6 ms·

I grew up admiring the Apollo mission and the likes. Nowadays, I recognise that it is heavy engineering, but I am not so impressed by the fact that we are thro

by palata 7mo ago

I grew up admiring the Apollo mission and the likes. Nowadays, I recognise that it is heavy engineering, but I am not so impressed by the fact that we are throwing so much resources at something that we already know we can do. In fact, we have had humans surviving in space for decades now. It's costing a lot, it's not bringing much. But more than that: we have much more important problems to solve, starting with our survival. Sure, sending robots to Mars is interesting, for science. Sending people to Mars is useless. Hoping to become an "interplanetary species" is preposterous. Thinking that Mars is "just a next step, but we'll go further" is absolutely insane. Life is literally, measurably dying on Earth (the current mass extinction we are living in is happening orders of magnitude faster than the one that killed the dinosaurs). We have a huge energy problem, and more and more global instability. Sure, watching four humans happily travelling to the Moon in a spaceship that literally does not need them is fun, like watching the Superbowl. And like for the Superbowl, there are big fans for whom it is the most important event of the year. However, most people don't care. We're not in 1969 anymore, now it's just a matter of wasting enough money for some people to have the time of their life.

outworlder 7mo ago
> it's just a matter of wasting enough money for some people to have the time of their life. That's such a cynical viewpoint. We are not doing this so that astronauts can have fun. Yes, we have been screwing up our planet. On that note alone, we should develop capabilities to access resources beyond our planet. We could have made that same argument before we had the capability of launching satellites ("why are we wasting resources sending something to space that can only beep while people are dying of hunger?"). Nowadays, they are crucial if we want to have a chance at saving what remains of our planet. Moon missions may not give an immediate benefit, but we have always benefitted from scientific and technological advancements from space missions. I doubt it's going to be different this time. I'd certainly prefer countless more moon missions than a new aircraft carrier.
- palata 7mo ago
  > That's such a cynical viewpoint. We are not doing this so that astronauts can have fun. Don't get me wrong: I would totally love to be in their shoes, I completely understand why they want to do it. > Nowadays, they are crucial This is the typical "we need to do it because it's hard, and we don't know what we will learn from it, and BTW there are things we developed for the space program that got into civilian use" argument. But it is flawed. For one, we know a lot more today than we did in the 50s. It would be like saying "in the past, they thought that the Earth was flat, so who knows, maybe tomorrow we will realise that humans are capable of telekinesis". The truth is... "most likely not". > we have always benefitted from scientific and technological advancements from space missions. I doubt it's going to be different this time. Let's play a game: you're not allowed to read about it. Off the top of your head, what technological advancements did the different space programs bring? Gemini? Apollo? Soyuz? The space shuttle? Mir? The ISS? And if you manage to give more than one correct answer to that, do you genuinely believe that it wouldn't have been possible to develop that technology without the corresponding space program? I doubt it. It's like saying that we needed to spend billions developing a race car in order to improve the stability of a skateboard. Technically, that is wrong, so the only argument I heard to defend the idea was something like "because brilliant people would be interested in developing a race car, but if it wasn't possible, instead of improving skateboards, they would be bureaucrats or financiers". Not very convincing. > I'd certainly prefer countless more moon missions than a new aircraft carrier. Agreed. But that's not a justification for spending billions sending humans in space for their own pleasure (and not without risk) and for the pleasure of all the nerds who enjoy working on that (and I count myself as part of those nerds).
  - fy20 7mo ago
    The Apollo program had a big impact on the development of integrated circuits, turning software engineering into a real discipline, and fly-by-wire technology. Could this have happened without? Probably yes, these technologies aready somewhat existed, but the program pushed them much harder than they would have done otherwise. Same thing for later space missions, they pushed technology to the limits of the time. A good example here is solar panels. They were invented before the space race, but for what, why do you need them on earth? We had cheap oil and fossil fuels, nobody cared about renewables. But for the first 50 years after they were invented satellites was what kept them alive, as it made sense to use that technology there. That gave them a real use case, which continued investment and development into them. I doubt today we would have the same level of satellite technology today if the space race didn't happen, so it's unlikely we would have the same level of solar panels either.
