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Part of it is cost: In the mid sixties, NASA was about five percent of the federal budget. Another part is safety: Apollo was extremely dangerous. There wer

Part of it is cost: In the mid sixties, NASA was about five percent of the federal budget. Another part is safety: Apollo was extremely dangerous. There were a lot of single points of failure, three astronauts died on the ground, three more were very very narrowly saved over the course of only about ten missions. One of the reasons the program was cut short was the political worry after Apollo 13 of having astronauts die on the moon or something similar. This level of danger was considered acceptable given the mission back then, but I don't think it would be today. Who's right is a worthwhile question. Another part was that Apollo had superb, hard working, young, smart, energetic people working on it. The nature and ambition of the project just attracted top people. The context of the Vietnam war also meant that there were a lot of engineers that would otherwise be working on weapons but maybe would rather not, and Apollo was a very nice peaceful project to apply all of that technology to. I think you see a lot of the success of Tesla and SpaceX in the same observations. Both of those companies were super ambitious, and had a goal a lot of people wanted to get behind. Their competition was unattractive to work for, and seemed unlikely to achieve the goal of getting to mars/electric cars. The result was that they were able to hire some of the very smartest, hardest working people in the country. If you get a bunch of people like that together under a common banner, amazing things happen.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Part of it is cost The other side to this is we don't build rockets today like we did in the sixties. Yes, some technical know-how here and there was technically "lost"--I've been in North Hollywood scrounging around for old NASA parts so that measurements could be taken and worked backwards from. But even if we had that know-how, we wouldn't do it the same again. From novel materials to simulations to communications and onboard computing, modern spacecraft deserved to be redesigned. (For the counterfactuals, see ULA and Arianespace.) So until someone (SpaceX) started eating that node-transition cost, we entered a period of apparent stasis. But that vacuum was energetic, and it wasn't about rediscovering lost knowledge, but inventing new kit.
- dylan604 3y ago
  >Yes, some technical know-how here and there was technically "lost"--I've been in North Hollywood scrounging around for old NASA parts so that measurements could be taken and worked backwards from. Oh, I don't know. I think we've actually made improvements in leaps and bounds over the "lost" tech. Our soundstage, green screen, and post tech has definitely improved /s I know it's not what you meant, but the NoHo reference made me laugh at the thought
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > the NoHo reference made me laugh at the thought I can’t remember what it’s called, but it’s a scrapyard with all kinds of space stuff (large and small) that I’m halfway sure isn’t ITAR controlled solely because the guy got it before 1976.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - daltont 3y ago
      Was it run by Andy Griffith? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078681/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078681/
  - adastra22 3y ago
    There’s a reason droid parts in OG Star Wars looks like they were pulled off Apollo space suits or something. Practical special effects people raided all the surplus parts after the end of the program.
    - LorenDB 3y ago
      Relevant Scott Manley video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYGQwgId-Bc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYGQwgId-Bc
- reachableceo 3y ago
  North Hollywood? Looking through prop storage from studios or something? Some interesting junk and scrap shops in the area. Spent a few weekend afternoons puttering around looking at random stuff.
stevenjgarner 3y ago
These are all factors but they pale in comparison with the fact that the US was at war, and was trying to catch up with the phenomenal lead of the USSR. Silicon Valley loves talking about "moonshots", but that parlance gets so much wrong. What is important is not the moonshot moment. It is the sputnik moment that is disruptive.
- everfrustrated 3y ago
  Interesting thought. I guess in a way AI is having its "sputnik" moment now.
  - adastra22 3y ago
    Not in the strategic competition sense though.
foobarian 3y ago
> five percent of the federal budget. It's impressive to compare five percent and some small fraction, but the total budget also expanded a lot since then. While in constant dollars the current NASA budget is indeed smaller than it was then, it is only about half. At the end of the day, the kinds of things they spend that budget on make sense to me for a research organization, and it makes sense to me that retracing the moonshot steps happen in the private sector.
- adastra22 3y ago
  If you were talking about the science mission directorate you’d be right on. They’re doing good work with the money they’re allocated. The exploration directorate, on the other hand, with their billion dollar rocket to nowhere…
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    You mean the billion dollar "cost of doing science in a democratic country" / "jobs program" Senate Launch System?
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  For comparison the military budget in the 60s was around 9%. Today it's around 3.5%. 5% today would be more than $1tn - a government-funded industry bigger than the entire military budget, comparable to the biggest tech companies. It made sense in the 60s because the spinoffs from the green field R&D, especially in electronics and computing, are still paying a dividend. Today? It's hard to see a moon base paying for itself any time soon. There's plenty of science to be done on the Moon, but direct dividends for industrial development are less clear.
  - jackothy 3y ago
    "direct dividends for industrial development are less clear" Were those dividends clear in the 60s? Or are they only clear now that we look back on the venture 50 years later?
  - 3y ago
tomrod 3y ago
Re: who is right So long as; the participants are willing, the death rate is in the single percents per mission,the mission value add on terms of new capability is high, the risk is probably worth it. At least in my opinion.
- adastra22 3y ago
  I’m very much a believer in informed consent. The astronauts will tell you, to a person, that they’d take that risk. Who am we to say otherwise?
- cameldrv 3y ago
  This makes a lot of sense in one way, but the weird thing is that it's not just the astronaut's own lives that we have to consider. Personally, I've had some risky hobbies. I accepted the risk, and if I'd died doing them, I might have gotten in the local newspaper, but nothing beyond that. The Challenger explosion was a moment that defined a generation. Some of that was that Christa McAuliffe was supposed to talk to millions of kids once she got into orbit, but some was just what people projected onto the astronauts generally. When the three astronauts died in the Apollo 1 fire, no one shed a tear for the 30,000 man-years of effort that went into making the rocket that was destroyed. The effect was about the men themselves, who were considered national heroes, and also what it might have said about the United States that those men died. Maybe we should treat this differently. Maybe in prior ages of exploration, we did. Back then we didn't have live TV or the internet though that could capture our emotion in the same way, and also in prior ages, not all expeditions were as closely connected with the nation itself.
adastra22 3y ago
Are people really that enthused about electric cars? smh
throw0101c 3y ago
> Another part is safety: Apollo was extremely dangerous. See the 'Safire Memo', "In Event of Moon Disaster": * (PDF) https://www.archives.gov/files/presidential-libraries/events/centennials/nixon/images/exhibit/rn100-6-1-2.pdf https://www.archives.gov/files/presidential-libraries/events... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:In_the_event_of_moon_disaster.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:In_the_event_of_moon_disa... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Safire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Safire

