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America cannot possibly win the space race again, because it has already been won. The first to get there has already happened. The idea that we need to land o

America cannot possibly win the space race again, because it has already been won. The first to get there has already happened. The idea that we need to land on the moon once a generation just to say that we are as good at landing on the moon as our parents is absurd.

Waterluvian 1y ago
It’s just as absurd today as it was in the 60s. It’s an artificial challenge that focuses attention, with the goal of exercising government, industries, academics, etc. and maybe learn and invent a few things along the way. Yes, yes, Cold War and all those theories. But it had and can again have this greater effect. It’s kind of like a FIRST Robotics Challenge for nations. The specific goal really doesn’t matter and can just as well be different than the moon. That’s not the interesting part.
- harimau777 1y ago
  Excellent point! I'd add that it also serves to inspire regular people and get them interested in science. Unfortunately, I think that's the problem with some of the rhetoric like "the green revolution will be the next space race!" For better or worse, solar panels aren't as inspiring to most people as space is.
  - heavyset_go 1y ago
    A lot of money and time were behind the space race propaganda arm that got people excited about advancements in space technology. If the same resources were put into popularizing advancements in energy, you'd see more excitement. As it is, there are kids growing up excited about environmentalism like there were kids growing up excited about space.
    - anigbrowl 1y ago
      No. Kids are not stupid. You can appreciate environmental innovation while also recognizing that it is fundamentally, qualitatively different from doing difficult things in space. Do you look at the Mars Rover and say to yourself 'big deal, we have cars right here on Earth'?
      - heavyset_go 1y ago
        I never claimed kids were stupid, my point is that a ton of resources were dumped into things like fan clubs, movies, TV and radio programs, toys, collectibles, children's books, keeping it in the news, etc. We even sent a grade school teacher into space even if that ended in tragedy. Look at the cult of personality the Soviet Union built around Yuri Gagarin, yes people were always going to find space exploration interesting, but manufacturing a folk hero means even more people will, too, and it becomes something aspirational and seemingly attainable. The Soviets were not unique in doing this, the US did similar things.
        harimau777 1y ago
        I agree that all played a role. I'm just not sure that a similar PR campaign would be able to produce comparable inspiration from, for example, public infrastructure. There's no afro-futurist movie called "The Interstate Highway is the Place".
        heavyset_go 1y ago
        I think we were able to strike a chord with nationalist tendencies, which can be strong motivators, for public infrastructure during the New Deal era with the PWA and WPA and their associated propaganda. There was both a personal pride in bettering oneself with hard work, and larger shared pride of building huge, sometimes incredible feats of engineering, infrastructure that your neighbors and nation depend on, and quite literally rebuilding the nation for a new modern era. There are already some related things in popular culture that seem to inspire younger generations, like new urbanism. The hope for a new way of living can be a huge motivating force.
- fluoridation 1y ago
  >It’s just as absurd today as it was in the 60s. Nah. You can argue that the goal "land on the moon" is artificial, but it being artificial doesn't make it fake or abstract. If you're the first to achieve it then you're the first, and that's it. What does it prove if you're able to repeat it fifty years later? You didn't have to invent anything new (obviously), and you're certainly not learning anything new. Now, if you're not able to repeat it at all, that does say something. But if it takes you a few years longer, well, so what? It's not a race anymore, because it's already been won, by the US of fifty years ago. The winner of the race to Mars is still undecided, though.
  - Waterluvian 1y ago
    It feels arbitrary to decide we can’t have a Space Race 2 (Space Harder) but we have Olympics every two years and Super Bowls and World Series and all that every year. I’ve got to assume I’m misunderstanding the objection because it feels ridiculous to overstir the oxygen over semantics. Do we just need to call it Space Race 2?
    - fluoridation 1y ago
      A space race isn't a sport, it's a technological and scientific challenge. You can't invent the same technology twice, unless the idea is completely forgotten. Also unlike sports, space races are massively expensive and it's untenable to forever go from one to the next.
      - eru 1y ago
        Well, you could try to raise the challenge. Eg do it on a limited budget, or establish a permanent base, etc. However I agree that manned space flight is a giant money pit with not much to show for. It should come out of our entertainment budget, not eat into our science budget. If you want to do science in space, go unmanned.
