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Lots of people complaining that we have already won the "moon race" and that this makes no sense. This is a completely wrong reading of the situation. Let's sa

Lots of people complaining that we have already won the "moon race" and that this makes no sense. This is a completely wrong reading of the situation. Let's say we forgot how to do heart transplants. Once we did them a few times perfectly, got all surgical techniques right, but patients died shortly after the surgery due to rejection. We quit the whole transplants stuff for years, the techniques and the equipments were lost over time. But then, some 40 years later, we now knew a lot more about immunology, have incredibly advanced drugs, and an aging population. So, because of that, we decided to develop the surgical procedure techniques, long-lost, again. This is a good analogy for the situation. The moon is an important milestone for further commercial and scientific exploration of the space. We lost the ability we once had to reach it. And anyway, we were not as ready as we are today to follow the next logical steps. If we manage to harvest water from moon ice now, we will be establishing the basis for a kind of serious exploration and development that we weren't nearly ready to achieve in the past. So, no, we are not doing it just to prove "we haven't lost our mojo", for bragging rights. We are doing it because we are in a development stage where it makes sense to finally return to the moon.

zm262 1y ago
It matters more to US politically than scientifically. It's totally about the US mojo in the eyes of politicians and thus funding.
- enraged_camel 1y ago
  This dismissal is quite shallow. Yes, it matters politically - but that has enormous downstream repercussions. China beating us to the Moon helps reinforce the narrative that the American century of global dominance is over, and China is the new superpower that is unseating it. The implications of that would go well beyond politics.
  - gorbachev 1y ago
    You don't win that fight by sending a few folks to the moon. You win it using the playbook the CCP has been systematically and very successfully implementing for a few decades. They are very good at long-term planning. The US plans in 4-year (or 8-year) cycles, and often times reverse course completely at the end of those.
- elzbardico 1y ago
  American mojo have real world economic consequences. The value of the dollar depends a lot on how the rest of the world sees America.
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    You know what else has real world economic consequences? Dead astronauts. I'm all for reinvigorating the global economy with a resurgence in scientific investment, but it only works if we do it patiently. China understands that, the CCP is quite capable of national planning that transcends administrations. You can't force a moon landing like it's a political OKR, if you do then you better have a pretty solid Plan B considering the amount of risk it represents.
ramblenode 1y ago
Your example does not support your argument. Unlike heart surgery, there hasn't been a major shift in what we could do if we went back, and more exploration probably won't change the commercial or military prospects of the moon.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > more exploration probably won't change the commercial or military prospects of the moon What are you basing this on?
  - hackernewds 1y ago
    burden of truth is on you. not them
    - HaZeust 1y ago
      ramblenode made the starting claim - what?
- elzbardico 1y ago
  No. Of course, there is a giant shift in what we could do. We can build far more reliable rockets. We have incredible progresses in materials science, in our understanding of the moon's geology. Likewise, we established the presence of water. We have more advanced solar panels, better batteries, we have a lot of recent research on modular, safe nuclear reactors that could probably lead more easily to moon-ready reactors. We have better batteries. Not only that, but we have better high power semiconductor gear that could lead to high orbit solar power stations over the poles feeding a polar base via microwaves. We have decades of accumulated knowledge of human physiology under zero gravity. We are way more prepared to have a permanent presence on the moon today that we could possibly have in the 70s because of those advancements. Yes, taking Space-X out of it is stupid. SLS is a joke. Boeing idem. On this part of the problem people have my complete agreement. But the moon is a worthwhile goal because we cannot turn our backs to space.
  - 1y ago
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

zm262 1y ago

It matters more to US politically than scientifically. It's totally about the US mojo in the eyes of politicians and thus funding.

enraged_camel 1y ago
This dismissal is quite shallow. Yes, it matters politically - but that has enormous downstream repercussions. China beating us to the Moon helps reinforce the narrative that the American century of global dominance is over, and China is the new superpower that is unseating it. The implications of that would go well beyond politics.
- gorbachev 1y ago
  You don't win that fight by sending a few folks to the moon. You win it using the playbook the CCP has been systematically and very successfully implementing for a few decades. They are very good at long-term planning. The US plans in 4-year (or 8-year) cycles, and often times reverse course completely at the end of those.
elzbardico 1y ago
American mojo have real world economic consequences. The value of the dollar depends a lot on how the rest of the world sees America.
- bigyabai 1y ago
  You know what else has real world economic consequences? Dead astronauts. I'm all for reinvigorating the global economy with a resurgence in scientific investment, but it only works if we do it patiently. China understands that, the CCP is quite capable of national planning that transcends administrations. You can't force a moon landing like it's a political OKR, if you do then you better have a pretty solid Plan B considering the amount of risk it represents.

ramblenode 1y ago

Your example does not support your argument. Unlike heart surgery, there hasn't been a major shift in what we could do if we went back, and more exploration probably won't change the commercial or military prospects of the moon.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> more exploration probably won't change the commercial or military prospects of the moon What are you basing this on?
- hackernewds 1y ago
  burden of truth is on you. not them
  - HaZeust 1y ago
    ramblenode made the starting claim - what?
elzbardico 1y ago
No. Of course, there is a giant shift in what we could do. We can build far more reliable rockets. We have incredible progresses in materials science, in our understanding of the moon's geology. Likewise, we established the presence of water. We have more advanced solar panels, better batteries, we have a lot of recent research on modular, safe nuclear reactors that could probably lead more easily to moon-ready reactors. We have better batteries. Not only that, but we have better high power semiconductor gear that could lead to high orbit solar power stations over the poles feeding a polar base via microwaves. We have decades of accumulated knowledge of human physiology under zero gravity. We are way more prepared to have a permanent presence on the moon today that we could possibly have in the 70s because of those advancements. Yes, taking Space-X out of it is stupid. SLS is a joke. Boeing idem. On this part of the problem people have my complete agreement. But the moon is a worthwhile goal because we cannot turn our backs to space.
- 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

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