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> Part of it is cost The other side to this is we don't build rockets today like we did in the sixties. Yes, some technical know-how here and there was technically "lost"--I've been in North Hollywood scrounging around for old NASA parts so that measurements could be taken and worked backwards from. But even if we had that know-how, we wouldn't do it the same again. From novel materials to simulations to communications and onboard computing, modern spacecraft deserved to be redesigned. (For the counterfactuals, see ULA and Arianespace.) So until someone (SpaceX) started eating that node-transition cost, we entered a period of apparent stasis. But that vacuum was energetic, and it wasn't about rediscovering lost knowledge, but inventing new kit.

dylan604 3y ago
>Yes, some technical know-how here and there was technically "lost"--I've been in North Hollywood scrounging around for old NASA parts so that measurements could be taken and worked backwards from. Oh, I don't know. I think we've actually made improvements in leaps and bounds over the "lost" tech. Our soundstage, green screen, and post tech has definitely improved /s I know it's not what you meant, but the NoHo reference made me laugh at the thought
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > the NoHo reference made me laugh at the thought I can’t remember what it’s called, but it’s a scrapyard with all kinds of space stuff (large and small) that I’m halfway sure isn’t ITAR controlled solely because the guy got it before 1976.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - daltont 3y ago
    Was it run by Andy Griffith? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078681/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078681/
- adastra22 3y ago
  There’s a reason droid parts in OG Star Wars looks like they were pulled off Apollo space suits or something. Practical special effects people raided all the surplus parts after the end of the program.
  - LorenDB 3y ago
    Relevant Scott Manley video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYGQwgId-Bc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYGQwgId-Bc
reachableceo 3y ago
North Hollywood? Looking through prop storage from studios or something? Some interesting junk and scrap shops in the area. Spent a few weekend afternoons puttering around looking at random stuff.

