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And we haven't been back in 50 years, despite all the incredible technology improvements. The Apollo guidance computers had "several tens of thousands of trans
by samwillis 3y ago
And we haven't been back in 50 years, despite all the incredible technology improvements.
The Apollo guidance computers had "several tens of thousands of transistors"[0], we now have 19 billion in our pocket!
0: https://www.aei.org/technology-and-innovation/apollo-11-mankind-and-moores-law/#:~:text=The%20two%20Apollo%20Guidance%20Computers,tens%20of%20thousands%20of%20transistors https://www.aei.org/technology-and-innovation/apollo-11-mank....
- scarface_74 3y agoI think “For All Mankind” is a great “What If” show about what things would be like if we had kept pushing forward. The thing about the series though was that NASA was self funded and didn’t have to justify spending billions in taxpayer money. Also, do we really have better propulsion technology to make space travel more efficient?
- jacquesm 3y agoImagine if all of the worlds armament budgets were instead rerouted to science and space travel...
- throwanem 3y agoAnd still mostly wasted. Look after the people on Earth first. Once we show we can accomplish that, then and only then do we begin to earn the stars.
- least 3y agoSorry, but no. There's billions of people on earth; we can tackle many problems at once in parallel.
- throwanem 3y agoYes, that's worked out wonderfully for us of late, hasn't it.
- scarface_74 3y agoHow would spending billions on the space race help?
- throwanem 3y agoExactly my question.
- least 3y agoNumerous technological advancements have been made as a result of the space race, but asking for justification on spending money on scientific inquiry is just going to come to whether or not you support science generally.
- throwanem 3y agoI'd like to see some justification for considering science and space exploration as one and the same. It's hardly as if we've run out of things to learn from this planet, after all.
- jacquesm 3y agoPersonally I'd like to see some justification for discovering America, there was plenty to be learned in Spain and Portugal at the time.
- throwanem 3y agoGiven how Europeans have behaved themselves on this continent, that really doesn't qualify as a meaningful counterargument. If anything, it's more to my point than yours.
- jvanderbot 3y agoYou don't have to convince this person and won't. This is what it looks like to parallelize: vehiment disagreement on priorities.
- wiseowise 3y agoWe would be still in caves if everybody followed your logic.
- throwanem 3y agoThe equation of all progress with any progress is yours, not mine. I haven't made that argument; if you want to see it defended, I'm afraid you'll have to do so yourself.
- ben_w 3y agoThis feels like you're unaware that, for all that remains to be done, less than half as many people are living in extreme poverty today as compared to 1990: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty#/media/File:Total_population_living_in_extreme_poverty,_by_world_region_(PovcalNet,_World_Bank_(1987_to_2013)),_OWID.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty#/media/File:To...
- throwanem 3y agoIn a counterfactual that begins with a trillion dollars to spend on something other than war - even in reality, for that matter - do you really not imagine we could choose to do better as a species than a dollar a day?
- ben_w 3y ago1) A trillion dollars, spread over the 1.8 billion people in extreme poverty in 1990 and the 32 years since then, would have been 0.046 USD/person/day. 2) There's also this graph, if you want to see how the other income brackets are changing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty#/media/File:The_number_of_people_below_different_poverty_lines.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty#/media/File:Th...
- scarface_74 3y agoWhitey on the Moon / Lyrics A rat done bit my sister Nell. (with Whitey on the moon) Her face and arms began to swell. (and Whitey's on the moon) I can't pay no doctor bill. (but Whitey's on the moon) Ten years from now I'll be payin' still. (while Whitey's on the moon) The man jus' upped my rent las' night. ('cause Whitey's on the moon) No hot water, no toilets, no lights. (but Whitey's on the moon) I wonder why he's uppi' me? ('cause Whitey's on the moon?) I was already payin' 'im fifty a week. (with Whitey on the moon) Taxes takin' my whole damn check, Junkies makin' me a nervous wreck, The price of food is goin' up, An' as if all that shit wasn't enough A rat done bit my sister Nell. (with Whitey on the moon) Her face an' arm began to swell. (but Whitey's on the moon) Was all that money I made las' year (for Whitey on the moon?) How come there ain't no money here? (Hm! Whitey's on the moon) Y'know I jus' 'bout had my fill (of Whitey on the moon) I think I'll sen' these doctor bills, Airmail special (to Whitey on the moon)
- illwrks 3y agoGreat song.