      - jlawson 1y ago
        The space race was not just about inventing, though. It was about doing. You can do the same thing twice, and you can also lose the ability to do something. The ability to do the thing is what is really being maintained and demonstrated. Every country has the technology to go to the moon - it's well established now. But who can actually make it happen? That's a huge organizational, human, financial, industrial challenge. And people do notice when only one country can do it.
- mjamesaustin 1y ago
  It succeeded in the 60s because we didn't just focus attention, we focused a LOT OF MONEY on it. In comparison, today's NASA has a meager budget which has only been further slashed by the current administration. I would love to see the kind of investment in NASA we had during the 60s. The scientific advancements were staggering. Today, the only thing we have money for is weapons and warfare.
  - JackFr 1y ago
    > we focused a LOT OF MONEY on it Apollo at its height commanded 0.8% of the entire US economy.
    - intrasight 1y ago
      AI is today's equivalent race. I wouldn't be surprised if it's now over 1% of the US economy.
      - allenrb 1y ago
        And IMHO this AI race will do something Apollo never did, at least not with people aboard… crash and burn.
        amrocha 1y ago
        I can’t tell if this is a joke. The Apollo mission did crash and burn and kill people.
        Azrael3000 1y ago
        Apollo 1 burned quite well unfortunately. But IMHO it makes no sense to compare those things anyways.
      - jcgrillo 1y ago
        Apollo was much better value for money. It inspired generations to study and enter STEM fields, it gave us multitudes of technological advances, and it gave the entire world something to marvel at. It gave us the earthrise image, which fueled the environmental movement. What has "AI" inspired? What marvels will the enshittificatement of googling, or the latest deepfake garbage bestow upon us? If "AI" is our moonshot we're all well and truly fucked.
terminalshort 1y ago
I say let's do it once a week
darepublic 1y ago
I mean it may not be a good reason but it would boost morale. I'd be happy about it
- eru 1y ago
  Buying everyone a puppy would presumably also raise morale.
  - recursive 1y ago
    who's going to take care of this puppy?
    - m4rtink 1y ago
      The parents or grandparents of course. ;-)
Dylan16807 1y ago
> The idea that we need to land on the moon once a generation just to say that we are as good at landing on the moon as our parents is absurd. In the sense that we don't need to do either, that's true. But if we want to claim we're still competent moon landers, we do need to repeat the task every once in a while to keep that capability. And there are good scientific benefits from continuing to do difficult space launches of many types.
themgt 1y ago
America cannot possibly win the space race again, because it has already been won. This is sort of like saying Leif Erikson and the Icelandic Commonwealth won the "the new world race" in 1000AD. Whatever Columbus et al were up to would surely be of trifling concern to future generations.
- Yeul 1y ago
  It also ignores the fact that empires can decline. (Although I think the moon landing is ridiculous there is no scientific reason for it).
  - hopelite 1y ago
    It’s more about establishing a permanent base or some operational capacity, not allowing China to dominate that aspect. And yes, it’s probably also about certain aspects of anxiety and probably some panic about the prospect of American decline after so many decades of squandering everything and letting itself both be bled dry and run off a cliff by a subversive element within.
    - nebula8804 1y ago
      >after so many decades of squandering everything and letting itself both be bled dry and run off a cliff by a subversive element within After everything is all said and done, I wonder if it would be possible to build out a data project tracking the people and the decisions that led to the outcome and also where all the wealth went. I guess this is impossible because too many people are unnamed figures just doing their part succumbing to inertia.
      - hopelite 1y ago
        Theoretically it would probably be more possible than you may think, but it would likely be a far bigger and more gargantuan project than you think too. We are largely talking about government money, which theoretically would need to have been tracked and accounted for, but just along getting access to that data would be an massive effort in and of itself, with massive interests groups fighting tooth and nail to keep that data secret by hook and crook. For a bit of perspective, I just saw that James O'Keeffe just published a video yesterday that is related to that topic regarding the 8(a) set-aside fraud that he says amounts to $100 billion annually alone. Having some direct knowledge about that area in particular, I would not be surprised if it was even more than $100B annually, and that's just one of such schemes where I would guess about 80% of the money is full on defrauded by various