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We're the only nation that has ever done it. It seems like unchecked graft is our current main problem. In the scope of all problems of returning people to th

We're the only nation that has ever done it. It seems like unchecked graft is our current main problem. In the scope of all problems of returning people to the Moon this is both expected and the easiest to deal with.

School-Cotton 2y ago
> We're the only nation that has ever done it The USA of the 1960s was very different from the one that exists today.
cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
What “the US” did 50+ years ago has absolutely no say in what “the US” can do now.
- whatshisface 2y ago
  Our GDP is about 50x higher now than it was then, in real terms.
  - desperate 2y ago
    Yeah but money can't pay for skill that doesn't exist anymore.
    - darth_avocado 2y ago
      Ohh but it can. The downfall of Boeing has literally been because it prioritized not paying money for skill that definitely exists.
      - xtracto 2y ago
        Something else... US current political climate vs immigrants doesn't help. In addition to the life prospects of potential immigrants. I'm a drop on the ocean only, but my case is the one I have: PhD in Computer Science, highly specialized and have lived and worked around the world , but there's not enough that attracts me to living in the US. Its health system issues, the animosity against minorities and immigrants and the lack of reasonable immigration paths for professionals make it unsexy. And as I said I'm literally nobody. How would the US attract real post Ww2 talent?
        School-Cotton 2y ago
        There is definitely animosity towards migrants in the U.S. but I’m not convinced it’s any worse than in any other country with a large immigrant population. Look at the huge advances made recently by far-right parties in Europe for example, or the riots in England. > lack of reasonable immigration paths for professionals getting a visa is the hardest part, but doable if you’re a bit lucky. Once you have the visa, getting permanent residency after a few years and ultimately citizenship is relatively straightforward, IF you’re not from one of a few countries with large numbers of immigrants to the U.S.: mainly Mexico, the Philippines, China and India. It seems from your profile that you’re Mexican so yeah, getting permanent status in the U.S. would take a really long time even if you got a visa. This is one of the biggest competitive disadvantages of the U.S. currently: making it unreasonably hard for skilled people to immigrate, compared to places like Canada or Europe. But I think it’s an exaggeration to say there’s no reasonable path.
        darth_avocado 2y ago
        It can be unreasonable, like you mentioned, if you originate from specific countries. For sectors like Defense, Aerospace etc., you literally can't work unless you are a permanent resident or a citizen. Which means, even if you do have a visa, without a path to permanent immigration, you can't really contribute in those sectors, making it unreasonable.
        School-Cotton 2y ago
        True, that is a fair point in the context of the moon discussion.
    - akira2501 2y ago
      I really think it's worth it to go back and read the original Apollo program proposals, technical conference memos, and NASA administrative plans to see the history of the program and how something like this gets off the ground in the first place. The US was not a bastion of technical capability or well educated people in the 1950s. To say that the "skill doesn't exist anymore" suggests a misunderstanding of "where it comes from" in the first place. You can do the same thing for Apollo as you can for the Shuttle. The process of reading through these histories, from front to back, is incredibly enlightening, and shows just how with determination alone you can build something like this from scratch. That being said.. it really also helps if there's a dual purpose use for the military.
