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From my understanding, nobody is telling that "We should use Apollo as-is", but "why don't we use the same spirit when we were building these back then?". Ever

From my understanding, nobody is telling that "We should use Apollo as-is", but "why don't we use the same spirit when we were building these back then?". Everything made/designed in Apollo are no short of marvels. Today we can do much better with lighter, smaller electronics, and should be able to do weight savings or at least cost savings where it matters. Instead Artemis feels like "let's dig the parts pile and put what we have together, and invent the glue required for the missing parts", akin to today's Docker based development ecosystem. Yes, the plan might be to carry much more equipment in fewer launches, but if something looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. If this amount of people are saying that something is lost in spirit and some stuff is not done in an optimal way, I tend to believe them.

imiric 2y ago
> From my understanding, nobody is telling that "We should use Apollo as-is", but "why don't we use the same spirit when we were building these back then?". The political climate in the 1960s was far more tense than it is today, which fueled the space race in ways that forced both sides to give their absolute best efforts to move space exploration forward. While arguably today there are comparable tensions, countries no longer have to prove anything to the world, and space exploration is mostly a scientific endeavour fueled by private companies that want to make a profit. There's less of an urgency to get to the moon, which can explain that difference in spirit that you mention. FWIW I don't think that's a bad thing. Space exploration is the most difficult human endeavour, and taking the time to do it right seems like the optimal way to go. The fact world superpowers achieved what they did in a couple of decades of the last century, a mere 60 years after flying machines were invented, is nothing short of extraordinary. But it was a special time, and we shouldn't feel pressured to repeat it. > Instead Artemis feels like "let's dig the parts pile and put what we have together, and invent the glue required for the missing parts", akin to today's Docker based development ecosystem. That doesn't seem like a bad approach to me. There is a lot of value to be gained by gluing existing technology together, and if anything, Docker is proof of how wildly successful that can be. Most scientific breakthroughs are effectively a repurposing or combination of previous ideas, after all. I don't think this is a valid criticism of Docker, nor of this approach.
- coldtea 2y ago
  >The political climate in the 1960s was far more tense than it is today, which fueled the space race in ways that forced both sides to give their absolute best efforts to move space exploration forward. Well, money wise they now spend much more budget (inflation adjusted) it seems. Technology wise, one would expect they have more of it now, than back then. So, what, they lack some mystery motivation factor? I'd say it's rather general modern bureucratic incompetence, overdesign, plus losing the people who knew how to build stuff and had actual Apollo-era experience, with a huge period in between without Moon missions that meant they couldn't pass anything directly to the current NASA generation (a 40 year old NASA engineer today would be negative years old back then), which obliterated all kinds of tacit knowledge. It's like they had the people who designed UNIX back in the 70s, and a room full of JS framework programmers in 2024, plus all kinds of managers "experts" in Agile Development. >FWIW I don't think that's a bad thing. Space exploration is the most difficult human endeavour, and taking the time to do it right seems like the optimal way to go. Isn't the whole point that they're not "taking time to do it right", but waste enormous amounts of money and time while doing it massively wrong?
