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

Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 221 posts

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#211

Post by mr_toad »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #94
bruce511 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Mallory climbed on Everest (and possibly summited) it was a big deal because it had never been done. When Hilary and Tenzing did it, it pushed human achievement forward. Today people still do it, but it means nothing to anyone other than those people. Going to the moon in the 60s was an impressive feat. It pushed the boundary forward. But that's all it did. There's literally nothing of value there. Sure most of…

> There's literally nothing of value there. ISRU water to hydrolox to reduce amount of uplift from earth's gravity well?

As well as aluminium to make solid fuel.

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#212

Post by kubanczyk »

consumer451 wrote: post #91
nerdponx wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed this too. Something about the perspective is unnerving, like an amusement park ride. You can see clearly that the moon is small, the craters are big, and the orbiting spacecraft is moving really really fast, all at the same time. None of that is apparent from video of low Earth orbit. And then the stark lighting makes it feel even more bizarre and alien.

The most 3-D experience that I have had with the moon, on the cheap, is when its not in it's full phase. With a cheap telescope, when you observe the edge of the partial-phase moon's crescent, you see the "terminator." It suddenly feels so different, finally you see the moon's bumpy spherical nature. It's like you are flying just above it. > The terminator is where you'll see the most pronounced shadows cast by the l…

True, true. And binoculars work twice as good, provided there's some support for them.

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#213

Post by Gud »

gwarrr wrote: post #179
nkoren wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse me? I'm familiar with the Mariner camera. It's pretty fascinating. There obviously no way to return film from a Mars flyby, so they had to take a digital approach. But the technology was so crude in 1965 that they literally had to paint the "digital" images by hand in order to get a visual output. It's a fascinating story. https://science.nasa.gov/resource/first-tv-image-of-mars-han... Suffice it to say that t…

You simply dumped me with the inane digital / analog hint. Like I missed that transition. Excuse me? YOU started to talk about analog photography, just to make me look like an idiot. Just saying it uses digital photography doesn't give me any clue. Is the tech bleeding edge or 20 years old? My initial argument was that it takes time to add new tech to space flight, due to radiation concerns. Your argument is that the…

To be honest with you, you're making yourself look like an idiot. I would take the advice of the person you are arguing with.

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#214

Post by lstodd »

tiahura wrote: post #205
lstodd wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because rock behaves like liquid at the time of impact.

it seems like craters of different side are roughly the same depth.

yes, about the same as when you idly throw small stones into the water

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#215

Post by DeepSeaTortoise »

skeaker wrote: post #188
DeepSeaTortoise wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way worse. Even when the moon is finally settled on, I guarantee you that nobody will make any effort to clean it up and throw it away. It is truely sad that we can be sure that even thousands of years in the future, despite millions of humans looking at it every day, people will rather put a glass box around it, so nobody is bothered by it, than just tossing it into the lunar landfill.

I think it's okay to be sentimental about our first steps into space travel.

Maybe not obviously enough, but that was sarcastic

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#216

Post by gwarrr »

Gud wrote: post #213
gwarrr wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You simply dumped me with the inane digital / analog hint. Like I missed that transition. Excuse me? YOU started to talk about analog photography, just to make me look like an idiot. Just saying it uses digital photography doesn't give me any clue. Is the tech bleeding edge or 20 years old? My initial argument was that it takes time to add new tech to space flight, due to radiation concerns. Your argument is that the…

To be honest with you, you're making yourself look like an idiot. I would take the advice of the person you are arguing with.

If you'd elaborate on that I would probably try.

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#217

Post by MichaelZuo »

anaptdemise wrote: post #209

Everything is politics. Remember when the US forced the Ukrainian investor of Firefly to sell? https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/07/feds-who-forced-ukrain... https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/max-polyakov-and-no... https://noosphereventures.com/eos-to-create-its-own-radar-mi...

Wow didn’t know about that…

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#218

Post by BizarroLand »

ZiiS wrote: post #144
skhr0680 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1960s technology Still photography has gotten more convenient since then, but in the agreeable lighting and atmospheric conditions one would encounter while taking a vacation snap outside at noon Cynthian time, image quality now isn't better than then* *Unless you're willing to spend $10,000+

They always get you on the delivery costs; every camera on the moon costs over $10,000+.

$300 for the gopro, $250,000,000 for 6-8 week (at best) delivery.

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#219

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

genewitch wrote: post #176
NooneAtAll3 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a lot of "unearthly lighting" is because of regolith' contra-reflexivity it reflects light in (roughly) the direction of light source so you have /even bigger/ contrast between shadow and its border than you'd expect from "no air to soften shadows with dispersed light"

Is that different than rerto-reflection?

I think I simply made a mistake in remembering the word :I

thank you

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#220

Post by consumer451 »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #201
consumer451 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as flights of fancy regarding the moon, I enjoyed Randall Munroe's "What if we put a pool on the moon" thought experiment. I would enjoy the experience of propelling myself out of the water like a dolphin! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIIBBj6KR-Y

Wouldn't you be cooked immediately?

There might be an exact location on one of the poles where the environmental controls don't require dealing with swings of -183C to 106C every 14 days.

Other radiation could be tolerated for short periods, mitigated by thick transparent domes with layers of water in between the layers?

Post reply on HN