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

Lunar Flyby

nasa.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 262 posts

Re: Lunar Flyby

#181

Post by selfmodruntime »

madrox wrote: post #22

There is something uncanny about the bandwidth and quality of all the artifacts coming from this mission. I've subsisted on photos from the Apollo missions and artistic renditions for so long that seeing the modern, high resolution real thing to be quite stirring in a way I didn't expect. It actually does make me believe that the future could be quite cool.

I agree 100%. Seeing the picture of the backside of the moon with the earth in view really drove home that the moon really is just a large rock.

Re: Lunar Flyby

#182

Post by selfmodruntime »

icegreentea2 wrote: post #39
jameslk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $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

The absolute cost isn't the problem, it's the value that we're getting from it. SLS and Artemis are both incredibly expensive and ramshackle programs, and regardless of how bad the rest of the USG might be in terms of their cost, or value, if you are a true space fan and a true American space fan, you should want this little corner of humanity to hold itself to a higher standard. Acceptance of over costing and under…

Compared to the absolute baffling amount of money spent for military purposes, knowing more about the moon is well worth it.

Re: Lunar Flyby

#183

Post by JumpCrisscross »

dogemaster2026 wrote: post #159
ranger207 wrote: post #2

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

[flagged]

> There's no track laid

Wow, you aren't kidding [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_of_California_Hig...

Re: Lunar Flyby

#184

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Fourier864 wrote: post #55
system2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Ok I realize you're making a point, but 10 launches a day comes out to about $15 trillion a year, that's like half of the US GDP

> 10 launches a day comes out to about $15 trillion a year

At SLS prices, yes. Falcon Heavy runs at $141mm per launch; 3,650 launches would cost half a trillion.

Re: Lunar Flyby

#185

Post by voidUpdate »

icegreentea2 wrote: post #101
thegrim33 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> is exactly why the US is stuck with SpaceX For the last 20 years NASA has intentionally run their Commercial Crew Program, which has the stated goal of developing/fostering/funding the development of commercial providers for launch vehicles. They, by plan they explicitly laid out and implemented, decided to rely on American commercial providers. And that's what they got. And in doing so, the program ended up produ…

SpaceX is an amazing success story, both as a commercial story, and as a story of government-industry cooperation. NASA should be proud and commended for fostering SpaceX. The question is why does SpaceX stand alone? Why did ULA stagnate? Why can't NG make SRBs that don't have nozzles that fall off? Why can't Betchel build a launch tower on time? What is it about government contracts in these other areas that led to…

> Why can't NG make SRBs that don't have nozzles that fall off?

To be fair, we just saw two of them work fine, with no nozzle fall-off-ages

Re: Lunar Flyby

#186

Post by JumpCrisscross »

selfmodruntime wrote: post #181
madrox wrote: post #22

There is something uncanny about the bandwidth and quality of all the artifacts coming from this mission. I've subsisted on photos from the Apollo missions and artistic renditions for so long that seeing the modern, high resolution real thing to be quite stirring in a way I didn't expect. It actually does make me believe that the future could be quite cool.

I agree 100%. Seeing the picture of the backside of the moon with the earth in view really drove home that the moon really is just a large rock.

> the moon really is just a large rock

It really is surprising being able to see the Moon isn't spherical. (Are those abberations?) It makes sene, given the moon isn't in hydrostatic equilibrium.

Re: Lunar Flyby

#187

Post by em-bee »

adrianpike wrote: post #134
dylan604 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will be posted when they get them. Right now, NASA doesn't have them because they're still on the SD cards in the capsule (probably been copied to their PCDs too). There's not a lot of bandwidth to be pushing large RAW files. They have to share the bandwidth with all of the telemetry and comms. They sent some small files down just to make some PR announcements and tease what will be coming.

There's supposed to be a 260 megabit link: https://www.nasa.gov/goddard/esc/o2o/ Maybe it's not operating as described yet?

i heard mention of 100 megabit. they downloaded 50GB of data the night after the flyby. they probably keep downloading as much as they can. and they still need to sift through all that to find the pictures worth publishing. they could do a data dump, but that's not interesting for the general public. the stuff is coming. slowly.

Re: Lunar Flyby

#188

Post by theodorethomas »

SegfaultSeagull wrote: post #47

Can someone ELI5 how it is one side of the moon is never seen on Earth? The moon orbits and also rotates, does it not?

One consequence of that is that the Earth, as seen from the nearside of the Moon's surface, just hangs there, never moving, apart from a small wobble.

Re: Lunar Flyby

#189

Post by bregma »

selfmodruntime wrote: post #181
madrox wrote: post #22

There is something uncanny about the bandwidth and quality of all the artifacts coming from this mission. I've subsisted on photos from the Apollo missions and artistic renditions for so long that seeing the modern, high resolution real thing to be quite stirring in a way I didn't expect. It actually does make me believe that the future could be quite cool.

I agree 100%. Seeing the picture of the backside of the moon with the earth in view really drove home that the moon really is just a large rock.

> backside of the moon

I think perhaps you mean the far side of the moon. The "backside" of the moon implies a large graben stretching almost from pole to pole, and I have seen no evidence of such a geological formation in any photos.

Re: Lunar Flyby

#190

Post by bregma »

mr_toad wrote: post #177
icegreentea2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The absolute cost isn't the problem, it's the value that we're getting from it. SLS and Artemis are both incredibly expensive and ramshackle programs, and regardless of how bad the rest of the USG might be in terms of their cost, or value, if you are a true space fan and a true American space fan, you should want this little corner of humanity to hold itself to a higher standard. Acceptance of over costing and under…

> SLS launches are so expensive, and so slow to build and prep to launch, that we cannot fit in a uncrewed mission between 1 and 2 to test or validate fixes or models If they’d wanted to they could have launched an empty Orion crew module into LEO on another, cheaper, rocket and tested re-entry. The crew module by itself is less than ten tonnes.

How would they get it up to the required reentry speed for it to be a valid test? They already know the heat shield works for reentry at LEO speeds. That's not where the problems occur.
Post reply on HN