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

41–50 of 162 posts

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

#41

Post by outworlder »

palata wrote: post #11

I grew up admiring the Apollo mission and the likes. Nowadays, I recognise that it is heavy engineering, but I am not so impressed by the fact that we are throwing so much resources at something that we already know we can do. In fact, we have had humans surviving in space for decades now. It's costing a lot, it's not bringing much. But more than that: we have much more important problems to solve, starting with our…

> it's just a matter of wasting enough money for some people to have the time of their life.

That's such a cynical viewpoint. We are not doing this so that astronauts can have fun.

Yes, we have been screwing up our planet. On that note alone, we should develop capabilities to access resources beyond our planet. We could have made that same argument before we had the capability of launching satellites ("why are we wasting resources sending something to space that can only beep while people are dying of hunger?"). Nowadays, they are crucial if we want to have a chance at saving what remains of our planet.

Moon missions may not give an immediate benefit, but we have always benefitted from scientific and technological advancements from space missions. I doubt it's going to be different this time.

I'd certainly prefer countless more moon missions than a new aircraft carrier.

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

#42

Post by Gagarin1917 »

eigenrick wrote: post #12

So we're re-creating the Apollo 8 Mission 60 years later. 60 years after swinging around the moon, we are going to attempt the feat again. I'm having a hard time getting excited... Especially when some say it may not survive reentry because of politics ( https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly.... )

That’s not it. Most people don’t even know what Apollo 8 was.

The average person thinks NASA’s only mission of note was Apollo 11, they don’t even realize there were 5 other landings.

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

#43

Post by g947o »

gedy wrote: post #21
PaulRobinson wrote: post #9

$93 billion over 13 years doesn't feel like a great deal for a program that has started to align around a single person's ego, when most of the US is struggling to make ends meet. I think Artemis will be cancelled by the end of the year, unfortunately. If the heat shield doesn't hold up as some observers fear/have warned, perhaps by the end of April. I hope I'm wrong.

We handed out 300 billion in cash payments alone for COVID stimulus, this is not that crazy especially if you factor in the knowledge and skills put to work and retained.

One is real cash going into the hands of ordinary people for everyday purchases, which has proven (in various studies) to have helped parents/families and the financially struggled.

The other is "knowledge and skills" that seem remote and detached from people's lives.

As someone whose life isn't affected much by either of these, I would choose the stimulus every time.

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

#44

Post by autoexec »

eigenrick wrote: post #12

So we're re-creating the Apollo 8 Mission 60 years later. 60 years after swinging around the moon, we are going to attempt the feat again. I'm having a hard time getting excited... Especially when some say it may not survive reentry because of politics ( https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly.... )

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.

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

#46

Post by scubbo »

palata wrote: post #11

I grew up admiring the Apollo mission and the likes. Nowadays, I recognise that it is heavy engineering, but I am not so impressed by the fact that we are throwing so much resources at something that we already know we can do. In fact, we have had humans surviving in space for decades now. It's costing a lot, it's not bringing much. But more than that: we have much more important problems to solve, starting with our…

> the current mass extinction we are living in is happening orders of magnitude faster than the one that killed the dinosaurs

Fascinating. My naive perception of the extinction event was that it was relatively sudden, on a personal rather than geological timescale - decades or maybe generations. But it looks like it might be "_rapid extinction, perhaps over a period of less than 10,000 years_" [0]. Goes to show how unintuitive geological and evolutionary timelines are!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_e...

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

#47

Post by throw0101c »

eigenrick wrote: post #12

So we're re-creating the Apollo 8 Mission 60 years later. 60 years after swinging around the moon, we are going to attempt the feat again. I'm having a hard time getting excited... Especially when some say it may not survive reentry because of politics ( https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly.... )

> 60 years after swinging around the moon, we are going to attempt the feat again. I'm having a hard time getting excited...

There was a comedian that had the observation a few years back that we've lost our saw of awe and wonder: he was on a plane when Internet was just being introduced, and it was announced on the flight, but after a little bit it stopped working and they announced 'technical difficulties' and it wouldn't be available.

The guy next to him was like "this is bullshit": how quickly the world owed this guy something that he knew existed only a few minutes before.

As he goes on: often whenever people complain about their flights, it was like a 1940s German cattle car: X happened, then Y happened. And his response is: And then what happened? Did you fly in the air? Did you sit on a chair in the sky? Like a bird, like humans have been imaging since the tail of Icarus (and before)?

Hedonic adaptation is real (which is "fine" as far as it goes, as striving for better isn't a bad thing):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill

But given you're invoking history, it's easy how it is to forget the woe that humans lived in just a few decades before Apollo 8, and the incredible strides that happened (and that many people on the planet, even now, have yet to fully experience):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_American_...

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

#48

Post by Gagarin1917 »

breve wrote: post #34

> The Apollo program was the triple-back-handspring exclamation mark on a century of American technological transformations, during which Americans had electrified their cities, filled their streets with cars and their skies with airplanes, split atoms, and invented digital computers. And look at America now. Erratic, belligerent, applying tariffs on a whim, threatening to annex Canada and Greenland, threatening to l…

During the Apollo missions, the US was melting babies in Vietnam, amongst other war crimes.

Young men were being drafted, taken from home, and forced to kill people across the world.

African Americans were fighting for basic rights and equality.

A President, a major Presidential candidate, and the most prominent civil rights leader were all assassinated.

It’s not like Apollo was happening during the golden age of America or something…

If you actually do appreciate Apollo, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to appreciate Artemis.

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

#49

Post by ozgung »

greenavocado wrote: post #25
happytoexplain wrote: post #8

Everything that has made my country great has been or is being destroyed. The life I have tirelessly worked for is a shadow of the life my parents and grandparents had. I realize we're going to (orbit) the moon, and I think it's great, but I'm tired. Why would I even talk about this thing?

It's going to get a lot worse over the next 20 years https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrmERlHUqBk

I knew it was this guy before clicking the link.

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

#50

Post by Gagarin1917 »

palata wrote: post #14
whycome wrote: post #6

The language is weird about it. Because it’s not a landing. Most people don’t think of Apollo 8 as “going to the moon” — for the public, that’s Apollo 11.

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.

Most people don’t care about Apollo 11 period.

They know it happened but they have zero interest in it or the history.

That’s why the average person doesn’t cares now. They never actually did.

Post reply on HN