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The Soviet Union landed a rover on Mars almost 30 years before NASA. Unfortunately the lander it was tethered to, Mars 3, stopped communicating about two minut
by lupusreal 1y ago
The Soviet Union landed a rover on Mars almost 30 years before NASA. Unfortunately the lander it was tethered to, Mars 3, stopped communicating about two minutes after landing so the rover didn't get a chance to go into action.
Anyway, the Soviet Union's relative lack of success with Mars wasn't really for lack of trying. Space is hard.
- floxy 1y ago>The Soviet Union landed a rover on Mars almost 30 years before NASA. The Mars 3 landed on Mars in 1971: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_3 The NASA Viking program landed on Mars in 1976: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_program ...but I guess that didn't rove.
- lupusreal 1y agoRight, NASA's first remote controlled rover (anywhere) was Sojourner in 1997. The first successful remote controlled rover was the Soviet Lunokhod 1 in 1970. That succeeded in driving around the Moon for almost a year. Mars 3 didn't pan out but I still think that level of ambition from the Soviet Union, relative to NASA, is notable and worth celebrating.
- FredPret 1y agoAstronaut Chris Hadfield wrote a fun book involving Lunokhod: The Apollo Murders.
- ProAm 1y agoSoviets won the space race, just lost the cold war. And now we're here fighting another cold war and the US is losing
- nradov 1y agoLosing how?
- laxd 1y agoMost certainly losing popularity https://www.politico.eu/article/usa-popularity-collapse-worldwide-trump-return/ https://www.politico.eu/article/usa-popularity-collapse-worl...
- stronglikedan 1y agoGood thing it's not a popularity contest, and so goes America still so goes the world.
- computerthings 1y ago[dead]
- Arainach 1y agoLosing geopolitical influence, respect, and significance. Losing economic impact. Dramatically losing scientists, researchers, innovation, and the things to build future technologies. Losing the lead in electric vehicles and renewable energy. Losing the ability to build ships, semiconductors, large steel foundries, and more essentials. So. Much. Winning. I'm sick of winning.
- Applejinx 1y agoGiven that the original post cites a cold war the US is losing, I'd list these things as part of that war. Russia controls many aspects of the US now, and is bringing about these collapses on purpose. As one does in a war against one's deadly enemy. It's not particularly mysterious.
- somenameforme 1y agoThe same way the USSR lost. People talk about final-point reasons like economic issues caused by an arms race or whatever, but that's just the final steps of a long lost race. Empires collapse long before they finally fall due to inertia alone. And I think the "real" cause is always the same. When enough people inside an empire want it to fail, that empire will fail. And a common cause for creating that sentiment (that applies to everything from Rome to the USSR to the US) is Empires naturally tend to spend an increasingly disproportionate amount of their time focused on affairs outside their borders rather than within them. You have urban left leaning types becoming increasingly anti-capitalist, and the more right leaning and rural types feeling neglected by both internal and external policy. People agree on less than ever, but the one thing they all agree on is that the system sucks. This will likely result in over more radical shifts between presidencies. You end up with a country that's starting to feel a lot like a boat being rocked back and forth with increasing vigor. And obviously this isn't just the US. It seems many political systems throughout the world are headed towards dramatic shifts.