- devnullbrain 3y ago20 years ago nobody spent any money on smartphones. Now, the money spent on them has created billions of processors with magnitudes more power than the spacecraft we're being wistful about. Consumerism rerouted itself to forwarding science. And that's just a device for watching cat videos. The carry-over between rockets and modern technology like hypersonic missiles is even greater - which is why we invented the space race to begin with.
- eru 3y agoCarry over is still not as efficient as directly spending on what you want.
- ben_w 3y agoIf you know what you want. “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” I sure never anticipated cosmetic surgeons twerking on Instagram in their scrubs to advertise themselves between the videos of a chick jumping into a confused Labrador's mouth and that one of the kid on a bike being shocked by the existence of brown chalk when they see a Pokémon drawn on a sidewalk.
- eru 3y agoYes. Direct spending is more efficient, but it's not magic. But that doesn't mean that indirect spending and praying for spillover works better.
- simonh 3y ago> Also, do we really have better propulsion technology to make space travel more efficient? It’s not really the propulsion technology that’s the key, it’s not throwing away a whole bunch of rocket engines every time, just to launch something once. So it’s really a design methodology as much as the technology. Having said that I think a key contributor to reusability is computation. As far as I’m aware all the experiments with propulsive landing in the 60s and 70s were manual. You could compute optimal thrust profiles given enough time and ideal conditions, but the conditions for an actual landing are never ideal. Particularly issues like atmospheric conditions such as air pressure by altitude, the effect of humidity, wind conditions and allows for the variability of turbulence around the vehicle. Modern automation of such must be vastly more efficient than manual control, but I don’t know when this became viable.
- dehrmann 3y agoSending people there is incredibly risky, and there just isn't that much science to do.
- TheSpiceIsLife 3y agoKinda just a bucket list item really. Go to the moon - check Been there, done that, to expensive and the cocktails where shit.
- jdjdjdhhd 3y agoWhy go to the moon a second time?
- RugnirViking 3y agoWhy build another computer? The first one was enormously expensive, way too heavy, and difficult to use
- eru 3y agoPutting humans on the moon in the first place was mostly just grandstanding. Manned space exploration in general is mostly just entertainment. I'm glad humanity hasn't continued wasting resources on that particular endeavor. Unmanned probes do good work for science. (Though even there I am not sure about the bang-for-the-buck compared to other alternatives.) Have a look at '20 Breakthroughs from 20 Years of Science aboard the International Space Station' https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/20-breakthroughs-from-20-years-of-science-aboard-the-international-space-station/ https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/20-breakthroughs-from-... That's the list of the 20 best things they could come up with. And it scarcely has anything that couldn't have been done cheaper with unmanned craft. And it includes gems like counting spending money as a benefit, instead of a cost.
- causi 3y agoPutting humans on the moon in the first place was mostly just grandstanding. Manned space exploration in general is mostly just entertainment. Indeed, and I believe refusing to acknowledge that fact is actively harming not just spaceflight but manned spaceflight. We're spending tens of billions of dollars trying to set up for some bullshit useless moon base when we could be setting boots on Mars just to prove we can. If we're gonna waste money let's waste it pushing the boundaries.
- Shawnj2 3y agoI think a moon base is actually more useful because there’s actual commercial use cases to a moon base like mining etc. and not only that but doing a mars mission is far easier and cheaper if you already have a moon base since you can make rocket fuel on the moon for cheaper in terms of delta-V if you can come up with a hydro lox chemistry design.
- causi 3y agoWhat could you mine on the moon that would be worth transporting home?
- 3y ago