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> this is not even close to setting foot on the the Moon. You're right, this landing is a much bigger deal long-term. The Apollo program proved that one of the

by omni 11y ago

> this is not even close to setting foot on the the Moon. You're right, this landing is a much bigger deal long-term. The Apollo program proved that one of the world superpowers, with a decades-long presidential mandate and a giant, massive bucket of funding, could do incredible things.[1] It was awesome, and it's clearly one of the defining moments in human history. However, the pace of space travel actually decreased after the Apollo program.[2] This probably had something to do with the fact that nobody wanted to spend untold billions of dollars to keep doing this stuff. The Moon landing was a big deal, but it was a one-off big deal. It didn't have world-changing impacts on the future, only on the moment. The whole Mars objective of SpaceX probably isn't going to be their lasting contribution to humanity. All their technological achievements so far pale in comparison to how hard it will be to live on Mars. They may well fail. However, the reusability improvements they are making have significant potential to increase the rate of space flight for the rest of our existence. That's a gift-that-keeps-on-giving big deal, and enables all sorts of options that were prohibitively expensive before. We're all really hoping the graph in [2] starts spiking up soon. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#Cost_of_Apollo_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#Cost_of_Apollo_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_spaceflight#Orbital_launch_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_spaceflight#Orbita...

sigmar 11y ago
>The Moon landing was a big deal, but it was a one-off big deal. It didn't have world-changing impacts on the future, only on the moment. I very much agree with this sentiment and your other points. I think the comment you are replying to is thinking about this achievement in a 20th century frame-of-reference[1], and not considering the tremendous amount of potential cheaper space travel has. [1] By this I mean that he is thinking of space exploration nothing more than an inspirational endeavour.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
> decades-long presidential mandate A small note to put things into perspective: moon landing happened only 12 (!) years after Sputnik. It happened only 8 (!) years after Kennedy's speech and Gagarin's first space walk. The first launch of actual Apollo equipment was 3.5 years before the manned landing. In other words: humans went from launching the first satellite to putting people on the Moon in 12 years. In 8 years from first person in space to first person on the Moon. That's the speed of focused progress. Something we very much lack these days.
- philjohn 11y ago
  We've also got a much lower appetite for risk.
  - timdiggerm 11y ago
    Challenger _really_ screwed things up
    - ska 11y ago
      I don't think that's true, or rather it didn't help but it's not the problem. The program wasn't doing so many interesting things before Challenger, either. I think the "space race" was born with the seeds of its own doom. Wanting to beat the Russians to the moon provided the political and economic will to put a huge effort into the Apollo program - but after that was achieved the interest evaporated. If you are more interested in the pissing contest than the science and exploration, it isn't surprising that the latter gets short shrift in the long run.
  - username223 11y ago
    Yes, death and pain used to be much cheaper. Just look at how they took out kidney stones before anesthesia.
  - stcredzero 11y ago
    Maybe we need more gentleman adventurers willing to further the patriotic cause by living for a year and a half in a small sunless box, risking horrible death and scurvy? These guys went for years subsisting on mostly meat-like substances preserved with 19th century technology and structural biscuits. Actually, Robert Zubrin advocated such an approach for years. Mars One shows that there are plenty who would volunteer for such a thing. Hell, Mars One crew are essentially volunteering for semi-solitary exile unto death. I wonder if the Chinese or Russians are going to go the, "So it's risky? Screw It!" route?
- jessaustin 11y ago
  That's the speed of focused progress. Something we very much lack these days. Thank God. We were very close to midnight, during the 1960s and 70s.
ninkendo 11y ago
I really appreciate and mostly agree with your sentiment, but I still keep thinking to myself: The Space Shuttle was reusable too. With the Space Shuttle, we returned the primary motors to the ocean, but it was incredibly expensive to refurbish them (they were essentially scrapped and used as parts), and of course the shuttle itself was completely reused. What SpaceX achieved here is a potentially better margin of costs for reuse, but even that hasn't been proven until we actually start reusing the rockets, seeing how their reliability trails off after each use, etc. As great as I think this achievement is, it's not orders of magnitude better than the Space Shuttle. And it remains to be seen whether space travel will become truly accessible and cheap because of it.
- Malice 11y ago
  > it's not orders of magnitude better than the Space Shuttle I think it might be. The Space Shuttle cost an estimated $1B / launch. So while it was technically reusable, it wasn't practically reusable in the same way that Musk is aiming for (launch, land, refuel, refly).
  - omni 11y ago
    I believe the current target with only Stage 1 being reusable is $40MM/launch with the Falcon 9. Currently a F9 launch costs in the neighborhood of $60MM. These are both cost to the customer, not to SpaceX.