stevenjgarner 3y ago

These are all factors but they pale in comparison with the fact that the US was at war, and was trying to catch up with the phenomenal lead of the USSR. Silicon Valley loves talking about "moonshots", but that parlance gets so much wrong. What is important is not the moonshot moment. It is the sputnik moment that is disruptive.

everfrustrated 3y ago
Interesting thought. I guess in a way AI is having its "sputnik" moment now.
- adastra22 3y ago
  Not in the strategic competition sense though.

foobarian 3y ago

> five percent of the federal budget. It's impressive to compare five percent and some small fraction, but the total budget also expanded a lot since then. While in constant dollars the current NASA budget is indeed smaller than it was then, it is only about half. At the end of the day, the kinds of things they spend that budget on make sense to me for a research organization, and it makes sense to me that retracing the moonshot steps happen in the private sector.

adastra22 3y ago
If you were talking about the science mission directorate you’d be right on. They’re doing good work with the money they’re allocated. The exploration directorate, on the other hand, with their billion dollar rocket to nowhere…
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  You mean the billion dollar "cost of doing science in a democratic country" / "jobs program" Senate Launch System?
TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
For comparison the military budget in the 60s was around 9%. Today it's around 3.5%. 5% today would be more than $1tn - a government-funded industry bigger than the entire military budget, comparable to the biggest tech companies. It made sense in the 60s because the spinoffs from the green field R&D, especially in electronics and computing, are still paying a dividend. Today? It's hard to see a moon base paying for itself any time soon. There's plenty of science to be done on the Moon, but direct dividends for industrial development are less clear.
- jackothy 3y ago
  "direct dividends for industrial development are less clear" Were those dividends clear in the 60s? Or are they only clear now that we look back on the venture 50 years later?
- 3y ago

tomrod 3y ago

Re: who is right So long as; the participants are willing, the death rate is in the single percents per mission,the mission value add on terms of new capability is high, the risk is probably worth it. At least in my opinion.

adastra22 3y ago
I’m very much a believer in informed consent. The astronauts will tell you, to a person, that they’d take that risk. Who am we to say otherwise?
cameldrv 3y ago
This makes a lot of sense in one way, but the weird thing is that it's not just the astronaut's own lives that we have to consider. Personally, I've had some risky hobbies. I accepted the risk, and if I'd died doing them, I might have gotten in the local newspaper, but nothing beyond that. The Challenger explosion was a moment that defined a generation. Some of that was that Christa McAuliffe was supposed to talk to millions of kids once she got into orbit, but some was just what people projected onto the astronauts generally. When the three astronauts died in the Apollo 1 fire, no one shed a tear for the 30,000 man-years of effort that went into making the rocket that was destroyed. The effect was about the men themselves, who were considered national heroes, and also what it might have said about the United States that those men died. Maybe we should treat this differently. Maybe in prior ages of exploration, we did. Back then we didn't have live TV or the internet though that could capture our emotion in the same way, and also in prior ages, not all expeditions were as closely connected with the nation itself.

adastra22 3y ago

Are people really that enthused about electric cars? smh

throw0101c 3y ago

> Another part is safety: Apollo was extremely dangerous. See the 'Safire Memo', "In Event of Moon Disaster": * (PDF) https://www.archives.gov/files/presidential-libraries/events/centennials/nixon/images/exhibit/rn100-6-1-2.pdf https://www.archives.gov/files/presidential-libraries/events... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:In_the_event_of_moon_disaster.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:In_the_event_of_moon_disa... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Safire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Safire