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A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen

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Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen

#221

Post by bananabreakfast »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #190
GuB-42 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX might be able to throw something on the moon by 2024. But for a manned mission... Just look at Crew Dragon. SpaceX started development in 2014, and the first manned flight is planned for april 2020. 6 years, and it not designed from scratch. SpaceX likes to set unrealistic expectations. And while they get the job done (SLS should take note...), they are not doing magic. This is not the 50s anymore, they have t…

I think Blue Origin will explode into the space race. Bezos is a smart fellow and his number one passion is space. I think competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin is happening right now and is fierce. I'm sure Musk knows what Bezos is up to and that's why he's driving the development of StartShip so hard (and StarLink) This year is going to be interesting.

People have been saying that for years.

Blue Origin is nowhere close to SpaceX. They are a fun R&D project silently farming out refined small aerospace tech improvements to various space agencies.

They haven't even achieved a single orbital launch to date. SpaceX achieved orbit 12 years ago.

Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen

#222

Post by bananabreakfast »

afterburner wrote: post #163
ehnto wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are right, but there is something wrong if we can't handle an astronaut or two for scientific progress yet are more than happy to throw bodies into the middle-east. So I question whether or not it matters what the public thinks in this area. Maybe they can just do the work without making it a spectacle. Then an astronaut dies, it makes news for a bit, and the distracted populace moves on in a week.

Manned space flight (especially to the moon) is a stunt. Much easier and less risky to sent robots. Used to be the goal of the stunt was to stand up to the Soviets. Now it would be for... what? Even less. Definitely not worth lives.

Robots are vastly less effective than humans. Sending robots to mars to build a habitat for example would be several orders of magnitude slower than just sending humans.

Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen

#223

Post by bananabreakfast »

dmitriid wrote: post #142
matt-attack wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the public get an opinion on an individual’s life when they know the risks? To me that’s the height of hubris and is something that needs to get corrected if we’re to move forward.

The public is horrified at astronauts' death, politicians listen to public opinion, politicians cut budgets to "dangerous missions". PR for space is a very tricky affair.

The public is horrified at whatever the news tells them to be horrified about.

Government employees getting killed in Iraq happens often enough that it doesn't get clicks.

Government employees getting killed in Space happens so infrequently that it will get tons of clicks.

Simple journalism economics.

Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen

#225

Post by bananabreakfast »

yongjik wrote: post #124
taneq wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Someone dying is devastating." But it's not. We're more than happy to throw human lives at most things. Any sufficiently large civilian project (much less anything military) will have a greater-than-zero expected death toll from accidents, on-the-job medical issues, etc. And arguably this is the right way to make the omelette (although we've definitely improved in the past few decades: https://www.forconstructionp…

I think the difference is that most other things have a point other than having a human being in the scene. So if we're building an airport, a crane collapses, and workers die, we mourn and move on. (And hopefully find out what went wrong so that we don't repeat the same mistake.) And the final constructed airport has its uses, so in a morbid way, their deaths were not in vain. On the other hand, there's no other poi…

Well, if we're building an airport, why not just have robots build it? By your same logic, it would be so much cheaper! No healthcare or wages or food or unions to deal with! Plus, no chance of accidental death that would make the public feel sad about that airport!

You see the fallacy in this argument yes? You're only looking at pure operating cost. Saying robots are cheaper ignores so many other factors like the insane amount of capital it would take to develop robots that could be anywhere close to as productive as a human. In addition, everything past Earth orbit is far enough away that Earth cannot make real-time decisions for you. Robots cannot make split second decisions to save themselves. Being able to think is extremely valuable is extreme environments.

Plus, this argument just plain ignores the entire point of space travel. We must permanently populate other planets or we will become extinct. Full Stop.

A bunch of robots colonizing the Galaxy cannot carry with them the light of consciousness.

Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen

#226

Post by yongjik »

bananabreakfast wrote: post #225
yongjik wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the difference is that most other things have a point other than having a human being in the scene. So if we're building an airport, a crane collapses, and workers die, we mourn and move on. (And hopefully find out what went wrong so that we don't repeat the same mistake.) And the final constructed airport has its uses, so in a morbid way, their deaths were not in vain. On the other hand, there's no other poi…

Well, if we're building an airport, why not just have robots build it? By your same logic, it would be so much cheaper! No healthcare or wages or food or unions to deal with! Plus, no chance of accidental death that would make the public feel sad about that airport! You see the fallacy in this argument yes? You're only looking at pure operating cost. Saying robots are cheaper ignores so many other factors like the in…

Of course, the "fallacy" is that humans are actually cheaper than robots for a lot of things, when you don't have to drag a metric fuckton of gas exchangers, thermostats, pressurized suits, landers, antennae, and what not.

I thought that part was well understood.

Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen

#227

Post by Gene5ive »

"The Apollo Program cost roughly $25.4 billion, unadjusted.

That makes the total Apollo Program cost $163 billion inflation adjusted to 2008. That's our total cost to go to the moon. Consider, however, that this was for a project spanning from 1959 to beyond 1970 with six successful missions."

This is not going to happen again unless China decides they want to get there first but, hey, it never hurts to hope.

Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen

#228

Post by WalterBright »

netman21 wrote: post #201
WalterBright wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most of the technology needed on Mars can be proven on the Moon, which is far, far cheaper to reach and resupply. Establishing a moon base and concentrating on making it self-sustaining is critical to any successful space penetration by humanity.

Actually, establishing any self sustaining space colony would do. No need to build it at the bottom of a gravity well.

Look at the difference in the size of rocket needed to lift two men to lunar orbit vs earth orbit. It's really not a big deal to blast off from the moon.

Gravity has lots of advantages. For one thing, toilets work.

Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen

#229

Post by tsimionescu »

njarboe wrote: post #217
tsimionescu wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is obviously false. Any technology that could allow humans to live anywhere but on earth (the moon, Mars, space stations, generation ship, you name it) would be infinitely more applicable on an environmentally devastated earth up to any degree of devastation. Living on Mars would be much harder than living on the earth after an all-out nuclear war with the worse effects of global warming present, in the aftermat…

We have more resources than we know what to do with. Negative to zero interest rates all over the place. The problems on Earth are not being solved or worked on due to political problems not resource limitations. Plus total current space related expenditures are probably 0.05% of global GDP. Global GDP is ~$85 trillion would mean a space spend of $42.5 billion. Sounds about right.

It's not just about monetary resources. There are also engineering, research, PR and other kinds of resources spent on this.

Not to mention, there are people who seem to honestly believe that moving to Mars is a viable strategy for humanity in the same te scale as global warming (perhaps even Elon Musk among them? Hopefully not, but definitely GP among them). That is such a silly idea, but with such potential to be used in the concentrated campaign of convincing people to ignore global warming, that it must be spoken against any time it comes up.

Re: A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen

#230

Post by mattrp »

bananabreakfast wrote: post #221
monk_e_boy wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Blue Origin will explode into the space race. Bezos is a smart fellow and his number one passion is space. I think competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin is happening right now and is fierce. I'm sure Musk knows what Bezos is up to and that's why he's driving the development of StartShip so hard (and StarLink) This year is going to be interesting.

People have been saying that for years. Blue Origin is nowhere close to SpaceX. They are a fun R&D project silently farming out refined small aerospace tech improvements to various space agencies. They haven't even achieved a single orbital launch to date. SpaceX achieved orbit 12 years ago.

I’ve often wondered why BO hasn’t achieved orbit despite it being public knowledge that Bezos spends a billion / year on it. Other than space being hard, why do think that is?
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