means and methods, and of the remaining 20%, probably 15% are for things that are simply utterly useless, unproductive, pointless efforts; often even to do work in support of some other agency/department's work that is also utterly useless and inconsequential, i.e., a kind of circular fraud. In case you are interested in the O'Keeffe video, even though it may be boring to some and utterly shocking to others [1]. Just remember, he is highlighting just one company and one tribe running this scheme/fraud, there are hundreds or even thousands of companies doing exactly that, and that is just one scheme/fraud of several that exist in federal contracting; even beyond just open and blatant corruption and nepotism and fraud you would not believe me if I told you, because you would not be able to square the fact that something so blatant could be occurring without law enforcement doing their jobs. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_CtRCLaSbY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_CtRCLaSbY
bdangubic 1y ago
> The first to get there has already happened. Motorola was the first to create a handheld mobile phone, Apple just did not get that memo... :)
- skeeter2020 1y ago
  But Apple didn't recreate the same mobile handset as Motorola or anybody else. There is very little value or scientific benefit in going back to the moon within the parameters of this mission; it's literally "do the same thing again".
  - mrheosuper 1y ago
    What do you mean "the same thing"? Different rocket, different suits, and different budget. If we want to put people on Mars, we must prove we can put people on Moon, again.
    - lkjdsklf 1y ago
      Its also in an entirely different part of the moon, from an entirely different orbit It’s like saying visiting the marianas trench and Everest are the same because they’re both on earth
    - bruce511 1y ago
      Putting people on Mars US equally useless. Any colony on Mars would require enormous support from Earth. It would never be self-suffient. Mars would need water, air, energy, raw materials, fuel and everything else for (basically) ever. There is zero to be gained (here) from a Mars colony. Mars lacks a magnetic field, air to breath, water to drink or cultivate crops, a temperature suitable for plant or animal life, fuel sources to build industry, supply chains for the construction or maintainence of the simplest electrical systems. Talk of Mars is purely a PR play. Someone will be first. Yay. But Mars will play no part in Earth's future.
      - xvilka 1y ago
zm262 1y ago
The point is to avoid "China can do this feat but US is no longer capable"
- robocat 1y ago
  Small sample, but in New Orleans, the US isn't even capable of maintenance. I'm a tourist at the moment and everything looks like it is falling apart. The existing roading infrastructure is crumbling (apparently there's an Instagram about the worst examples). Everywhere I've driven, the roads are worse than earthquake hit Christchurch. Yet there is so much amazing old infrastructure that reeks of massive past investment. Commonly I see power poles listing tipsily (or even broken); cable wires loose or hanging. One bridge over the Mississippi has rust patches everywhere and needs a paint. Is it just New Orleans, or a more general issue across the US?
  - jb1991 1y ago
    Everywhere. The US has an infrastructure problem. Whenever I return to visit I can’t believe my eyes.
    - amanaplanacanal 1y ago
      The way things are funded in the US is pretty crazy. New projects usually rely on federal government grants, but that money normally can't pay for maintenance. So states and cities have to pay for their own maintenance. The federal government just prints new money for these new projects. Everything is so car oriented and spread out, that there isn't enough value to tax to pay for the maintenance on all the spread out infrastructure. So states and cities are always on the brink of default, scrambling to maintain all this stuff.
  - selimthegrim 1y ago
    I live in New Orleans (happy to meet for a coffee!) one thing to keep in mind is that the roads cost $7 million a mile to pave because of the subsurface.
croes 1y ago
It’s a new race and a new contender and the simple premise is, what once was the US is now China, the country capable of bringing men to the moon. That position is open at the moment
deleted 1y ago
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fastball 1y ago
It's not even clear the USA "won" the space race. America was first (and last) to land men on the moon, but arguably the USSR had far more space-related "firsts" than the US. Landing on the moon only become the end-all-be-all when the US achieved it and the USSR could not (for various reasons).
- kurisufag 1y ago
  the reds did space much, much worse. first satellite? all sputnik could do was beep, and it ran out of batteries in three weeks. first animal? laika died. first station? there were two attempts to crew it -- the first failed to dock and everyone on the second mission fucking died. the soyuz 11 crew remain the only human deaths in space. first *naut? yuri gagarin didn't even have manual controls. the n1 was catastrophic. need i go on?
  - robocat 1y ago
