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Moments like this remind me exactly why the hairs on my arms stand up every time I see the NASA logo. It’s not just science, it’s the amazing inspiring human ac
by ednite 1y ago
Moments like this remind me exactly why the hairs on my arms stand up every time I see the NASA logo. It’s not just science, it’s the amazing inspiring human achievement. Incredible work, NASA team.
- CobrastanJorji 1y agoIt's frankly bonkers how many insane success-at-long-odds stories NASA has and how few "we made a stupid mistake and everything exploded" stories NASA has. For every Climate Orbiter "we made an oopsie converting metric to imperial" story, there are three "we figured out how to get the crew of Apollo 13 to fit a square peg into a round hole and they can breath now" miracles. I mean, sure, there's Apollo 1's "we put people and a bunch of wires in a pressurized can of pure oxygen", but there's also the Perseverance Rover's "we made a crane that holds itself aloft with rockets and lowers a one ton rover gently to the ground on a tether."
- voidspark 1y agoTwo space shuttles exploded, killing everyone on board. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disas... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaste...
- cr125rider 1y agoAnd a bunch of other missions worked great. Learn from failures, progress.
- voidspark 1y agoYeah it's not "bonkers" or "insane". They learned the hard way. Painful lessons.
- jaredhansen 1y agoGood point, let's just shut it down, nobody should do anything
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- voidspark 1y agoThat's not my point. The learned painful lessons and their success rate is high.
- wqaatwt 1y agoDidn’t they just stop crewed space flights for (almost)decades instead?
- j4coh 1y agoWasn’t that more the point of the person you replied with counterexamples to?
- thom 1y agoLet’s assume good faith all round. One poster rightly highlights the overwhelmingly positive track record. Another points out the negatives went a little beyond an “oopsie”.
- CobrastanJorji 1y agoThey did, yes. And there are fascinating failure stories for each one. But my point is that there were more miraculous successes than miraculous failures. Heck, in my opinion, given that the Space Shuttle flew in atmosphere like a brick, and given that there was no possible way to get a second shot at the landing strip, the fact that they landed successfully every time (except for Columbia, of course) is amazing. The Apollo flights in particular were interesting. For example, in the case of Apollo 14, when Houston was literally reading new machine code to the astronauts over radio who were punching in POKE instructions by hand to change the code.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mulmen 1y ago> except for Columbia, of course And Challenger.
- HenryBemis 1y agoThe cost of doing things (I remember watching the Challenger live on TV at the time). Every now and then we watch/read in the news that # of workers died while building that bridge/road/building/etc. We don't stop making bridges/roads/buildings. We just make it safer. Will people continue dying unnecessary/unnatural deaths? Unfortunately, yes. Let's minimise this.
- mulmen 1y agoI completely agree with you. NASA consistently does amazing things. Unfortunately I just can’t leave this whole “Imperial vs Metric” thing alone so here comes a tangent. > "we made an oopsie converting metric to imperial" US Customary*. The United States has never used the Imperial system. It didn’t even exist at the time of the revolution. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_imperial_and_US_customary_measurement_systems https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_imperial_a... Also since I’m already being pedantic Mars Climate Orbiter was not lost to a conversion error. US Customary units were provided by Lockheed software to a NASA system that expected SI units. It would not have been lost if either system was used consistently.
- randmeerkat 1y ago> It's frankly bonkers how many insane success-at-long-odds stories NASA has and how few "we made a stupid mistake and everything exploded" stories NASA has. That’s what happens when engineers are allowed to engineer things, rather than being forced to “move fast and break things”.
- ashoeafoot 1y agoThings that slightly move, make all things better. As in propelling the physics of the situation (rattle the solar panel) and then reevaluate, recover.
- BrtByte 1y agoIt's decades of human curiosity, persistence, and creativity all packed into one little spacecraft still whispering to us from the edge of the solar system
- prox 1y agoI miss that spirit of curiosity, so much has become cultural mudslinging and navel gazing, plus money in the hands of those who don’t have the capacity to do any good with it. Bill Gates recently announcing he will give everything away should be the norm, not the exception in terms of spirit.
- anal_reactor 1y agoI think the problem is that when you take things at face value, your naivety eventually gets exploited, and you learn to always be on guard.
- mystified5016 1y agoThe problem is that exploitation of anyone and everyone you can has been normalized and glorified in our culture. We could just all agree that exploitation of others is wrong and unacceptable and severely punish those that try to exploit vulnerable people. But no, defauding Granny for her entire retirement is acceptable behavior now.
- mrguyorama 1y agoIt's not just "acceptable behavior", it is literally taught as the thing to strive for in business programs and obsessed over in weekly meetings and the primary way to get on magazine covers.
- metalman 1y agoanother hair raiser is that Voyager is going to be one light day out soon which is solidly into sci fi territory, but real
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- noworriesnate 1y agoMy children are probably going to have a similar reaction to the SpaceX logo. I grew up watching shuttle launches, my dad grew up watching the moon landings, and now my children are seeing those boundaries pushed even more. I can’t say how cool it was to watch the tower catch the SpaceX rocket. My children were awed. They were so thrilled when he launched a car into space with a manakin playing music. Like, who does that?? But it is simply inspiring to children. The next generation of engineers are going to see him as a hero. I think Musk never lost his boyish wonder at the universe. Not even extreme wealth could take it away from him. I’m very thankful to have him as a role model for my children. Does he do things I disagree with? Yes. But I’m not going to destroy their hero because he is having a very positive, enabling influence on them. It is so fulfilling to have my child say “Daddy can I show you my plans for building a train?” and hear them connect that curiosity and wonder with “like Elon Musk’s rockets, daddy.”
- KboPAacDA3 1y agoNASA is a great PR firm. In my opinion, the real heroes are CalTech-JPL, Arizona State, and the other institutions that NASA slaps their logo on to.