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The analog computers on the Missouri class battleships was never upgraded because the kill radius of the shells was larger than the margin of error the analog c

The analog computers on the Missouri class battleships was never upgraded because the kill radius of the shells was larger than the margin of error the analog computers introduced and that the analog computers required less electricity which is good for something such as a ship. So in this way, yes, they are better (these computers developed in the 30s). It depends on the application. > Occasionally there are rumors of some modern medical treatments being worse even though medicine as a whole improves, but mechanical and electrical stuff is much better understood and more controlled. Such as the iron lung probably being better than the invasive machines we have today. > The exception is a few specific appliances that are seemingly designed to fail. Even then there's no lost tech. I'm pretty confident we could make a much better washing machine today for much less money if we tried, than anything from 30 or 50 years ago. look at the space industry, it actually costs us more (adjusting for inflation) to try and go back to the moon than when we did before when we had no idea on how to do it. Or look at tractors, farmers are clamoring for 1980s tractors over these new expensive (break down easy with no way to repair) 'modern' tractors John Deer is pushing.

throwaway14356 5y ago
it just isnt so binary. old tech is always better than new in various ways time tested being the largest factor. we stil move on for reasons
eternityforest 5y ago
People died going to the moon the first time. Better to not go at all, or to have it cost 10x as much, than to risk even one astronaut's life. Besides, if we just redid what we had, we would not be developing any new tech that could be used on earth. And it would be less comfortable, a very bad thing if you're still fighting the losing battle to convince anyone that they'd like to be in space for more that a brief adventure. AFAIK they have cuirass ventilation to replace iron lungs now. Those new tractors are most likely way more reliable. In practice they may be worse because of artificial limitations put there on purpose, but were it not for those it would almost certainly be better(Although people would probably still like the same ones, because no matter how reliable something is, people seem to like things with a "substantial" feel that they can understand).
ben_w 5y ago
All the commentary I see about the moon program says that the rockets bit of NASA was set up to be a pork barrel for all of Congress just so nobody cancelled the Apollo mission, and that the many people are annoyed that this structure is still in place. Given that, the cost of the latest moon mission is “as much as we can squeeze the taxpayer for” rather than representative of the actual cost. The various new startups worldwide (not just SpaceX) are all much more interesting, though obviously they’ll only get a price comparison when they actually land a human. I think it would’ve been neat if the Falcon Heavy had speed-run the Lunar X Prize, but alas they had better things to do: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/27271/could-the-lunar-x-prize-have-been-won-by-the-tesla-roadster-that-was-the-falcon https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/27271/could-the-lu...

throwaway14356 5y ago

it just isnt so binary. old tech is always better than new in various ways time tested being the largest factor. we stil move on for reasons

eternityforest 5y ago

People died going to the moon the first time. Better to not go at all, or to have it cost 10x as much, than to risk even one astronaut's life. Besides, if we just redid what we had, we would not be developing any new tech that could be used on earth. And it would be less comfortable, a very bad thing if you're still fighting the losing battle to convince anyone that they'd like to be in space for more that a brief adventure. AFAIK they have cuirass ventilation to replace iron lungs now. Those new tractors are most likely way more reliable. In practice they may be worse because of artificial limitations put there on purpose, but were it not for those it would almost certainly be better(Although people would probably still like the same ones, because no matter how reliable something is, people seem to like things with a "substantial" feel that they can understand).

ben_w 5y ago

All the commentary I see about the moon program says that the rockets bit of NASA was set up to be a pork barrel for all of Congress just so nobody cancelled the Apollo mission, and that the many people are annoyed that this structure is still in place. Given that, the cost of the latest moon mission is “as much as we can squeeze the taxpayer for” rather than representative of the actual cost. The various new startups worldwide (not just SpaceX) are all much more interesting, though obviously they’ll only get a price comparison when they actually land a human. I think it would’ve been neat if the Falcon Heavy had speed-run the Lunar X Prize, but alas they had better things to do: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/27271/could-the-lunar-x-prize-have-been-won-by-the-tesla-roadster-that-was-the-falcon https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/27271/could-the-lu...