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It was heartbreaking to see the control room during the first few minutes after the landing. Imagine a project you've worked on for years going kaput and you w
by beders 3y ago
It was heartbreaking to see the control room during the first few minutes after the landing.
Imagine a project you've worked on for years going kaput and you won't even know why.
None of these engineers will find sleep tonight.
I hope some moon orbiter can take pics of the landing site soon.
- hungryforcodes 3y agoThis was a commercial landing though. I guess its not there to do science or improve the human race. What was behind it?
- WillPostForFood 3y agoIt was a commercial craft carrying a payload from a few sources, including a rover from JAXA, the Japanese space agency, and a second rover built by the UAE.
- flangola7 3y agoDo the rovers at least still work?
- aardvarkr 3y agoThings tend to stop working after a crash landing
- CompuHacker 3y agoBut, even if they did separate, find themselves on the ground, undamaged, still powered, they rely on the lander as a radio relay.
- opportune 3y agoA commercial endeavor being able to land on the moon is an accomplishment in itself. That’s how you go from proof of concept to economic viability
- ke88y 3y ago> That’s how you go from proof of concept to economic viability I don't think this is particularly coherent in this case. It's commercial, but there is no private sector customer. All of the customers are government scientific agencies. It's all still very much science and/or nation-state prestige-driven. What's more, it's unclear what the commercial case for lunar landing would be in the near term, where "near term" means "any reasonable expectation of return on capital that doesn't come from taxpayers".
- opportune 3y agoThat’s a fair criticism, but one important distinction is that this develops infrastructure and expertise for purely economically/recreationally motivated projects down the line. As for economic motivations in the near term, a lot I can think of are indeed still based on public funds, but one important thing about commercial landing being viable is that those publically funded endeavors don’t need to work the bureaucracy engine to get a government launch/can span governmental boundaries. If some US or UAE entity wants a telescope array on the moon, if they have the money for it, they could just pay for a commercial lunar lander. If the DOE wants to test he-3 mining they don’t need to go through congress to get NASA to deliver their payload.
- golergka 3y agoMost of the things that have improved the human race have been done commercially, and those motivated by profit have done a hundredfold more for humanity than those who were motivated by idealism.
- heavyset_go 3y agoWeird considering idealism got us things like free insulin[1] when none existed, Linux, important things like human rights, democracy etc. [1] https://www.vox.com/2019/4/3/18293950/why-is-insulin-so-expensive https://www.vox.com/2019/4/3/18293950/why-is-insulin-so-expe...
- samtho 3y agoWhat if I told you that both can be true at the same time? A free market is one of the only vehicles that has allowed people to be lifted out of poverty, self determination and the freedom to decide one’s own destiny is a very profound idea that we take for granted when talking about different forms of governance that are fundamentally incompatible with that. On the other hand, we need a balance of power for the benefit and health of a society. Social safety nets, publicly beneficial infrastructure, and sensible regulations must exist, not in spite of, but to complement and protect the freedom we enjoy.
- pdonis 3y ago> free insulin[1] when none existed Um, your reference is about how far from being free insulin is in the US. > Linux You think Linus built Linux out of idealism? Or that Linux is maintained at the quality level it has out of idealism? It is to laugh.
- golergka 3y agoIdealism has brought us genocide, mass murder and war. Majority of the most awful people in human history have been idealists.
- shmoe 3y agoMost of the US fleet is now commercial as well, and they're doing plenty of science on NASA's behalf. This is the future. Or we'd be stuck with one SLS launch every decade instead.
- samtho 3y agoJust because it’s a commercial endeavor does not make it useless, impactful, or suggest the people behind it genuinely care about the work they are doing. I’m willing to bet people working there right now watched in awe while humans first stepped foot on the moon, or watched the first space walk, or even witnessed some of the tragedies that happened during the shuttle program, all while dreaming to be part of them next team to do something even greater.
- Silverback_VII 3y ago[flagged]
- ceejayoz 3y ago> you won't even know why Not necessarily. We've frequently been able to determine the cause of unmanned spacecraft failures via telemetry and/or post-failure investigation. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter famously failed because NASA used metric and a vendor did not.
- speedgoose 3y agoFoot pound second is such a weird unit. How did that pass the quality controls? I also don’t understand how one team of educated engineers could decide to use imperial units instead of metric units.
- ghaff 3y agoAs a former mechanical engineer, any calculations involving pounds in any form I pretty much always converted to metric and then back at the end if need-be. The trinity of pound-mass, pound-force, and slugs is incredibly easy to screw up--at least as a student.
- moffkalast 3y agoSmh, Americans will literally convert into metric and back to keep using their bald eagles per shotgun squared units.
- ghaff 3y agoAdmittedly, engineers are pretty much the only people making calculations with those kind of units and they generally use metric as far as I know. I went to school a long time ago and there were probably enough legacy imperial units hanging around that it seemed worthwhile to at least be exposed to examples you wouldn't have encountered in day to day living.
- mrguyorama 3y agoSince the 60s, America has literally been officially a conversion of standard SI units. A yard is defined as most of a meter (exactly 0.9144 meters) and an inch is derived from that.
- adastra22 3y agoAccording to the doppler telemetry analysis on Twitter, it entered free fall 90 seconds before loss of signal. So presumably the engine cut out and they have telemetry data to determine why. Most likely explanation: insufficient fuel.
- andreareina 3y ago> ispace engineers monitored the estimated remaining propellant reached at the lower threshold and shortly afterward the descent speed rapidly increased https://ispace-inc.com/news-en/?p=4655 https://ispace-inc.com/news-en/?p=4655 There's an unconfirmed supposition that they didn't cut over to the aux boosters from the main.
- twelve40 3y ago[flagged]
- cuSetanta 3y agoCan confirm it was hard to sleep last night. I knew there was a high chance of failure but still, not the best evening.
- 0xf00ff00f 3y agoWow, so you worked on this project? That's awesome! Congratulations on making it to the moon!