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Absolutely yes. The apollo's feat, of landing a lander in a different body, with people in it, and making sure that lander lifted off the moon, and got back ho
by ardit33 5y ago
Absolutely yes. The apollo's feat, of landing a lander in a different body, with people in it, and making sure that lander lifted off the moon, and got back home safe was astonishing accomplishment.
Especially with the rudimentary computers and calculations of the time. The James Web Telescope, is a great feat, but not in the same league as the moon landings.
- mendigou 5y agoApollo was amazing and the feat in guidance and navigation computers was astonishing. No one will dispute that. But let's not glorify it and discount all present missions. Building an observatory is VERY difficult. Nevermind the "avionics" for an L2 mission, the manufacturing of the sensors, mirrors, and all the other mechanical parts are one-of-a-kind. Webb is without a doubt an amazing feat of engineering and the engineering teams had to confront problems that were not even thought of for Apollo. Massive respect to them.
- nyolfen 5y agoonce again, not a moral claim or even disputing that apollo was exceptional — but that does not change the fact that this reflects a slower rate of innovation
- mendigou 5y agoYep, I agree. I was replying to my parent comment that said Apollo was more complicated than Webb. I think they are very different amazing missions that you can't compare.
- 1_player 5y agoGiven that Apollo landed on the Moon during the Cold War and the space race with Russia, it's incredible what injecting a percentage of the US defense budget into NASA can accomplish.
- nkrisc 5y ago> not in the same league as the moon landings. Why not? It seems an amazingly complex bit of engineering. The Apollo missions are impressive in their own right, but are they really that much more complex from an engineering perspective? The tolerances and precision required for JWST to be functional must be incredibly tight.