    Failing fast is easier when lives are valued cheaply. “If it’s not failing, you’re not pushing hard enough.” You are selecting goalposts that suit your team, and being disrespectful of the USSR (presumably because you don't want to acknowledge their successes).
    - HaZeust 1y ago
      Ok, name some goalposts that steelman the USSR's contributions to the space race.
      - taneq 1y ago
        First satellite, first lunar flyby, first heliocentric orbit, first lunar landing, first animals returned safely from orbit, first human space flight. Those are some pretty solid goals.
      - bruce511 1y ago
        Sputnik was the first object to orbit the earth. It was the spark that lit the fire under the US space effort. It may not have been grand, but it was the first. Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space, first to orbit the earth. To minimize these achievements is like saying the Wright Brothers test was meaningless because it only lasted 12 seconds. In truth each "first" represents a milestone, each required substantial effort. In more recent times Russia alone was capable of manned space flight (2011 to 2020). To return to your question, the USSR was critical to the space race. You cannot gave a race with 1 entrant. Without USSR constantly being in the news doing things first, there would not have been a space race at all. Indeed, by the time of JFK's speech there was not much to race for except the moon. Once the Soviets stopped the US stopped as well. It's taken the talk of a Chinese mission for the US to even bother. Earth satellites are an enormously valuable use of space. But very unsexy. Trips to the moon have pretty much no value. But they make for good PR.
Aeolun 1y ago
> The idea that we need to land on the moon once a generation just to say that we are as good at landing on the moon as our parents is absurd. We need to land on the moon once a generation just to prove that we are still capable of landing on the moon.
amrocha 1y ago
The USA lost the space race by every measure.
beAbU 1y ago
What's the purpose of summiting Everest if it's been done already? What's the purpose of summiting again if you personally have already done so before? We don't do these things only to be the first to do it, we do them because it's an incredible achievement, the first time, and the 100th time. Claiming that the new mission to the moon is a waste of time because "we already won the space race" is backward. Withholding an entire generation (multiple actually) from the awe and wonder that is associated with such an endeavour just because "it's been done before" is borderline criminal imo. And frankly, the fact that the US is struggling to get it's rocket in the air, let alone get a human on the moon, even after they did so already and literally wrote the tutorial on how to do it, is very embarrassing.
pmontra 1y ago
It's like the Olympics, you have to win the basketball gold medal every 4 years or accept that somebody else is better than you at that game. Every medal can be the last one forever. Sports are sports, not being good at other matters can have substantial consequences. Maybe landing on the moon is not one of them but the degree of technology and organization that it requires is certainly a proxy of the general standing of a country.
- mathw 1y ago
  True, however if you want to be great on the world stage and have people look at you and say "wow they can do amazing things" I'm not sure landing on the moon really has much value. The obsession with beating China there this generation is certainly not very healthy, especially when it's built on a moon landing system that was primarily designed to keep space shuttle contractors in business. Want to impress the world? End poverty. Advance cancer treatment. Build a viable nuclear fusion power plant. Make an HIV vaccine and sell it affordably across the world. We could be done with the Cold War-era rocket-waving.
  - snapcaster 1y ago
    >Want to impress the world? End poverty. China didn't _end_ poverty but they did lift hundreds of millions of people out of it and i've literally never seen anyone outside of China give them props for it
    - qcnguy 1y ago
      Really? I've seen the opposite. They get way too many props for it given that the main reason China was so poor to begin with was their own cultural history. You shouldn't get credit for solving a problem you created for yourselves.
konart 1y ago
>America cannot possibly win the space race again, because it has already been won. How so? Because you decided that reaching the Moon equals winning? Why not Mars? Same way we can say that USSR won the race because they were the first ones to put man into space and bring him back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy_H2BeE_Nk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy_H2BeE_Nk Neil deGrasse Tyson on topic.
- mlrtime 1y ago
  >Why not Mars? Isn't that what the next goal is, but we're so far away from it now?
  - konart 1y ago
    My point is that you can say that there is no race here. Milestones? Maybe. But that's it.
- yifanl 1y ago
  The USSR did win the space race, but by demanding another spin double or nothing, JFK managed to annul that result with his literal moonshot bet.