by omni 11y ago

sigmar 11y ago

>The Moon landing was a big deal, but it was a one-off big deal. It didn't have world-changing impacts on the future, only on the moment. I very much agree with this sentiment and your other points. I think the comment you are replying to is thinking about this achievement in a 20th century frame-of-reference[1], and not considering the tremendous amount of potential cheaper space travel has. [1] By this I mean that he is thinking of space exploration nothing more than an inspirational endeavour.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

> decades-long presidential mandate A small note to put things into perspective: moon landing happened only 12 (!) years after Sputnik. It happened only 8 (!) years after Kennedy's speech and Gagarin's first space walk. The first launch of actual Apollo equipment was 3.5 years before the manned landing. In other words: humans went from launching the first satellite to putting people on the Moon in 12 years. In 8 years from first person in space to first person on the Moon. That's the speed of focused progress. Something we very much lack these days.

philjohn 11y ago
We've also got a much lower appetite for risk.
- timdiggerm 11y ago
  Challenger _really_ screwed things up
  - ska 11y ago
    I don't think that's true, or rather it didn't help but it's not the problem. The program wasn't doing so many interesting things before Challenger, either. I think the "space race" was born with the seeds of its own doom. Wanting to beat the Russians to the moon provided the political and economic will to put a huge effort into the Apollo program - but after that was achieved the interest evaporated. If you are more interested in the pissing contest than the science and exploration, it isn't surprising that the latter gets short shrift in the long run.
- username223 11y ago
  Yes, death and pain used to be much cheaper. Just look at how they took out kidney stones before anesthesia.
- stcredzero 11y ago
  Maybe we need more gentleman adventurers willing to further the patriotic cause by living for a year and a half in a small sunless box, risking horrible death and scurvy? These guys went for years subsisting on mostly meat-like substances preserved with 19th century technology and structural biscuits. Actually, Robert Zubrin advocated such an approach for years. Mars One shows that there are plenty who would volunteer for such a thing. Hell, Mars One crew are essentially volunteering for semi-solitary exile unto death. I wonder if the Chinese or Russians are going to go the, "So it's risky? Screw It!" route?
jessaustin 11y ago
That's the speed of focused progress. Something we very much lack these days. Thank God. We were very close to midnight, during the 1960s and 70s.

ninkendo 11y ago

I really appreciate and mostly agree with your sentiment, but I still keep thinking to myself: The Space Shuttle was reusable too. With the Space Shuttle, we returned the primary motors to the ocean, but it was incredibly expensive to refurbish them (they were essentially scrapped and used as parts), and of course the shuttle itself was completely reused. What SpaceX achieved here is a potentially better margin of costs for reuse, but even that hasn't been proven until we actually start reusing the rockets, seeing how their reliability trails off after each use, etc. As great as I think this achievement is, it's not orders of magnitude better than the Space Shuttle. And it remains to be seen whether space travel will become truly accessible and cheap because of it.

Malice 11y ago
> it's not orders of magnitude better than the Space Shuttle I think it might be. The Space Shuttle cost an estimated $1B / launch. So while it was technically reusable, it wasn't practically reusable in the same way that Musk is aiming for (launch, land, refuel, refly).
- omni 11y ago
  I believe the current target with only Stage 1 being reusable is $40MM/launch with the Falcon 9. Currently a F9 launch costs in the neighborhood of $60MM. These are both cost to the customer, not to SpaceX.