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“Before this decade is out… “ When Kennedy committed us to go to the moon, the first American hadn’t even orbited the Earth. Previous generations just used to

“Before this decade is out… “ When Kennedy committed us to go to the moon, the first American hadn’t even orbited the Earth. Previous generations just used to get shit done.

metalman 2y ago
read "failure is not an option" SPOILER ALERT lindburg just shows up unanounced at the cape ,security did not call ahead just escorted him up to the main deck everything stops,he hangs out for a bit,heads on his way and then they get back to work there might not even be a photo,and so you have to trust that it happened,and in that is a large part of how shit got done,on trust
Mistletoe 2y ago
> fastaguy88 10 months ago | next [–] >2.5% of the US GDP ($26 trillion in 2023) would be 600 billion. At its peak in 1967, the Apollo program budget was 3 billion, while the US GDP was about 850 billion. So 0.35 percent. US government spending in 1967 was about 112 billion, so closer to 2.5 percent of the federal budget, not the GDP. Converting to today’s 6,000 billion federal budget, about 150 billion today, or not quite 20% of the defense budget, the largest federal expenditure after Social Security (the defense budget is essentially tied with Medicare). I’m not sure we want those sort of expenses anymore.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
wongarsu 2y ago
Because America was lagging behind the Soviet Union in space achievements, and the Soviet Union was parading their superior space program to promote Communism. It's not a generational thing, it's that the Moon landing was a top priority Cold War effort to beat the Soviets and show that Capitalism is the best. This mission in the other hand would be neat but has limited political value. What money were are willing to spend on space will mostly be spent on having a permanent moon base before the Chinese.
- rbanffy 2y ago
  > and show that Capitalism is the best. Or so it seemed. > will mostly be spent on having a permanent moon base before the Chinese. At least it could be launched from the Moon with a magnetic rail in addition to whatever extra propulsion it could carry onboard.
  - hagbard_c 2y ago
    > Or so it seemed The term 'capitalism' is often used as a smear by the adherents of 'opposing' ideologies like socialism and communism so let's agree on a definition using Britannica Money's example [1]: capitalism, economic system, dominant in the Western world since the breakup of feudalism, in which most means of production are privately owned and production is guided and income distributed largely through the operation of markets.. Given this definition and weighing the positives and negatives it still seems to be the best system, something which I do not see changing as long as humans remain in control of society. Do you have any examples which show where another system has been proven to be superior at a large scale? That - scale - is an important factor here since there is a direct relation between the scale of the group and the applicability of economic systems. [1] https://www.britannica.com/money/capitalism https://www.britannica.com/money/capitalism
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - meowster 2y ago
      > it still seems to be the best system, something which I do not see changing as long as humans remain in control of society. I agree. Humans can be bad, and bad people can participate in markets. Until you get rid of bad people (that's a scary thought on what that would entail), all forms of economic systems can be used for bad things.
    - adrian_b 2y ago
      The problem of capitalism is the instability of "the operation of markets". Especially after 2000, there has been an extreme consolidation in almost all markets, so that they are controlled by quasi-monopolies and the operation of those markets resembles more and more every year with the economies of the former socialist countries. The economies of the former socialist countries were pretty much identical with the end stage of evolution of the capitalist markets, when a true monopoly controls each market. When the dominance of Russia has collapsed after 1990, for about a decade there was a huge hope of improvements that would lead to economies everywhere functioning according to the ideal "free markets" theories. However, to the dismay of those liberated from the Russian influences, the Western countries have evolved since then to resemble more and more the systems that they were formerly criticizing, not only in the monopolistic markets, but also in mass surveillance, whistleblower punishments, great discrepancies between what the politicians say and what they do, politically-controlled Supreme Courts of Justice and so on.
bandyaboot 2y ago
I could be wrong, but these two things don’t seem like they’re really that comparable. Apollo was certainly a monumental engineering achievement, but did it require that we 100X the state of the art efficiency of some critical tech?
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Apollo was certainly a monumental engineering achievement, but did it require that we 100X the state of the art efficiency of some critical tech? One order of magnitude in propulsion. When Kennedy made his “We choose to go to the Moon” speech [1], our most powerful rocket was the Saturn I. Its H-1 engines thrusted at 200k lbf [2]. The Saturn V’s F-1s did 1.5mm lbf [3]. (The Saturn V, similarly, could lift an order of magnitude more mass to LEO than the Saturn I.) It wouldn’t surprise me to find 100x increases in some material’s performance, et cetera. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_Moon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_Moon [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne_H-1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne_H-1 [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne_F-1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne_F-1
  - bandyaboot 2y ago
    So I specifically called out efficiency because 100X’ing your thrust is about scaling up technology. That generally involves solving engineering problems—figuring how to control vibration resonance would be one example in the case of the Saturn. 100X’ing efficiency, it seems to me, is another animal entirely—it’s often about legitimate scientific breakthroughs. Like going in, you don’t even know for sure of its possible.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > 100X’ing efficiency, it seems to me, is another animal entirely Saturn V had a specific impulse of 263 s [1]. NSTAR did 3,000 s [2]. That’s an order of magnitude improvement in efficiency in 30 years of low-effort improvements. Starship should demonstrate in-orbit refuelling next year. That’s another 10x technology. Add on a solar sail and you’re in the realm of two orders of magnitude of efficiency gains with known technologies. (Three from Apollo.) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Solar_Technology_Application_Readiness https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Solar_Technology_Applic...
satvikpendem 2y ago
Common philosophical fallacy: just because we are able to do things in one stage does not mean we can do things in the next. Of course, I am an optimist, but one cannot relate historical circumstances in the same way. I will be glad if it does happen of course, but I do not expect it to be so based on past performance.
- Gooblebrai 2y ago
  I'm genuinely curious. What's the formal name of this fallacy? Never heard of it.
  - aeonik 2y ago
    I think it's just the basic limitations of induction. (Inductive fallacy) Here's a list of them, I'm too tired at the moment to figure out which one it is specifically. https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Inductive_fallacies https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Inductive_fallacies
  - satvikpendem 2y ago
    The fallacy of faulty generalization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization
trueismywork 2y ago
And Mongols conquered almost whole of Asia in less than 100 years, what's your point?
throwaway19972 2y ago
Previous generations also had it easy. Generally speaking technological advancement isn't blocked by motivation but by other concerns, namely funding. Personally, I'd rather fix healthcare if we're going to spend political capital. https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4 https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4 remains as relevant as ever
macbr 2y ago
The main reason the Apollo program wouldn't happen today is safety: The first Apollo test (unfueled) had three astronauts die due to an electrical fire! At the time Apollo 10 launched the lunar module wasn't finished yet (they wouldn't have been able to get back from the moon because it was too heavy). Apollo 16 and 17 by chance missed the 1972 solar storm by months - if an astronaut had been outside the Earth's magnetic field during the storm they have received a potentially lethal dose of radiation. One reason why after Apollo 17 the rest of the flights were cancelled even though the rockets etc. were already ordered or even built and why it took until 1981 (apart from Apollo–Soyuz) to get humans into space again.
- melling 2y ago
  The ion engine project is unmanned.
datavirtue 2y ago
These days people spend most of their time whining and being negative. It's a disease that spreads fast. Eores.

