5 ms·

An impressive achievement if they did manage to locate it, certainly. On the other hand, proposing that it merits retrieval is staggeringly vain- only the tini

• cesarb 7y ago
  > Consider the mind-blowing opportunity cost of any mission sent to 'retrieve Snoopy', and take a moment to think of just some of the incredible projects one could do instead. For an opposite point of view, think of all the technological advances that would be necessary for a safe "retrieve Snoopy" mission. Even if the mission itself is pointless, all the developments leading to it could be useful. That is, what matters might be the journey, not the destination.
  • tantalor 7y ago
    Broken window fallacy.
    • naikrovek 7y ago
      Are you sure? The Broken Window Fallacy only applies if the technical gains from such a mission could be used on nothing else afterward, which is obviously not the case. The fallacy is a fallacy because the money spent fixing a broken window can't be spent again by the same person. He's spending money he would have spent anyway, so there is no net gain. In a technological progression caused by, say, a public works project such as the mission to the moon, technology developed for the sake of that project can indeed be used on other things, and definitely was in the case of the moon landings, so it's not a fallacy when talking technical advancement.
      • avmich 7y ago
        Here we can possibly have an underestimation of how much value the module has. Having real historical artifact available in a museum over decades if not more could help provide inspiration to more generations of space explorers - and others.
  • iscrewyou 7y ago
    I was thinking the same thing. The technology and science that could come out of a mission like that would be great! We’d be the First Nation to retrieve something far away from earth that belonged to us. A stepping stone for future mishaps on other planets.
    • fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
      "We choose to go (back) to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
      • pryce 7y ago
        Millions of people have looked to the moon for tens of thousands of years, and wondered if someday, a human being might walk on it. A truly transcendent category of goal, even if a large part of the underlying motive was pretty obviously demonstrating American superiority over the Communist 'other'. I don't really put retrieving the 'Snoopy' module in this same category.
        • saagarjha 7y ago
          I think you may have missed the joke.
          • pryce 7y ago
            I did, thanks. EDIT: for anyone interested in the history of the Apollo 10 mission, its commander (and only crew-member remaining living) Thomas Stafford also went to Moscow to serve as a pallbearer in the state funeral given to the Soyuz 11 crew after the tragedy, the only human beings known to have died in space.
    • imglorp 7y ago
      Not only the tech developed, but also studying the retrieved artifact: we don't have a ton of hardware that's spent 50 years in space. What happens to all this stuff in a vacuum getting radiated, baked and frozen that long. Metals, hoses and gaskets, insulators and wires, semiconductors, dielectrics etc. If we're going to colonize the solar system, we have to learn how to build hardware to last in that environment.
  • mLuby 7y ago
    Agreed. Plus it's like a dry-run for a deep space rescue, and a bit like an easier version of an asteroid capture mission. For example, how do you grapple and maneuver with an object if you don't have matched docking ports? If the object is fragile? How do you efficiently enter LEO from interplanetary space without aerobreaking? Lots to learn from the effort!
• kijin 7y ago
  If Snoopy somehow stayed near (or returned to) the Earth-moon system, retrieving it might be similar to fixing the Hubble in space. Difficult, yes, expensive, of course, but evidently doable.
  • close04 7y ago
    Would retrieving the module bring the same kind of benefit as fixing Hubble did?
    • kijin 7y ago
      Fixing the Hubble involved sending a bunch of people on a space shuttle. We don't have the shuttle anymore, but now we have much better robotics. A mission such as retrieving Snoopy might be a great opportunity to develop and test robotic retrieval missions in space. That technology could come in handy, for example, when we need to rescue people who are stuck in malfunctioning capsules. Or for mining asteroids and sending the resulting bulk material elsewhere in space. Or maybe for retrieving EOL satellites that are about to crash into one another and spread debris all over the place. In America, doggy retrieves stick. In Soviet Russia, big firey stick retrieves doggy. :)
      • close04 7y ago
        > might be a great opportunity to develop and test robotic retrieval missions in space Hubble was fixed so it can perform its mission: it was uniquely qualified to send high resolution images of the universe, which proved invaluable to our understanding of space. If testing tech is your aim then Snoopy is just as good as anything else. In the end it may be more valuable left in space for future space archaeologists.
        • kijin 7y ago
          In space exploration, testing new technology is synonymous with developing said technology. I would rather they debut bleeding-edge space retrieval technology with a piece of antiquity with good publicity value than with something that is actually critical, such as a manned capsule or a suspected alien spacecraft.
• TeMPOraL 7y ago
  The thing about opportunity costs arguments wrt. space, when used from the outside (vs. just reallocating existing NASA budget), is that the "incredible projects one could do instead" never materialize. It's a thinly veiled way of just not giving money to space exploration.
• russdill 7y ago
  It would have to be done in stages anyway. The first stage would be to send a tug out that would return Snoopy to an Earth centric orbit. Such a mission would be unmanned and would take many years, on the order of a decade or more. That mission would be something low cost and low risk. Getting it out if Earth orbit and back to Earth would be much harder. But who knows, maybe by then something like starship would be operational.