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It is very disconcerting to see so many completely disregarding incredible technological innovation because other problems exist, especially on HN. If we were

It is very disconcerting to see so many completely disregarding incredible technological innovation because other problems exist, especially on HN. If we were not allowed to progress technology until everybody is 100% free of suffering, we'd never be able to create technological that may potentially lead to the alleviation of suffering. It all feels very crabs in a bucket - "I don't feel happy so nobody else should, and nothing should happen unless it is things that directly, immediately do things I want and solve problems I care about."

matthewmcg 7mo ago
It’s interesting to compare to Apollo 8 (circumlunar Apollo mission). That mission culminated a year that saw escalation of the Vietnam War and the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.
- Gagarin1917 7mo ago
  The Apollo 8 book I read once ended with a letter to NASA thanking them and saying “You saved 1968.”
  - quink 7mo ago
    It was a telegram, not a letter. As also immortalised at the end of the 1968 episode of ‘From The Earth To The Moon’, attributed there to an apparently fictitious person.
dmix 7mo ago
It's much more popular to be doomer and a critic on the internet. Virtue signalling etc.
- JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
  > It's much more popular to be doomer and a critic on the internet Is it more popular? Or is it just easy? Dismissive “reads” are done by the picosecond; there is just much more to choose from than constructive thinking, which takes work.
  - dmix 7mo ago
    That's true, most of these comments are just drive by pessimism by people who just skim headlines and don't really care to deeply understand the topics being discussed.
    - danem 7mo ago
      That’s a good 75% of HN these days.
      - mulmen 7mo ago
        Nice drive by pessimism.
        danem 7mo ago
        Sorry, it's just a fact about HN informed by visiting it daily for over 13 years.
        dmix 7mo ago
        18yrs here and fully agree, but it's against the rules to discuss it :) > Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. also has these rules though which is a nice reminder > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. > Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead. > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. etc https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        mulmen 7mo ago
        It’s a pessimistic personal perception.
- echelon 7mo ago
  Why is pessimism, virtue signalling, doomerism, etc. so prevalent on the internet these days? It wasn't always this way, was it? Am I misremembering "the golden years"? Is it the failing economy? The K-shaped economy? The political and news cycle? I'm excited for all of this stuff, and I can't imagine being downtrodden and pessimistic about our outlook. The only thing I'm down about are authoritarianism and monopolies, but those are outside of my control. Modern science and engineering rock. Going to the moon is amazing. All this AI stuff is amazing. It feels like the future again.
dingaling 7mo ago
There is no technological innovation in the Artemis stack. Three of the main engines are refurbished Shuttle engines. The fourth is a clone that cost more than the entire SpaceX Starship stack. The boosters are derived from the Shuttle SRBs. It's a late-60s technology rocket stack with a 2000s-era flight computer. It's such a travesty.
- JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
  > is no technological innovation in the Artemis stack Scaling is still engineering. And the environmental control system, laser-optical communication systems and block-construction heat shields are new. For Artemis III, in-obit propellant transfer will be new and transformational.
  - NetMageSCW 7mo ago
    The block construction heat shield was new on Artemis I. Now we just know that it is an unfixed problem that will be done differently on future missions. And Artemis III has nothing to do with in-orbit propellant transfer, that will be SpaceX and Blue Origin testing independently of Artemis III.
    - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
      > block construction heat shield was new on Artemis I. Now we just know that it is an unfixed problem Unfixed problems on a new technology mean it’s still new. > Artemis III has nothing to do with in-orbit propellant transfer I may have fucked this up—isn’t the depot supposed to be up for III? Or is that punted to IV?
  - Teever 7mo ago
    All of this stuff is really great but it's not worth the cost that was spent on it. The thing you have to keep asking yourself is "what could 100 billion dollars of non-pork barrel spending have bought instead of what we ended up with?"
    - 7mo ago
KennyBlanken 7mo ago
How dare we want to fix the existential threats on the planet before we spend billions on a publicity stunt. No, there's no possible way we "save humanity" with space exploration. The whole "eggs in more than one basket" thing is insane. The resources required to establish a colony, get it self-sufficient, then able to grow, and then put enough people on it will take half a century and the planet is burning up today.
- esrauch 7mo ago
  Do you think that had this not launched that it would have been spent on something else that would have "saved humanity" better? US spends 4x as much on just nuclear bombs as the NASA budget for some perspective. Nuclear bombs are only 10% of the military budget, and as big as the military spending is, all of that is still only 15% of the federal budget. It seems a bit ridiculous to be thinking NASA spending is in any way meaningfully holding us back from whatever "save humanity" spending we could be doing.
- lentil_soup 7mo ago
  why pick on space exploration which has such a small budget and provides with a lot of hard science, technology, boosts the economy, etc and not pick on many other things we do that make no sense? why not pick on the military? or fossil fuel subsidies? or the entertainment/sports industry? or ads? why not pick on bureaucracy or war or billionaires? ... all of those have way bigger budgets and ain't fixing any "existential threats", arguably making them worse It's so easy to pick on the few remaining industries and science that invest on a future that is not the next quarter and doesn't just make the same people richer. Make no mistake, the little money spent on space exploration (or science in general) is not what's causing or keeping us from solving existential threats.
hdivider 7mo ago
I agree entirely. HN tends to be incredibly nitpicky and dystopian. I think it's because so many HNers work in dystopian software-only companies, not doing much in the physical world, away from the algorithms. Incredible technological innovation is on the horizon. That's why we are not doomed this century. We can make it. *hits 'reply', knowing there will be nitpicky comments because of course on HN these days, no positive point shall be left standing.
jmyeet 7mo ago
This is such a strawman argument because nobody expects nobody expects all wealth to be redistributed absolutely equally. What many of us would like however is a sufficient baseline. I've recently seen a seris of Tiktoks from a 50 year old woman who lives in rural China on ~$1/day. She works in a shoe factory and makes ~$11/day. Her husband is a truck driver. Thing is, she has a house, a phone, an electric scooter, enough to eat, electricity and overall all her basic needs are met. That's the baseline for modern China. In the US, you'd end up homeless, eventually lose your car, find it impossible to keep your car, probably end up self-medicating with drugs, get harassed by police and ultimately your status will be criminalized and you'll end up being convict labor. I don't need Jeff Bezos to have the same amount of money as everyone else but I do want, in the wealthiest country on Earth in particular, everyone to have secure housing health insurance, food, clothing and utilities. There are other reasons too to criticize the SLS program: it's incredibly wasteful and is just another welfare program for defense contractors. The Artemis/SLS programs have cost ~$100 billion in the last 2 decades. That's staggeringly inefficient. Likewise, each Artemis mission costs ~$4 billion. That's ridiculous. I, for one, would be much happier seeing these Moon missions if it wasn't such a giant scam to steal $100 billion from the government coffers.
- braincat31415 7mo ago
  Well said. I find it interesting that a single proton-m total cost per launch is about 70 million. Of course its lift capacity is much smaller, but if the 4 billion figure is correct, it does seem like a ridiculous amount. But then again things are no different from the defense expenses.

