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Great work, I'm curious as to how autonomous the landing was (I assume fully autonomous) - but since there's awesome video sent back from the dark side of the m
by Simon_ORourke 2y ago
Great work, I'm curious as to how autonomous the landing was (I assume fully autonomous) - but since there's awesome video sent back from the dark side of the moon there must be some relay in orbit too.
I'd give the Chinese space program more than a healthy 50/50 chance of landing humans on the moon again within the next ten years.
- ein0p 2y agoI consider this unlikely - it is at least an order of magnitude harder to land people there and get them back even if you already have the heavy rockets and experience required. The US remains the only country capable of repeating this feat within the next 10 years, in spite of the current timelines being ridiculously unrealistic, simply because it doesn’t have to guess quite as much and either already has or in the advanced stages of building the necessary technological base.
- binary132 2y agoI’m not convinced even the US is actually capable of that.
- ein0p 2y agoIt’s the only country that landed people on the moon like twice a year. Sure, that was 50 years ago, but some of those old timers are still around.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> not convinced even the US is actually capable of that Then you haven’t been paying attention to American aerospace over the past decade and a half. It is far more capable today than it was in the 60s, particularly in robotics. Where we lag is in human space flight, in part due to bureaucracy and complacence among the majors, in part because we have ridiculously-high safety standards.
- binary132 2y agoIncapability due to regulatory and bureaucratic burden is real incapability. and frankly, while we have made some technical advances, we have also suffered severe logistical, political, and capital losses, especially in context of the aforementioned bureaucratic and regulatory burden. We have also suffered, IMO, loss of capability in our elite engineering echelon. The F-35 is a perfect example of what I’m describing. Technically brilliant in some ways, sure. Pretty lame and terrible in others. Debatably an advance over previous generations of aircraft, at the very least. Today’s NASA is a completely different animal than the NASA which put a man on the Moon. I don’t see SpaceX doing it either. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Let’s wait and see.
- elzbardico 2y agoI don't believe current day USA will be able to go back to the moon. The decadence and corruption are accelerating.
- ein0p 2y agoCorruption merely makes things much more expensive. That is not really a concern to a country that can issue $3T in debt every year. Nor is “decadence”: within a decade SpaceX could do it on its own, without NASA.
- spookie 2y agoWhile I agree with the second point, let's be honest: SpaceX has had a lot of help from NASA.