Waterluvian 1y ago

It’s just as absurd today as it was in the 60s. It’s an artificial challenge that focuses attention, with the goal of exercising government, industries, academics, etc. and maybe learn and invent a few things along the way. Yes, yes, Cold War and all those theories. But it had and can again have this greater effect. It’s kind of like a FIRST Robotics Challenge for nations. The specific goal really doesn’t matter and can just as well be different than the moon. That’s not the interesting part.

harimau777 1y ago
Excellent point! I'd add that it also serves to inspire regular people and get them interested in science. Unfortunately, I think that's the problem with some of the rhetoric like "the green revolution will be the next space race!" For better or worse, solar panels aren't as inspiring to most people as space is.
- heavyset_go 1y ago
  A lot of money and time were behind the space race propaganda arm that got people excited about advancements in space technology. If the same resources were put into popularizing advancements in energy, you'd see more excitement. As it is, there are kids growing up excited about environmentalism like there were kids growing up excited about space.
  - anigbrowl 1y ago
    No. Kids are not stupid. You can appreciate environmental innovation while also recognizing that it is fundamentally, qualitatively different from doing difficult things in space. Do you look at the Mars Rover and say to yourself 'big deal, we have cars right here on Earth'?
    - heavyset_go 1y ago
      I never claimed kids were stupid, my point is that a ton of resources were dumped into things like fan clubs, movies, TV and radio programs, toys, collectibles, children's books, keeping it in the news, etc. We even sent a grade school teacher into space even if that ended in tragedy. Look at the cult of personality the Soviet Union built around Yuri Gagarin, yes people were always going to find space exploration interesting, but manufacturing a folk hero means even more people will, too, and it becomes something aspirational and seemingly attainable. The Soviets were not unique in doing this, the US did similar things.
      - harimau777 1y ago
        I agree that all played a role. I'm just not sure that a similar PR campaign would be able to produce comparable inspiration from, for example, public infrastructure. There's no afro-futurist movie called "The Interstate Highway is the Place".
        heavyset_go 1y ago
        I think we were able to strike a chord with nationalist tendencies, which can be strong motivators, for public infrastructure during the New Deal era with the PWA and WPA and their associated propaganda. There was both a personal pride in bettering oneself with hard work, and larger shared pride of building huge, sometimes incredible feats of engineering, infrastructure that your neighbors and nation depend on, and quite literally rebuilding the nation for a new modern era. There are already some related things in popular culture that seem to inspire younger generations, like new urbanism. The hope for a new way of living can be a huge motivating force.
fluoridation 1y ago
>It’s just as absurd today as it was in the 60s. Nah. You can argue that the goal "land on the moon" is artificial, but it being artificial doesn't make it fake or abstract. If you're the first to achieve it then you're the first, and that's it. What does it prove if you're able to repeat it fifty years later? You didn't have to invent anything new (obviously), and you're certainly not learning anything new. Now, if you're not able to repeat it at all, that does say something. But if it takes you a few years longer, well, so what? It's not a race anymore, because it's already been won, by the US of fifty years ago. The winner of the race to Mars is still undecided, though.
- Waterluvian 1y ago
  It feels arbitrary to decide we can’t have a Space Race 2 (Space Harder) but we have Olympics every two years and Super Bowls and World Series and all that every year. I’ve got to assume I’m misunderstanding the objection because it feels ridiculous to overstir the oxygen over semantics. Do we just need to call it Space Race 2?
  - fluoridation 1y ago
    A space race isn't a sport, it's a technological and scientific challenge. You can't invent the same technology twice, unless the idea is completely forgotten. Also unlike sports, space races are massively expensive and it's untenable to forever go from one to the next.
    - eru 1y ago
      Well, you could try to raise the challenge. Eg do it on a limited budget, or establish a permanent base, etc. However I agree that manned space flight is a giant money pit with not much to show for. It should come out of our entertainment budget, not eat into our science budget. If you want to do science in space, go unmanned.
    - jlawson 1y ago
      The space race was not just about inventing, though. It was about doing. You can do the same thing twice, and you can also lose the ability to do something. The ability to do the thing is what is really being maintained and demonstrated. Every country has the technology to go to the moon - it's well established now. But who can actually make it happen? That's a huge organizational, human, financial, industrial challenge. And people do notice when only one country can do it.
mjamesaustin 1y ago
It succeeded in the 60s because we didn't just focus attention, we focused a LOT OF MONEY on it. In comparison, today's NASA has a meager budget which has only been further slashed by the current administration. I would love to see the kind of investment in NASA we had during the 60s. The scientific advancements were staggering. Today, the only thing we have money for is weapons and warfare.
- JackFr 1y ago
  > we focused a LOT OF MONEY on it Apollo at its height commanded 0.8% of the entire US economy.
  - intrasight 1y ago
    AI is today's equivalent race. I wouldn't be surprised if it's now over 1% of the US economy.
    - allenrb 1y ago
      And IMHO this AI race will do something Apollo never did, at least not with people aboard… crash and burn.
      - amrocha 1y ago
        I can’t tell if this is a joke. The Apollo mission did crash and burn and kill people.
      - Azrael3000 1y ago
        Apollo 1 burned quite well unfortunately. But IMHO it makes no sense to compare those things anyways.
    - jcgrillo 1y ago
      Apollo was much better value for money. It inspired generations to study and enter STEM fields, it gave us multitudes of technological advances, and it gave the entire world something to marvel at. It gave us the earthrise image, which fueled the environmental movement. What has "AI" inspired? What marvels will the enshittificatement of googling, or the latest deepfake garbage bestow upon us? If "AI" is our moonshot we're all well and truly fucked.