“Before this decade is out… “ When Kennedy committed us to go to the moon, the first American hadn’t even orbited the Earth. Previous generations just used to get shit done.

metalman 2y ago

read "failure is not an option" SPOILER ALERT lindburg just shows up unanounced at the cape ,security did not call ahead just escorted him up to the main deck everything stops,he hangs out for a bit,heads on his way and then they get back to work there might not even be a photo,and so you have to trust that it happened,and in that is a large part of how shit got done,on trust

Mistletoe 2y ago

> fastaguy88 10 months ago | next [–] >2.5% of the US GDP ($26 trillion in 2023) would be 600 billion. At its peak in 1967, the Apollo program budget was 3 billion, while the US GDP was about 850 billion. So 0.35 percent. US government spending in 1967 was about 112 billion, so closer to 2.5 percent of the federal budget, not the GDP. Converting to today’s 6,000 billion federal budget, about 150 billion today, or not quite 20% of the defense budget, the largest federal expenditure after Social Security (the defense budget is essentially tied with Medicare). I’m not sure we want those sort of expenses anymore.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

wongarsu 2y ago

Because America was lagging behind the Soviet Union in space achievements, and the Soviet Union was parading their superior space program to promote Communism. It's not a generational thing, it's that the Moon landing was a top priority Cold War effort to beat the Soviets and show that Capitalism is the best. This mission in the other hand would be neat but has limited political value. What money were are willing to spend on space will mostly be spent on having a permanent moon base before the Chinese.

