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

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

#51

Post by outworlder »

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.

> $93 billion over 13 years doesn't feel like a great deal

So, around 7 billion a year?

We are at around half of the total Artemis cost just one month after the Iran invasion. One week of this war finances one year of the Artemis program. Do you think that's a better deal?

Compared to the military spending, that doesn't even register. Maybe you should be mad about that.

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

#52

Post by Gagarin1917 »

TrackerFF wrote: post #38

I think there's a war in the middle east. And a circus back home. Think those are hogging the spotlight right now.

Would you have been uninterested in Apollo at the time because of the Vietnam war?

Or are you maybe just generally uninterested in space exploration?

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

#53

Post by tayo42 »

throw0101c wrote: post #47
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 w…

The comedian is Louis C.K.

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

#54

Post by skeeter2020 »

outworlder wrote: post #32
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.... )

Sure, you may look at it from that perspective. Or, you could look into it as restoring a capability that we used to have, and potentially enable further, more interesting missions. I am not _too excited_ about the SLS itself as it looks like a political compromise, just as the shuttle was. But better late than never.

I'm just not that jazzed on what we could possibly learn. I can go on a big road trip and eat, sleep (but probably not poop) in my minivan; what does that teach me about moving to a new city or country? I can drive across the country and do a loop around Houston's ring road; that tells me nothing about what it's like to live there.

We could have sent the ship without astronauts to test all the systems and learn the only real valuable question: does this thing work? Instead we get drama & politics, and a much more expensive mission.

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

#55

Post by throw0101c »

Gagarin1917 wrote: post #48
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 Ame…

Commentary at the time:

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

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

#56

Post by majkinetor »

throw0101c wrote: post #47
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 w…

Louis C.K.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me4BZBsHwZs

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

#57

Post by palata »

outworlder wrote: post #41
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 was…

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

Don't get me wrong: I would totally love to be in their shoes, I completely understand why they want to do it.

> Nowadays, they are crucial

This is the typical "we need to do it because it's hard, and we don't know what we will learn from it, and BTW there are things we developed for the space program that got into civilian use" argument.

But it is flawed. For one, we know a lot more today than we did in the 50s. It would be like saying "in the past, they thought that the Earth was flat, so who knows, maybe tomorrow we will realise that humans are capable of telekinesis". The truth is... "most likely not".

> we have always benefitted from scientific and technological advancements from space missions. I doubt it's going to be different this time.

Let's play a game: you're not allowed to read about it. Off the top of your head, what technological advancements did the different space programs bring? Gemini? Apollo? Soyuz? The space shuttle? Mir? The ISS? And if you manage to give more than one correct answer to that, do you genuinely believe that it wouldn't have been possible to develop that technology without the corresponding space program? I doubt it.

It's like saying that we needed to spend billions developing a race car in order to improve the stability of a skateboard. Technically, that is wrong, so the only argument I heard to defend the idea was something like "because brilliant people would be interested in developing a race car, but if it wasn't possible, instead of improving skateboards, they would be bureaucrats or financiers". Not very convincing.

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

Agreed. But that's not a justification for spending billions sending humans in space for their own pleasure (and not without risk) and for the pleasure of all the nerds who enjoy working on that (and I count myself as part of those nerds).

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

#59

Post by skeeter2020 »

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.

I read something along these lines yesterday, to paraphrase: "Saying we're going back to the moon is like driving across the country, circling Hoboken and telling your friends about your trip to NY City".

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

#60

Post by palata »

outworlder wrote: post #32
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.... )

Sure, you may look at it from that perspective. Or, you could look into it as restoring a capability that we used to have, and potentially enable further, more interesting missions. I am not _too excited_ about the SLS itself as it looks like a political compromise, just as the shuttle was. But better late than never.

> and potentially enable further, more interesting missions.

The further we go as humans is Mars, and it's useless. The next star is so, so, so far away that even considering reaching it with "something" requires a revolution in fundamental physics. No need to build rockets for that, just a whiteboard and physicists, I guess.

And saying that we go to Mars is extremely generous. The engineering of the rocket going there is fun, but if you want to send humans there, they have to survive the trip. Including, for instance, eating and drinking and breathing air for the duration of the trip. Those are not solved problems. Chances are that we as a society collapse long before we get to send humans to Mars.

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