terminalshort 1y ago

I say let's do it once a week

darepublic 1y ago

I mean it may not be a good reason but it would boost morale. I'd be happy about it

eru 1y ago
Buying everyone a puppy would presumably also raise morale.
- recursive 1y ago
  who's going to take care of this puppy?
  - m4rtink 1y ago
    The parents or grandparents of course. ;-)

Dylan16807 1y ago

> The idea that we need to land on the moon once a generation just to say that we are as good at landing on the moon as our parents is absurd. In the sense that we don't need to do either, that's true. But if we want to claim we're still competent moon landers, we do need to repeat the task every once in a while to keep that capability. And there are good scientific benefits from continuing to do difficult space launches of many types.

themgt 1y ago

America cannot possibly win the space race again, because it has already been won. This is sort of like saying Leif Erikson and the Icelandic Commonwealth won the "the new world race" in 1000AD. Whatever Columbus et al were up to would surely be of trifling concern to future generations.

Yeul 1y ago
It also ignores the fact that empires can decline. (Although I think the moon landing is ridiculous there is no scientific reason for it).
- hopelite 1y ago
  It’s more about establishing a permanent base or some operational capacity, not allowing China to dominate that aspect. And yes, it’s probably also about certain aspects of anxiety and probably some panic about the prospect of American decline after so many decades of squandering everything and letting itself both be bled dry and run off a cliff by a subversive element within.
  - nebula8804 1y ago
    >after so many decades of squandering everything and letting itself both be bled dry and run off a cliff by a subversive element within After everything is all said and done, I wonder if it would be possible to build out a data project tracking the people and the decisions that led to the outcome and also where all the wealth went. I guess this is impossible because too many people are unnamed figures just doing their part succumbing to inertia.
    - hopelite 1y ago
      Theoretically it would probably be more possible than you may think, but it would likely be a far bigger and more gargantuan project than you think too. We are largely talking about government money, which theoretically would need to have been tracked and accounted for, but just along getting access to that data would be an massive effort in and of itself, with massive interests groups fighting tooth and nail to keep that data secret by hook and crook. For a bit of perspective, I just saw that James O'Keeffe just published a video yesterday that is related to that topic regarding the 8(a) set-aside fraud that he says amounts to $100 billion annually alone. Having some direct knowledge about that area in particular, I would not be surprised if it was even more than $100B annually, and that's just one of such schemes where I would guess about 80% of the money is full on defrauded by various means and methods, and of the remaining 20%, probably 15% are for things that are simply utterly useless, unproductive, pointless efforts; often even to do work in support of some other agency/department's work that is also utterly useless and inconsequential, i.e., a kind of circular fraud. In case you are interested in the O'Keeffe video, even though it may be boring to some and utterly shocking to others [1]. Just remember, he is highlighting just one company and one tribe running this scheme/fraud, there are hundreds or even thousands of companies doing exactly that, and that is just one scheme/fraud of several that exist in federal contracting; even beyond just open and blatant corruption and nepotism and fraud you would not believe me if I told you, because you would not be able to square the fact that something so blatant could be occurring without law enforcement doing their jobs. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_CtRCLaSbY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_CtRCLaSbY

