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Looking at these old videos, it is fascinating how fast we've gone from heavier than air flight to space exploration. The first heavier than air flight was in
by clnq 3y ago
Looking at these old videos, it is fascinating how fast we've gone from heavier than air flight to space exploration.
The first heavier than air flight was in 1903. The first Moon landing was in 1969. The Shuttle videos are from early 80s. In the year 2000, we started permanently living in space on the ISS. One human lifetime from this [0] to this [1].
But we also lost a lot of the tech since the 70s. Quite many steps back technologically.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Flyer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Flyer
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expedition_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expedition_1
- extraduder_ire 3y agoI don't think the tech is so much lost, as it's not worth it to use anymore. A complete replica of an apollo mission could be stood up pretty easily nowadays, but would probably be too expensive/unsafe to be palatable.
- clnq 3y agoA lot of the institutional memory is lost if the tech isn’t used. Imagine you’re a new starter at NASA on a new mission to build a new space shuttle. A lot of the people you’d ask for guidance are gone. You would need to figure a lot of it out yourself, except for what’s documented. NASA is not exempt from this, same as any other company that does engineering.