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

The Lunacy of Artemis

idlewords.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 539 posts

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#81

Post by nordsieck »

XorNot wrote: post #4

This is a criticism rooted in viewing the problem the wrong way. You can't compare a modern attempt at a moon landing to the Apollo program. It's straight up invalid. The Apollo program was a national prestige program, so successful we stopped going to the moon for ~49 years and counting. At it's peak it consumed 2.5% of US national GDP. We will never, ever , nor should we run a program like the Apollo program ever a…

> NASA's budget changes every 4 years.

NASA's budget is weird - from what I understand, Congress doesn't just cut NASA a check - they fund specific programs.

That being said, NASA's budget (in inflation adjusted dollars) has been remarkably flat for decades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#82

Post by bnralt »

> What NASA is doing is like an office worker blowing half their salary on lottery tickets while putting the other half in a pension fund. If the lottery money comes through, then there was really no need for the pension fund. But without the lottery win, there’s not enough money in the pension account to retire on. The two strategies don't make sense together.

I don't think this analogy works, and it reflects a bigger issue with the essay. Unlike a pension fund, gateway and lunar landings don't actually seem to do anything or move us forward. Like many of NASA's human spaceflight programs (and a decent amount of its unmanned spaceflight programs), they seem to be doing something just to be doing it. So a better analogy might be using half of your money to buy lottery tickets, and setting the other half on fire. Buying lottery tickets might not be a great way to spend money, but it's at least possible you'll get some return from it.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#83

Post by wpietri »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #71
wpietri wrote: post #27

As a kid, mainlining Heinlein, I just assumed we'd have a moonbase by now and that it would be up to something important and useful. In my 20s, I assumed that our then-primitive software engineering techniques would be refined until we could make things that were simple, polished, cheap, and reliable. So it's a little wild to me to see software not only get more chaotic, but influence hardware as well. All in service…

Simplicity as a feature. Like TFA says, if you want something to work reliably, keep it simple. But simple isn't impressive. Tackling complex problems in complex ways is what gets recognised and rewarded. Humans are weird.

For sure. And to me that's related to the spread of managerialism and MBA thinking. One of the fundamental beliefs in that paradigm is that management is universal; an expert manager can manage anything. (This is in the contrast to the view that you need domain expertise to be effectively in charge of something.) I think this falls down because, not understanding the substance of the work, pure managers have to go by proxy indicators, like the polish of the presentations, the amount of confidence expressed, and the general wow factor.

People with a lot of engineering experience are suspicious of complex solutions to complex problems. They know the value in iteration and testing. So even if an engineer is pushing a complex solution (for resume reasons or just love of the fancy stuff), they can be reined in by senior engineers. But in the MBA mindset, a complicated solution is an opportunity to have big budgets and lots of excitement. Slow feedback loops are even better, because they can produce shiny documents, get promoted, and move on before the problems become obvious.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#84

Post by SJC_Hacker »

Loss of crew tolerance is not what it used to be. The Apollo astronauts were given about a 10% chance of not coming back. In Apollo 13 they very narrowly avoided. Which was considered acceptable for the time period.

I'd argue that mission failure tolerance is also considerably lower, in todays political environment. Again, Armstrong said their chances of actually landing were maybe 50/50.

So if they get there and have a frack up and can't land, calls to defund NASA, etc. will start to reverberate.

So thats what we're paying double for. Which I'd think, is fairly cheap.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#85

Post by philwelch »

asmithmd1 wrote: post #17
nine_k wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we earthlings see a new moon, we see one dark side turned towards us, while another dark side is the far side; Moon is completely in the Earth's shadow. During a solar eclipse, the far side is brightly lit, while the side turned towards us is dark. Most of the time the dark side does not match the far or the near side, we see a part of both the dark and lit sides as a crescent. I don't see how "the far side" and…

Uh, no. The ONLY time we see a new moon is during an eclipse. Other times the moon is above or below the sun and is too dim to see. A lunar eclipse is when the moon passes into the earth’s shadow and they happens during full moons

I think if you’re somewhere free of light pollution you might notice a moon-sized gap in the stars.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#86

Post by pengaru »

Tao3300 wrote: post #31
idlewords wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The linked clip is pretty unequivocal, if you watch it. Nelson says: "They are going to have a lander on the far side of the moon, which is the side that is always in dark. We're not planning to go there."

Yeah, I watched it. I can hear it both ways. I don't know his mind or lack thereof, only that he hasn't necessarily spoken wrongly in that phrase I could see governmental types having a colloquial use of the word at times like these that doesn't mean "it's always in the literal absence of light".

> Yeah, I watched it. I can hear it both ways. I don't know his mind or lack thereof, only that he hasn't necessarily spoken wrongly in that phrase

What line do I have to stand in to receive some of your overflowing charity?

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#87

Post by philwelch »

hi_hi wrote: post #78

Out of interest, what do people think is going to happen once humans can semi-reliably get to the moon? I don't often see this part talked about. I read lots about the astronomical (thank you!) cost and effort of getting there, often framed in a way that makes the whole endeavour appear pointless and dumb. Will they just potter about for a few days, grab a handful of rocks, take some jaunty selfies, have a cup of tea…

Man, I wish. We need to catch up and build out the high frontier already.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#88

Post by boxed »

SJC_Hacker wrote: post #84

Loss of crew tolerance is not what it used to be. The Apollo astronauts were given about a 10% chance of not coming back. In Apollo 13 they very narrowly avoided. Which was considered acceptable for the time period. I'd argue that mission failure tolerance is also considerably lower, in todays political environment. Again, Armstrong said their chances of actually landing were maybe 50/50. So if they get there and hav…

If you're paying double for it, why are you getting the SLS for that price? Which, as the article painfully shows, INCREASES risk. By a lot.

Re: The Lunacy of Artemis

#90

Post by SJC_Hacker »

asmithmd1 wrote: post #2

IDK why 81 year old Poli-sci major, attorney, and ultimate NASA executive decision maker Bill Nelson wasn't forced out of office after he incorrectly explained to Congress that the far side of the moon is always dark https://youtu.be/daZyPwCQak8?si=n9KXH-LJFBlpKXUp&t=153

"Dark" in this context could be ambigious. It is possible he meant that the sun didn't shine there (it was literally dark0, which is false. Another possibility its its "dark" to direct communication from Earth, which is what people who know what they are talking about understand it to mean and literally say.

What's more troubling is the next statement - "We don't know whats there". Well, we've done tons of imaging on that side, since the 1960s. So I think we know something about whats there. Its just that there doesn't appear to be that much interesting there, that merits a specific landing mission.

Post reply on HN