  - xvilka 2y ago
    >It's like they had the people who designed UNIX back in the 70s, and a room full of JS framework programmers in 2024, plus all kinds of managers "experts" in Agile Development. Does it mean Artemis is the Electron of space missions?
  - p_l 2y ago
    Apollo program got to the point that NASA budget was >4% of total federal budget. And Apollo program itself was, IIRC, over half of it. Never since NASA had such funding and political will to just let them try to get a stated goal. History of projects since Apollo is full of every attempt at making things simpler and more reusable either getting canceled, blown with congressional requirements for pork-barrel (SLS), damaged by needing to beg for money from organizations with different goals (Shuttle is a great example), smothered by budget cuts resulting in reuse plans getting canceled skyrocketing per-mission cost (Shuttle, Cassini), and that with NASA being effectively prevented from doing iterative approach and ending having to gold-plate everything to reduce risks on the often "once in a lifetime" launch.
golol 2y ago
Because the spirit of Apollo - unsustainable one off dlag planting missions - lead to human spaceflight stagnating for the subsequent half century.
- rockemsockem 2y ago
  Nixon cancelling Apollo early is what led to stagnation.
  - thombat 2y ago
    NASA had only contracted for 15 Saturn V stacks, and in 1968 declined to start the second production run. Nixon only assumed office in 1969, at which point the only question was how many of the remaining ten stacks would fly as part of Apollo. Under Nixon the final three Apollo lunar missions were cancelled, with one of those Saturn V stacks being used for Skylab instead. But even if all three had flown to the moon stagnation was inevitable as NASA's focus had already been directed to the shuttle.
    - rockemsockem 2y ago
      I wasn't aware of those extra details! Very interesting.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
stetrain 2y ago
During the Apollo era NASA was receiving nearly 5% of the federal budget. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/09/NASA-Budget-Federal.svg/2880px-NASA-Budget-Federal.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/09/NA... Apollo was a development and technical marvel. I don't think I would necessarily consider it done in an "optimal way" except for optimizing for time at great expense. Artemis certainly isn't fiscally optimal either, mostly driven by a bunch of stipulations in their budget placed there by senators from states where all of these Shuttle-derived parts are built.
mlindner 2y ago
> "why don't we use the same spirit when we were building these back then?". Isn't that just personal opinion? If anything, the current era of spaceflight has finally restored the Apollo ethos that had been dead for decades. So the answer to your question is "we're already doing it". Lots of people seem to be going nuts and saying "but not like that!" as they seem to have some alternative weird vision for what Apollo was. My dad grew up watching Apollo launches, he even got to work on the Apollo-Soyuz mission in a small part. He's one of the people more hyped for SpaceX's mission/goal and Starship than anyone I know.
rdtsc 2y ago
> "why don't we use the same spirit when we were building these back then?". What if we don't have the same spirit any longer? Nobody is going to acknowledge that publicly at NASA but they are acknowledging it by their actions. What if people who had "spirit" went to make youtube videos, work for Musk, Wall Street or Google? It takes some time to gauge the stickiness and depth of bureaucratic muck, but after a few years people can see it, and move on to other things. Guess who's left? Those who don't have much spirit left.

