security - $478 B, Medicare - $425 B, Net Interest - $419 B, Health - $412 B, National Defense - $320 B, Income Security - $184 B, Veterans Benefits and Services - $75 B, Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services - $53 B, Transportation - $43 B, Administration of Justice - $15 B,…
Note there would be no veterans benefits and services without a military, so effectively the total for defense is 412 PLUS 184 = $596B, more than anything except SS. Also note that most people consider social security to be an entirely different kind of government spending than anything else in that list.
Also, without a military the US would not be even 1/3rd as wealthy as it is today, given its military created the global order that secured the last 80 years of the global economic system, shipping lanes and USD dominance. You can argue over specific wars/missions being dumb, but to pretend the overall ROI on that dominance enabling 80 years of relatively peaceful global trade hasn’t been positive is to be intellectually dishonest.
The world is currently teetering on a global economic crisis over just ONE shipping lane not being fully open for a few weeks. Read more history and you’ll see this used to be the norm.
Re: Lunar Flyby
#169I have to admit, I've been an Artemis hater ($4 billion per launch lol) but the experience of watching people go back around the Moon has been incredibly inspiring, and it proves to me that maybe we can still do hard things
If Trump gets his $1.5T military budget, that would be about the military spend per day I think?
Re: Lunar Flyby
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
The gravitational pull of the moon lifts up the ocean to cause tides. Well the Earth's gravitational pull is so strong on the moon that the heavier side of the moon always faces the Earth. This is called tidal locking. So the only way to ever see the far side of the moon is to go there. Humans have gone there before, but almost always during an Earth "full moon", which means the far side is unlit. We do have full ima…
But why does this not happen to planets themselves in relation to the sun?
The planets have much more complicated gravitational interactions because in addition to the Sun's gravity, they influence each other. So you end up with things like orbital resonances instead.
A planet that's close to its star and far from other strong gravitational influences will tidally lock to the star.