bdangubic 1y ago

> The first to get there has already happened. Motorola was the first to create a handheld mobile phone, Apple just did not get that memo... :)

skeeter2020 1y ago
But Apple didn't recreate the same mobile handset as Motorola or anybody else. There is very little value or scientific benefit in going back to the moon within the parameters of this mission; it's literally "do the same thing again".
- mrheosuper 1y ago
  What do you mean "the same thing"? Different rocket, different suits, and different budget. If we want to put people on Mars, we must prove we can put people on Moon, again.
  - lkjdsklf 1y ago
    Its also in an entirely different part of the moon, from an entirely different orbit It’s like saying visiting the marianas trench and Everest are the same because they’re both on earth
  - bruce511 1y ago
    Putting people on Mars US equally useless. Any colony on Mars would require enormous support from Earth. It would never be self-suffient. Mars would need water, air, energy, raw materials, fuel and everything else for (basically) ever. There is zero to be gained (here) from a Mars colony. Mars lacks a magnetic field, air to breath, water to drink or cultivate crops, a temperature suitable for plant or animal life, fuel sources to build industry, supply chains for the construction or maintainence of the simplest electrical systems. Talk of Mars is purely a PR play. Someone will be first. Yay. But Mars will play no part in Earth's future.
    - xvilka 1y ago

zm262 1y ago

The point is to avoid "China can do this feat but US is no longer capable"

robocat 1y ago
Small sample, but in New Orleans, the US isn't even capable of maintenance. I'm a tourist at the moment and everything looks like it is falling apart. The existing roading infrastructure is crumbling (apparently there's an Instagram about the worst examples). Everywhere I've driven, the roads are worse than earthquake hit Christchurch. Yet there is so much amazing old infrastructure that reeks of massive past investment. Commonly I see power poles listing tipsily (or even broken); cable wires loose or hanging. One bridge over the Mississippi has rust patches everywhere and needs a paint. Is it just New Orleans, or a more general issue across the US?
- jb1991 1y ago
  Everywhere. The US has an infrastructure problem. Whenever I return to visit I can’t believe my eyes.
  - amanaplanacanal 1y ago
    The way things are funded in the US is pretty crazy. New projects usually rely on federal government grants, but that money normally can't pay for maintenance. So states and cities have to pay for their own maintenance. The federal government just prints new money for these new projects. Everything is so car oriented and spread out, that there isn't enough value to tax to pay for the maintenance on all the spread out infrastructure. So states and cities are always on the brink of default, scrambling to maintain all this stuff.
- selimthegrim 1y ago
  I live in New Orleans (happy to meet for a coffee!) one thing to keep in mind is that the roads cost $7 million a mile to pave because of the subsurface.

croes 1y ago

It’s a new race and a new contender and the simple premise is, what once was the US is now China, the country capable of bringing men to the moon. That position is open at the moment

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fastball 1y ago

It's not even clear the USA "won" the space race. America was first (and last) to land men on the moon, but arguably the USSR had far more space-related "firsts" than the US. Landing on the moon only become the end-all-be-all when the US achieved it and the USSR could not (for various reasons).