      - jazzyjackson 2y ago
        Apollo really was a rare alignment of motivations, unbounded optimism meets existential fear, ie, "humanity can migrate into the stars" overlapping with "if we don't do this the commies win first strike capability", seems unlikely to re-occur.
      - sgnelson 2y ago
        I think you drastically underestimate the influence that World War 2 had on up-skilling a technological workforce in the United States. I know a handful of people who's fathers or relatives went from farm boy to a radio technician with basic electrical engineering skills (or a similar story) because of the war. The effect that war had on the technological progress, including learning the skills of how to manage a not-so-simple idea like going to the moon into reality was incredible, and a direct spinoff from the bureaucracy created during the war.
        Dalewyn 2y ago
        Most people want to deny it, but both Apollo and Space Shuttle were the results of there being a Fucking War(tm) that had to be won at any cost. Nowadays, that specific motivator is squarely with the Chinese.
        2y ago
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > money can't pay for skill that doesn't exist anymore Expert welders can be trained in years. We could easily buy an Apollo-era generation of aerospace welders if we wanted them.
    - knowaveragejoe 2y ago
      The depth of breadth and skill is still there, even moreso today. Whether Boeing will catalyze that is in question, not the fundamentals.
  - scottyah 2y ago
    GDP in such a services-based economy is unreliable as a metric for the ability to produce, since just moving the money around now contributes to it.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    More like a factor of 6.6. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1
  - hnthrowaway0315 2y ago
    The spirit is different.
okanat 2y ago
When that was happening, the US was spending ungodly amount of money to show Soviets that they can take ~a nuke~ sorry people to the Moon and back. Boeing, Lockheed etc. were still engineering oriented companies full of projects and management opportunities for innovative and risk-taking people. Starting with the Reagan era, they are now emptied out rent seekers full of car salesmen who look up to Jack Welch as a role model.
- _moof 2y ago
  And there were a lot more players in aerospace then too. Apart from Boeing and Lockheed, Apollo also involved North American Aviation, Grumman, Rocketdyne, General Dynamics, Pratt & Whitney, Douglas, TRW, and Bell. Of those, only General Dynamics and Pratt & Whitney have not been acquired or merged into other companies.
  - knowaveragejoe 2y ago
    Are there not _far_ more players in aerospace today than what you listed? Maybe those of today are not at the scale of the companies you listed at the height of the cold war, but we're really in a new era of space industry.
    - _moof 2y ago
      People making cubesats? Sure. Companies that can build moonshot hardware, though, are far more scarce.
- knowaveragejoe 2y ago
  > Boeing, Lockheed etc. were still engineering oriented companies full of projects and management opportunities for innovative and risk-taking people. Starting with the Reagan era, they are now emptied out rent seekers full of car salesmen who look up to Jack Welch as a role model. To be fair, Boeing, Lockheed etc won't be the decisive players putting humans back on the moon from the US. It'll be smaller and scrappier players more akin to startups.

