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As an amateur space historian, I view that the Apollo project is widely misunderstood by most people. It was basically a stunt: create something as quickly as

As an amateur space historian, I view that the Apollo project is widely misunderstood by most people. It was basically a stunt: create something as quickly as possible with money as no object. It is extremely obvious in hindsight that the capabilities and solutions it created were not directly sustainable or efficient in the long term. We should not clamor for some similar projects or similar technical solutions, just "because Apollo did it". Instead we should objectively strive for reliable, flexible and affordable spacefaring. Some of the project practices and technologies that Apollo used might be good for spacefaring unchanged as they were, some might serve as basis that needs development and others are negative examples. We just shouldn't say "look they went to the moon with solution X" as the only justification for solution X. Solution X could be for example building a single huge rocket.

chubbard 14y ago
In many ways this article is just pining for other big hard made up problem for us to solve. Apollo was and is still a huge achievement, but it sure wasn't a practical solution to any real problem we faced. As much as you can say how amazing it was there are plenty of things you can say how wasteful it was too. In a lot of ways you can say the same thing about the internet. I wonder if the big problems we know we have ever really get solved or we just distract ourselves by solving made up problems. Funny thing is life seems to get better when we solve the made up problems because we solve things we didn't know we had. Oh that probably doesn't bode well for Global Warming and Cancer.
kamaal 14y ago
But they did it, and guess what- 4 decades later no one gives a damn about the money spent because adjusted to inflation and comparative to other pointless spending(wars) its the cost of chicken feed. The whole point is stunt or other wise they achieved something through brute force. The point is we aren't even attempting a brute force solution.
- Gravityloss 14y ago
  But why should we try brute force solutions? I have much bigger dreams than 12 guys walking on the moon. Routine daily commercial flights to orbit with reusable vehicles that fly many times in one week, NEO exploration, in situ resource usage. One day many of the people who comment on Hacker news can have visited space, some may even live and work there. That requires longer and more many sided and organic development than a brute force government crash program. That just would not be good resource usage.

chubbard 14y ago

In many ways this article is just pining for other big hard made up problem for us to solve. Apollo was and is still a huge achievement, but it sure wasn't a practical solution to any real problem we faced. As much as you can say how amazing it was there are plenty of things you can say how wasteful it was too. In a lot of ways you can say the same thing about the internet. I wonder if the big problems we know we have ever really get solved or we just distract ourselves by solving made up problems. Funny thing is life seems to get better when we solve the made up problems because we solve things we didn't know we had. Oh that probably doesn't bode well for Global Warming and Cancer.

kamaal 14y ago

But they did it, and guess what- 4 decades later no one gives a damn about the money spent because adjusted to inflation and comparative to other pointless spending(wars) its the cost of chicken feed. The whole point is stunt or other wise they achieved something through brute force. The point is we aren't even attempting a brute force solution.

Gravityloss 14y ago
But why should we try brute force solutions? I have much bigger dreams than 12 guys walking on the moon. Routine daily commercial flights to orbit with reusable vehicles that fly many times in one week, NEO exploration, in situ resource usage. One day many of the people who comment on Hacker news can have visited space, some may even live and work there. That requires longer and more many sided and organic development than a brute force government crash program. That just would not be good resource usage.