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How many landings succeeded? Then do percent successes vs failures, broken down as government and commercial. Then ask why's only commercial landing the trick

How many landings succeeded? Then do percent successes vs failures, broken down as government and commercial. Then ask why's only commercial landing the tricky part? It's not like these people are stupid, nor like they haven't had multiple decades to learn from plus the state of the art. Three in a row is as weird to me as if there were seven in a row. All only commercial, while govt landed fine. Would you think that odd too?

dmreedy 3y ago
https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/beyond_earth_detail.html https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/beyond_earth_detail.html this is a neat book on the history of unmanned spaceflight. Take a look and see how long it took to get a probe into orbit. Into someone else's orbit. All that before they even tried landing anywhere For moon landings, sourced from wikipedia[0] but you can certainly find the information in the aformentioned book: > Luna 15, Luna 18, and Luna 23 all crashed [into the moon] on landing; and the U.S. Surveyor 4 lost all radio contact only moments before its landing. Finally, here's a list of rocket launch failures in 2022 https://www.space.com/12-biggest-rocket-failures-2022 https://www.space.com/12-biggest-rocket-failures-2022 --- [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing
- Waterluvian 3y ago
  And if we’re approaching this from a “it’s a conspiracy!” point of view, we then must also consider all the crashes they aren’t telling us about. ;)
- detrites 3y ago
  Good wikipedia list, thanks. So, moon landings where the craft suddenly and unexpectedly lost comms in the seconds or minutes immediately prior to contact with the surface: Government: 1 of 25 (4%) Commercial: 3 of 3 (100%) I'm saying it's odd, weird, and deserves investigating specifically from the angle of why commercial has this happen, but not government. I'm saying this because it is odd. I've not once mentioned conspiracy - though others seem ready to jump to that, probably as a subtle ad hominem instead of engaging with the discussion. Thank you for engaging, it's an interesting topic.
  - krisoft 3y ago
    But is it odd? It is just a very hard problem. You need to spend a lot of resources to get it right and you need to spend them in the right way. Also you need to build up to the capability step by step. You can't drum random engineers together and expect them to build a lunar lander. You need to give them progressively harder and harder challenges, and see if they develop the right chops to handle them. What do you want to investigate? I'm sure the commercial entities did their own investigations about their failures and the factors behind it. They are under no obligation to share anything with me or you.
    - detrites 3y ago
      It is indeed odd to me, that the only and all three missions distinct by funding all failed in exactly the same way, at exactly the same point, where those funded from a different source only did 1 in 25 times in that way. Perhaps the randomly-drummed up engineers argument could have some merit for overall mission failure, though it doesn't adequately explain failure on only the same, final mode. Were the same engineers involved? If so, it seems beyond the pale they didn't learn anything? To be clear, it's not that these landers hit the moon and expired, they all stopped transmitting on the final leg. It's a weird failure and even weirder that it wasn't experienced more frequently in govt funded missions. I've no plausible theory why, that's why it's interesting. All reasonable explanations have to be a bit out there, other than the de facto "bad luck", which doesn't wash with me. I'm not interested in investigating (beyond doing sums on wikipedia numbers). But I am interested in it being investigated by someone more qualified.
      - krisoft 3y ago
        > I've no plausible theory why, that's why it's interesting. These are groups on a shoestring budget trying to do something very hard for the first time. They fail at the hardest part of the task. How about that as an explanation? > All reasonable explanations have to be a bit out there, Have you tried hard things before? Failure is the default outcome. > they all stopped transmitting on the final leg That tends to happen when you hit a rock the size of the Moon. As these did. I think you are making a mystery out of this where there is none.
HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
Only a certain number of launches will be successful. Only a certain number of landings will be successful. Sometimes you just hit a Poisson distribution.

dmreedy 3y ago

https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/beyond_earth_detail.html https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/beyond_earth_detail.html this is a neat book on the history of unmanned spaceflight. Take a look and see how long it took to get a probe into orbit. Into someone else's orbit. All that before they even tried landing anywhere For moon landings, sourced from wikipedia[0] but you can certainly find the information in the aformentioned book: > Luna 15, Luna 18, and Luna 23 all crashed [into the moon] on landing; and the U.S. Surveyor 4 lost all radio contact only moments before its landing. Finally, here's a list of rocket launch failures in 2022 https://www.space.com/12-biggest-rocket-failures-2022 https://www.space.com/12-biggest-rocket-failures-2022 --- [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing

Waterluvian 3y ago
And if we’re approaching this from a “it’s a conspiracy!” point of view, we then must also consider all the crashes they aren’t telling us about. ;)
detrites 3y ago
Good wikipedia list, thanks. So, moon landings where the craft suddenly and unexpectedly lost comms in the seconds or minutes immediately prior to contact with the surface: Government: 1 of 25 (4%) Commercial: 3 of 3 (100%) I'm saying it's odd, weird, and deserves investigating specifically from the angle of why commercial has this happen, but not government. I'm saying this because it is odd. I've not once mentioned conspiracy - though others seem ready to jump to that, probably as a subtle ad hominem instead of engaging with the discussion. Thank you for engaging, it's an interesting topic.
- krisoft 3y ago
  But is it odd? It is just a very hard problem. You need to spend a lot of resources to get it right and you need to spend them in the right way. Also you need to build up to the capability step by step. You can't drum random engineers together and expect them to build a lunar lander. You need to give them progressively harder and harder challenges, and see if they develop the right chops to handle them. What do you want to investigate? I'm sure the commercial entities did their own investigations about their failures and the factors behind it. They are under no obligation to share anything with me or you.
  - detrites 3y ago
    It is indeed odd to me, that the only and all three missions distinct by funding all failed in exactly the same way, at exactly the same point, where those funded from a different source only did 1 in 25 times in that way. Perhaps the randomly-drummed up engineers argument could have some merit for overall mission failure, though it doesn't adequately explain failure on only the same, final mode. Were the same engineers involved? If so, it seems beyond the pale they didn't learn anything? To be clear, it's not that these landers hit the moon and expired, they all stopped transmitting on the final leg. It's a weird failure and even weirder that it wasn't experienced more frequently in govt funded missions. I've no plausible theory why, that's why it's interesting. All reasonable explanations have to be a bit out there, other than the de facto "bad luck", which doesn't wash with me. I'm not interested in investigating (beyond doing sums on wikipedia numbers). But I am interested in it being investigated by someone more qualified.
    - krisoft 3y ago
      > I've no plausible theory why, that's why it's interesting. These are groups on a shoestring budget trying to do something very hard for the first time. They fail at the hardest part of the task. How about that as an explanation? > All reasonable explanations have to be a bit out there, Have you tried hard things before? Failure is the default outcome. > they all stopped transmitting on the final leg That tends to happen when you hit a rock the size of the Moon. As these did. I think you are making a mystery out of this where there is none.

HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago

Only a certain number of launches will be successful. Only a certain number of landings will be successful. Sometimes you just hit a Poisson distribution.