School-Cotton 2y ago

> We're the only nation that has ever done it The USA of the 1960s was very different from the one that exists today.

cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago

What “the US” did 50+ years ago has absolutely no say in what “the US” can do now.

whatshisface 2y ago
Our GDP is about 50x higher now than it was then, in real terms.
- desperate 2y ago
  Yeah but money can't pay for skill that doesn't exist anymore.
  - darth_avocado 2y ago
    Ohh but it can. The downfall of Boeing has literally been because it prioritized not paying money for skill that definitely exists.
    - xtracto 2y ago
      Something else... US current political climate vs immigrants doesn't help. In addition to the life prospects of potential immigrants. I'm a drop on the ocean only, but my case is the one I have: PhD in Computer Science, highly specialized and have lived and worked around the world , but there's not enough that attracts me to living in the US. Its health system issues, the animosity against minorities and immigrants and the lack of reasonable immigration paths for professionals make it unsexy. And as I said I'm literally nobody. How would the US attract real post Ww2 talent?
      - School-Cotton 2y ago
        There is definitely animosity towards migrants in the U.S. but I’m not convinced it’s any worse than in any other country with a large immigrant population. Look at the huge advances made recently by far-right parties in Europe for example, or the riots in England. > lack of reasonable immigration paths for professionals getting a visa is the hardest part, but doable if you’re a bit lucky. Once you have the visa, getting permanent residency after a few years and ultimately citizenship is relatively straightforward, IF you’re not from one of a few countries with large numbers of immigrants to the U.S.: mainly Mexico, the Philippines, China and India. It seems from your profile that you’re Mexican so yeah, getting permanent status in the U.S. would take a really long time even if you got a visa. This is one of the biggest competitive disadvantages of the U.S. currently: making it unreasonably hard for skilled people to immigrate, compared to places like Canada or Europe. But I think it’s an exaggeration to say there’s no reasonable path.
        darth_avocado 2y ago
        It can be unreasonable, like you mentioned, if you originate from specific countries. For sectors like Defense, Aerospace etc., you literally can't work unless you are a permanent resident or a citizen. Which means, even if you do have a visa, without a path to permanent immigration, you can't really contribute in those sectors, making it unreasonable.
        School-Cotton 2y ago
        True, that is a fair point in the context of the moon discussion.
  - akira2501 2y ago
    I really think it's worth it to go back and read the original Apollo program proposals, technical conference memos, and NASA administrative plans to see the history of the program and how something like this gets off the ground in the first place. The US was not a bastion of technical capability or well educated people in the 1950s. To say that the "skill doesn't exist anymore" suggests a misunderstanding of "where it comes from" in the first place. You can do the same thing for Apollo as you can for the Shuttle. The process of reading through these histories, from front to back, is incredibly enlightening, and shows just how with determination alone you can build something like this from scratch. That being said.. it really also helps if there's a dual purpose use for the military.
    - jazzyjackson 2y ago
      Apollo really was a rare alignment of motivations, unbounded optimism meets existential fear, ie, "humanity can migrate into the stars" overlapping with "if we don't do this the commies win first strike capability", seems unlikely to re-occur.
    - sgnelson 2y ago
      I think you drastically underestimate the influence that World War 2 had on up-skilling a technological workforce in the United States. I know a handful of people who's fathers or relatives went from farm boy to a radio technician with basic electrical engineering skills (or a similar story) because of the war. The effect that war had on the technological progress, including learning the skills of how to manage a not-so-simple idea like going to the moon into reality was incredible, and a direct spinoff from the bureaucracy created during the war.
      - Dalewyn 2y ago
        Most people want to deny it, but both Apollo and Space Shuttle were the results of there being a Fucking War(tm) that had to be won at any cost. Nowadays, that specific motivator is squarely with the Chinese.
        2y ago
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > money can't pay for skill that doesn't exist anymore Expert welders can be trained in years. We could easily buy an Apollo-era generation of aerospace welders if we wanted them.
  - knowaveragejoe 2y ago
    The depth of breadth and skill is still there, even moreso today. Whether Boeing will catalyze that is in question, not the fundamentals.
- scottyah 2y ago
  GDP in such a services-based economy is unreliable as a metric for the ability to produce, since just moving the money around now contributes to it.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  More like a factor of 6.6. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1
- hnthrowaway0315 2y ago
  The spirit is different.

okanat 2y ago

When that was happening, the US was spending ungodly amount of money to show Soviets that they can take ~a nuke~ sorry people to the Moon and back. Boeing, Lockheed etc. were still engineering oriented companies full of projects and management opportunities for innovative and risk-taking people. Starting with the Reagan era, they are now emptied out rent seekers full of car salesmen who look up to Jack Welch as a role model.

_moof 2y ago
And there were a lot more players in aerospace then too. Apart from Boeing and Lockheed, Apollo also involved North American Aviation, Grumman, Rocketdyne, General Dynamics, Pratt & Whitney, Douglas, TRW, and Bell. Of those, only General Dynamics and Pratt & Whitney have not been acquired or merged into other companies.
- knowaveragejoe 2y ago
  Are there not _far_ more players in aerospace today than what you listed? Maybe those of today are not at the scale of the companies you listed at the height of the cold war, but we're really in a new era of space industry.
  - _moof 2y ago
    People making cubesats? Sure. Companies that can build moonshot hardware, though, are far more scarce.
knowaveragejoe 2y ago
> Boeing, Lockheed etc. were still engineering oriented companies full of projects and management opportunities for innovative and risk-taking people. Starting with the Reagan era, they are now emptied out rent seekers full of car salesmen who look up to Jack Welch as a role model. To be fair, Boeing, Lockheed etc won't be the decisive players putting humans back on the moon from the US. It'll be smaller and scrappier players more akin to startups.