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> 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 co
by 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 agoBroken window fallacy.
- naikrovek 7y agoAre 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 agoHere 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 agoI 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 agoMillions 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 agoI think you may have missed the joke.
- pryce 7y agoI 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 agoNot 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 agoAgreed. 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!