kurisufag 1y ago
the reds did space much, much worse. first satellite? all sputnik could do was beep, and it ran out of batteries in three weeks. first animal? laika died. first station? there were two attempts to crew it -- the first failed to dock and everyone on the second mission fucking died. the soyuz 11 crew remain the only human deaths in space. first *naut? yuri gagarin didn't even have manual controls. the n1 was catastrophic. need i go on?
- robocat 1y ago
  Failing fast is easier when lives are valued cheaply. “If it’s not failing, you’re not pushing hard enough.” You are selecting goalposts that suit your team, and being disrespectful of the USSR (presumably because you don't want to acknowledge their successes).
  - HaZeust 1y ago
    Ok, name some goalposts that steelman the USSR's contributions to the space race.
    - taneq 1y ago
      First satellite, first lunar flyby, first heliocentric orbit, first lunar landing, first animals returned safely from orbit, first human space flight. Those are some pretty solid goals.
    - bruce511 1y ago
      Sputnik was the first object to orbit the earth. It was the spark that lit the fire under the US space effort. It may not have been grand, but it was the first. Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space, first to orbit the earth. To minimize these achievements is like saying the Wright Brothers test was meaningless because it only lasted 12 seconds. In truth each "first" represents a milestone, each required substantial effort. In more recent times Russia alone was capable of manned space flight (2011 to 2020). To return to your question, the USSR was critical to the space race. You cannot gave a race with 1 entrant. Without USSR constantly being in the news doing things first, there would not have been a space race at all. Indeed, by the time of JFK's speech there was not much to race for except the moon. Once the Soviets stopped the US stopped as well. It's taken the talk of a Chinese mission for the US to even bother. Earth satellites are an enormously valuable use of space. But very unsexy. Trips to the moon have pretty much no value. But they make for good PR.

Aeolun 1y ago

> The idea that we need to land on the moon once a generation just to say that we are as good at landing on the moon as our parents is absurd. We need to land on the moon once a generation just to prove that we are still capable of landing on the moon.

amrocha 1y ago

The USA lost the space race by every measure.

beAbU 1y ago

What's the purpose of summiting Everest if it's been done already? What's the purpose of summiting again if you personally have already done so before? We don't do these things only to be the first to do it, we do them because it's an incredible achievement, the first time, and the 100th time. Claiming that the new mission to the moon is a waste of time because "we already won the space race" is backward. Withholding an entire generation (multiple actually) from the awe and wonder that is associated with such an endeavour just because "it's been done before" is borderline criminal imo. And frankly, the fact that the US is struggling to get it's rocket in the air, let alone get a human on the moon, even after they did so already and literally wrote the tutorial on how to do it, is very embarrassing.

pmontra 1y ago

It's like the Olympics, you have to win the basketball gold medal every 4 years or accept that somebody else is better than you at that game. Every medal can be the last one forever. Sports are sports, not being good at other matters can have substantial consequences. Maybe landing on the moon is not one of them but the degree of technology and organization that it requires is certainly a proxy of the general standing of a country.

mathw 1y ago
True, however if you want to be great on the world stage and have people look at you and say "wow they can do amazing things" I'm not sure landing on the moon really has much value. The obsession with beating China there this generation is certainly not very healthy, especially when it's built on a moon landing system that was primarily designed to keep space shuttle contractors in business. Want to impress the world? End poverty. Advance cancer treatment. Build a viable nuclear fusion power plant. Make an HIV vaccine and sell it affordably across the world. We could be done with the Cold War-era rocket-waving.
- snapcaster 1y ago
  >Want to impress the world? End poverty. China didn't _end_ poverty but they did lift hundreds of millions of people out of it and i've literally never seen anyone outside of China give them props for it
  - qcnguy 1y ago
    Really? I've seen the opposite. They get way too many props for it given that the main reason China was so poor to begin with was their own cultural history. You shouldn't get credit for solving a problem you created for yourselves.

konart 1y ago

>America cannot possibly win the space race again, because it has already been won. How so? Because you decided that reaching the Moon equals winning? Why not Mars? Same way we can say that USSR won the race because they were the first ones to put man into space and bring him back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy_H2BeE_Nk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy_H2BeE_Nk Neil deGrasse Tyson on topic.

mlrtime 1y ago
>Why not Mars? Isn't that what the next goal is, but we're so far away from it now?
- konart 1y ago
  My point is that you can say that there is no race here. Milestones? Maybe. But that's it.
yifanl 1y ago
The USSR did win the space race, but by demanding another spin double or nothing, JFK managed to annul that result with his literal moonshot bet.