matthewmcg 7mo ago

It’s interesting to compare to Apollo 8 (circumlunar Apollo mission). That mission culminated a year that saw escalation of the Vietnam War and the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.

Gagarin1917 7mo ago
The Apollo 8 book I read once ended with a letter to NASA thanking them and saying “You saved 1968.”
- quink 7mo ago
  It was a telegram, not a letter. As also immortalised at the end of the 1968 episode of ‘From The Earth To The Moon’, attributed there to an apparently fictitious person.

dmix 7mo ago

It's much more popular to be doomer and a critic on the internet. Virtue signalling etc.

JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
> It's much more popular to be doomer and a critic on the internet Is it more popular? Or is it just easy? Dismissive “reads” are done by the picosecond; there is just much more to choose from than constructive thinking, which takes work.
- dmix 7mo ago
  That's true, most of these comments are just drive by pessimism by people who just skim headlines and don't really care to deeply understand the topics being discussed.
  - danem 7mo ago
    That’s a good 75% of HN these days.
    - mulmen 7mo ago
      Nice drive by pessimism.
      - danem 7mo ago
        Sorry, it's just a fact about HN informed by visiting it daily for over 13 years.
        dmix 7mo ago
        18yrs here and fully agree, but it's against the rules to discuss it :) > Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. also has these rules though which is a nice reminder > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. > Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead. > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. etc https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        mulmen 7mo ago
        It’s a pessimistic personal perception.
echelon 7mo ago
Why is pessimism, virtue signalling, doomerism, etc. so prevalent on the internet these days? It wasn't always this way, was it? Am I misremembering "the golden years"? Is it the failing economy? The K-shaped economy? The political and news cycle? I'm excited for all of this stuff, and I can't imagine being downtrodden and pessimistic about our outlook. The only thing I'm down about are authoritarianism and monopolies, but those are outside of my control. Modern science and engineering rock. Going to the moon is amazing. All this AI stuff is amazing. It feels like the future again.

dingaling 7mo ago

There is no technological innovation in the Artemis stack. Three of the main engines are refurbished Shuttle engines. The fourth is a clone that cost more than the entire SpaceX Starship stack. The boosters are derived from the Shuttle SRBs. It's a late-60s technology rocket stack with a 2000s-era flight computer. It's such a travesty.

JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
> is no technological innovation in the Artemis stack Scaling is still engineering. And the environmental control system, laser-optical communication systems and block-construction heat shields are new. For Artemis III, in-obit propellant transfer will be new and transformational.
- NetMageSCW 7mo ago
  The block construction heat shield was new on Artemis I. Now we just know that it is an unfixed problem that will be done differently on future missions. And Artemis III has nothing to do with in-orbit propellant transfer, that will be SpaceX and Blue Origin testing independently of Artemis III.
  - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
    > block construction heat shield was new on Artemis I. Now we just know that it is an unfixed problem Unfixed problems on a new technology mean it’s still new. > Artemis III has nothing to do with in-orbit propellant transfer I may have fucked this up—isn’t the depot supposed to be up for III? Or is that punted to IV?
- Teever 7mo ago
  All of this stuff is really great but it's not worth the cost that was spent on it. The thing you have to keep asking yourself is "what could 100 billion dollars of non-pork barrel spending have bought instead of what we ended up with?"
  - 7mo ago

KennyBlanken 7mo ago

How dare we want to fix the existential threats on the planet before we spend billions on a publicity stunt. No, there's no possible way we "save humanity" with space exploration. The whole "eggs in more than one basket" thing is insane. The resources required to establish a colony, get it self-sufficient, then able to grow, and then put enough people on it will take half a century and the planet is burning up today.

esrauch 7mo ago
Do you think that had this not launched that it would have been spent on something else that would have "saved humanity" better? US spends 4x as much on just nuclear bombs as the NASA budget for some perspective. Nuclear bombs are only 10% of the military budget, and as big as the military spending is, all of that is still only 15% of the federal budget. It seems a bit ridiculous to be thinking NASA spending is in any way meaningfully holding us back from whatever "save humanity" spending we could be doing.
lentil_soup 7mo ago
why pick on space exploration which has such a small budget and provides with a lot of hard science, technology, boosts the economy, etc and not pick on many other things we do that make no sense? why not pick on the military? or fossil fuel subsidies? or the entertainment/sports industry? or ads? why not pick on bureaucracy or war or billionaires? ... all of those have way bigger budgets and ain't fixing any "existential threats", arguably making them worse It's so easy to pick on the few remaining industries and science that invest on a future that is not the next quarter and doesn't just make the same people richer. Make no mistake, the little money spent on space exploration (or science in general) is not what's causing or keeping us from solving existential threats.

hdivider 7mo ago

I agree entirely. HN tends to be incredibly nitpicky and dystopian. I think it's because so many HNers work in dystopian software-only companies, not doing much in the physical world, away from the algorithms. Incredible technological innovation is on the horizon. That's why we are not doomed this century. We can make it. *hits 'reply', knowing there will be nitpicky comments because of course on HN these days, no positive point shall be left standing.

jmyeet 7mo ago

This is such a strawman argument because nobody expects nobody expects all wealth to be redistributed absolutely equally. What many of us would like however is a sufficient baseline. I've recently seen a seris of Tiktoks from a 50 year old woman who lives in rural China on ~$1/day. She works in a shoe factory and makes ~$11/day. Her husband is a truck driver. Thing is, she has a house, a phone, an electric scooter, enough to eat, electricity and overall all her basic needs are met. That's the baseline for modern China. In the US, you'd end up homeless, eventually lose your car, find it impossible to keep your car, probably end up self-medicating with drugs, get harassed by police and ultimately your status will be criminalized and you'll end up being convict labor. I don't need Jeff Bezos to have the same amount of money as everyone else but I do want, in the wealthiest country on Earth in particular, everyone to have secure housing health insurance, food, clothing and utilities. There are other reasons too to criticize the SLS program: it's incredibly wasteful and is just another welfare program for defense contractors. The Artemis/SLS programs have cost ~$100 billion in the last 2 decades. That's staggeringly inefficient. Likewise, each Artemis mission costs ~$4 billion. That's ridiculous. I, for one, would be much happier seeing these Moon missions if it wasn't such a giant scam to steal $100 billion from the government coffers.

braincat31415 7mo ago
Well said. I find it interesting that a single proton-m total cost per launch is about 70 million. Of course its lift capacity is much smaller, but if the 4 billion figure is correct, it does seem like a ridiculous amount. But then again things are no different from the defense expenses.