imiric 2y ago

> From my understanding, nobody is telling that "We should use Apollo as-is", but "why don't we use the same spirit when we were building these back then?". The political climate in the 1960s was far more tense than it is today, which fueled the space race in ways that forced both sides to give their absolute best efforts to move space exploration forward. While arguably today there are comparable tensions, countries no longer have to prove anything to the world, and space exploration is mostly a scientific endeavour fueled by private companies that want to make a profit. There's less of an urgency to get to the moon, which can explain that difference in spirit that you mention. FWIW I don't think that's a bad thing. Space exploration is the most difficult human endeavour, and taking the time to do it right seems like the optimal way to go. The fact world superpowers achieved what they did in a couple of decades of the last century, a mere 60 years after flying machines were invented, is nothing short of extraordinary. But it was a special time, and we shouldn't feel pressured to repeat it. > Instead Artemis feels like "let's dig the parts pile and put what we have together, and invent the glue required for the missing parts", akin to today's Docker based development ecosystem. That doesn't seem like a bad approach to me. There is a lot of value to be gained by gluing existing technology together, and if anything, Docker is proof of how wildly successful that can be. Most scientific breakthroughs are effectively a repurposing or combination of previous ideas, after all. I don't think this is a valid criticism of Docker, nor of this approach.

coldtea 2y ago
>The political climate in the 1960s was far more tense than it is today, which fueled the space race in ways that forced both sides to give their absolute best efforts to move space exploration forward. Well, money wise they now spend much more budget (inflation adjusted) it seems. Technology wise, one would expect they have more of it now, than back then. So, what, they lack some mystery motivation factor? I'd say it's rather general modern bureucratic incompetence, overdesign, plus losing the people who knew how to build stuff and had actual Apollo-era experience, with a huge period in between without Moon missions that meant they couldn't pass anything directly to the current NASA generation (a 40 year old NASA engineer today would be negative years old back then), which obliterated all kinds of tacit knowledge. It's like they had the people who designed UNIX back in the 70s, and a room full of JS framework programmers in 2024, plus all kinds of managers "experts" in Agile Development. >FWIW I don't think that's a bad thing. Space exploration is the most difficult human endeavour, and taking the time to do it right seems like the optimal way to go. Isn't the whole point that they're not "taking time to do it right", but waste enormous amounts of money and time while doing it massively wrong?
- xvilka 2y ago
  >It's like they had the people who designed UNIX back in the 70s, and a room full of JS framework programmers in 2024, plus all kinds of managers "experts" in Agile Development. Does it mean Artemis is the Electron of space missions?
- p_l 2y ago
  Apollo program got to the point that NASA budget was >4% of total federal budget. And Apollo program itself was, IIRC, over half of it. Never since NASA had such funding and political will to just let them try to get a stated goal. History of projects since Apollo is full of every attempt at making things simpler and more reusable either getting canceled, blown with congressional requirements for pork-barrel (SLS), damaged by needing to beg for money from organizations with different goals (Shuttle is a great example), smothered by budget cuts resulting in reuse plans getting canceled skyrocketing per-mission cost (Shuttle, Cassini), and that with NASA being effectively prevented from doing iterative approach and ending having to gold-plate everything to reduce risks on the often "once in a lifetime" launch.

golol 2y ago

Because the spirit of Apollo - unsustainable one off dlag planting missions - lead to human spaceflight stagnating for the subsequent half century.

rockemsockem 2y ago
Nixon cancelling Apollo early is what led to stagnation.
- thombat 2y ago
  NASA had only contracted for 15 Saturn V stacks, and in 1968 declined to start the second production run. Nixon only assumed office in 1969, at which point the only question was how many of the remaining ten stacks would fly as part of Apollo. Under Nixon the final three Apollo lunar missions were cancelled, with one of those Saturn V stacks being used for Skylab instead. But even if all three had flown to the moon stagnation was inevitable as NASA's focus had already been directed to the shuttle.
  - rockemsockem 2y ago
    I wasn't aware of those extra details! Very interesting.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

stetrain 2y ago

During the Apollo era NASA was receiving nearly 5% of the federal budget. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/09/NASA-Budget-Federal.svg/2880px-NASA-Budget-Federal.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/09/NA... Apollo was a development and technical marvel. I don't think I would necessarily consider it done in an "optimal way" except for optimizing for time at great expense. Artemis certainly isn't fiscally optimal either, mostly driven by a bunch of stipulations in their budget placed there by senators from states where all of these Shuttle-derived parts are built.

mlindner 2y ago

> "why don't we use the same spirit when we were building these back then?". Isn't that just personal opinion? If anything, the current era of spaceflight has finally restored the Apollo ethos that had been dead for decades. So the answer to your question is "we're already doing it". Lots of people seem to be going nuts and saying "but not like that!" as they seem to have some alternative weird vision for what Apollo was. My dad grew up watching Apollo launches, he even got to work on the Apollo-Soyuz mission in a small part. He's one of the people more hyped for SpaceX's mission/goal and Starship than anyone I know.

rdtsc 2y ago

> "why don't we use the same spirit when we were building these back then?". What if we don't have the same spirit any longer? Nobody is going to acknowledge that publicly at NASA but they are acknowledging it by their actions. What if people who had "spirit" went to make youtube videos, work for Musk, Wall Street or Google? It takes some time to gauge the stickiness and depth of bureaucratic muck, but after a few years people can see it, and move on to other things. Guess who's left? Those who don't have much spirit left.