rbanffy 2y ago
> and show that Capitalism is the best. Or so it seemed. > will mostly be spent on having a permanent moon base before the Chinese. At least it could be launched from the Moon with a magnetic rail in addition to whatever extra propulsion it could carry onboard.
- hagbard_c 2y ago
  > Or so it seemed The term 'capitalism' is often used as a smear by the adherents of 'opposing' ideologies like socialism and communism so let's agree on a definition using Britannica Money's example [1]: capitalism, economic system, dominant in the Western world since the breakup of feudalism, in which most means of production are privately owned and production is guided and income distributed largely through the operation of markets.. Given this definition and weighing the positives and negatives it still seems to be the best system, something which I do not see changing as long as humans remain in control of society. Do you have any examples which show where another system has been proven to be superior at a large scale? That - scale - is an important factor here since there is a direct relation between the scale of the group and the applicability of economic systems. [1] https://www.britannica.com/money/capitalism https://www.britannica.com/money/capitalism
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - meowster 2y ago
    > it still seems to be the best system, something which I do not see changing as long as humans remain in control of society. I agree. Humans can be bad, and bad people can participate in markets. Until you get rid of bad people (that's a scary thought on what that would entail), all forms of economic systems can be used for bad things.
  - adrian_b 2y ago
    The problem of capitalism is the instability of "the operation of markets". Especially after 2000, there has been an extreme consolidation in almost all markets, so that they are controlled by quasi-monopolies and the operation of those markets resembles more and more every year with the economies of the former socialist countries. The economies of the former socialist countries were pretty much identical with the end stage of evolution of the capitalist markets, when a true monopoly controls each market. When the dominance of Russia has collapsed after 1990, for about a decade there was a huge hope of improvements that would lead to economies everywhere functioning according to the ideal "free markets" theories. However, to the dismay of those liberated from the Russian influences, the Western countries have evolved since then to resemble more and more the systems that they were formerly criticizing, not only in the monopolistic markets, but also in mass surveillance, whistleblower punishments, great discrepancies between what the politicians say and what they do, politically-controlled Supreme Courts of Justice and so on.

bandyaboot 2y ago

I could be wrong, but these two things don’t seem like they’re really that comparable. Apollo was certainly a monumental engineering achievement, but did it require that we 100X the state of the art efficiency of some critical tech?

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Apollo was certainly a monumental engineering achievement, but did it require that we 100X the state of the art efficiency of some critical tech? One order of magnitude in propulsion. When Kennedy made his “We choose to go to the Moon” speech [1], our most powerful rocket was the Saturn I. Its H-1 engines thrusted at 200k lbf [2]. The Saturn V’s F-1s did 1.5mm lbf [3]. (The Saturn V, similarly, could lift an order of magnitude more mass to LEO than the Saturn I.) It wouldn’t surprise me to find 100x increases in some material’s performance, et cetera. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_Moon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_Moon [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne_H-1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne_H-1 [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne_F-1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne_F-1
- bandyaboot 2y ago
  So I specifically called out efficiency because 100X’ing your thrust is about scaling up technology. That generally involves solving engineering problems—figuring how to control vibration resonance would be one example in the case of the Saturn. 100X’ing efficiency, it seems to me, is another animal entirely—it’s often about legitimate scientific breakthroughs. Like going in, you don’t even know for sure of its possible.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > 100X’ing efficiency, it seems to me, is another animal entirely Saturn V had a specific impulse of 263 s [1]. NSTAR did 3,000 s [2]. That’s an order of magnitude improvement in efficiency in 30 years of low-effort improvements. Starship should demonstrate in-orbit refuelling next year. That’s another 10x technology. Add on a solar sail and you’re in the realm of two orders of magnitude of efficiency gains with known technologies. (Three from Apollo.) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Solar_Technology_Application_Readiness https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Solar_Technology_Applic...

satvikpendem 2y ago

Common philosophical fallacy: just because we are able to do things in one stage does not mean we can do things in the next. Of course, I am an optimist, but one cannot relate historical circumstances in the same way. I will be glad if it does happen of course, but I do not expect it to be so based on past performance.

Gooblebrai 2y ago
I'm genuinely curious. What's the formal name of this fallacy? Never heard of it.
- aeonik 2y ago
  I think it's just the basic limitations of induction. (Inductive fallacy) Here's a list of them, I'm too tired at the moment to figure out which one it is specifically. https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Inductive_fallacies https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Inductive_fallacies
- satvikpendem 2y ago
  The fallacy of faulty generalization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization

trueismywork 2y ago

And Mongols conquered almost whole of Asia in less than 100 years, what's your point?

throwaway19972 2y ago

Previous generations also had it easy. Generally speaking technological advancement isn't blocked by motivation but by other concerns, namely funding. Personally, I'd rather fix healthcare if we're going to spend political capital. https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4 https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4 remains as relevant as ever

macbr 2y ago

The main reason the Apollo program wouldn't happen today is safety: The first Apollo test (unfueled) had three astronauts die due to an electrical fire! At the time Apollo 10 launched the lunar module wasn't finished yet (they wouldn't have been able to get back from the moon because it was too heavy). Apollo 16 and 17 by chance missed the 1972 solar storm by months - if an astronaut had been outside the Earth's magnetic field during the storm they have received a potentially lethal dose of radiation. One reason why after Apollo 17 the rest of the flights were cancelled even though the rockets etc. were already ordered or even built and why it took until 1981 (apart from Apollo–Soyuz) to get humans into space again.

melling 2y ago
The ion engine project is unmanned.

datavirtue 2y ago

These days people spend most of their time whining and being negative. It's a disease that spreads fast. Eores.