- adjejmxbdjdn 7mo ago
  > Yes, we have been screwing up our planet. On that note alone, we should develop capabilities to access resources beyond our planet. The second absolutely does not follow from the first. But even if it did it doesn’t justify manned missions.
scubbo 7mo ago
> the current mass extinction we are living in is happening orders of magnitude faster than the one that killed the dinosaurs Fascinating. My naive perception of the extinction event was that it was relatively sudden, on a personal rather than geological timescale - decades or maybe generations. But it looks like it might be "_rapid extinction, perhaps over a period of less than 10,000 years_" [0]. Goes to show how unintuitive geological and evolutionary timelines are! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_extinction_event#Duration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_e...
- palata 7mo ago
  Yep. We all know that "the dinosaurs disappeared", but very few know how long it took. The dinosaurs were not witnessing the climate warming year after year, by a long shot... What we are witnessing right now is happening exceedingly fast.
majkinetor 7mo ago
> we are throwing so much resources at something that we already know we can do. No, "we" knew how to do it with 10x more money and people on the board, in a very unsafely manner. It was a few times muscle flex and thats why it stopped. Making entire thing routine, cheap and safe is something else, and "we" don't know yet how to do that, or we would have at least few scientists constantly on the Moon. It's a difference between running a marathon and dropping dead, and doing it all the time. > we have ...[other]... problems This kind of thinking is nonsensical. With so many people around, there can be arbitrary group of people working on any kind of problem, without them needing to point to other groups as doing imaginary problems. You talk like unless everybody works on solving specific problem, its not going to get solved. Life simply doesn't work that way, mythical man month explained it well why for one, and then, you can't know what unexplored spaces bring (maybe game changing discoveries).
- palata 7mo ago
  I am not sure what you are trying to say. So people should be ecstatic about it because "it's almost the same thing, but this time the people having fun onboard are not taking remotely as much risk (other than NASA sending them knowing that the heat shield is unsafe), and the whole thing is a lot cheaper"? And then should we invest billions do go there in 3 days instead of 6, and expect that people will be impressed? > With so many people around, there can be arbitrary group of people working on any kind of problem Sure. It's just that this particular group of people does it with taxpayer money, and it's measurably not very useful. That money could go to... I don't know... feed people? Just one example. > You talk like unless everybody works on solving specific problem, its not going to get solved. Actually, if you read a bit about the problem that I am mentioning (i.e. our survival), I think it's relatively clear that "solving it properly" is impossible (that ship has sailed), and "solving it badly" will require sacrifices from pretty much everybody alive. We literally need everybody to change their lifestyle in order to have more chances of survival. And even that will not prevent very bad things from happening to most people. And I am saying that being pretty optimistic about it. A shortcut is simply "we're pretty much screwed". And if you don't realise it, it's probably because you don't really understand the problem.
  - 7mo ago
Gagarin1917 7mo ago
I’m not sure I’m following. Do most people not care because of the environment? Because that’s certainly not the case. Most people don’t care about the environment either. Plus, do you not have any other interests besides the state of the world? No interest in entertainment or sports or tech news at all? I doubt that if you’re on HN. My bet is that you wouldn’t care even if the world was objectively better than ever. You’re just coming up with excuses for why you don’t care. It’s fine if you don’t care, but it’s certainly not because of the state of the world. Otherwise you wouldn’t have any interests at all, including HackerNews.
- tonyedgecombe 7mo ago
  >Most people don’t care about the environment either. They will start caring when it stops feeding them.
  - orwin 7mo ago
    By then it will be a bit late.
- palata 7mo ago
  > You’re just coming up with excuses for why you don’t care. I do care, as in "it's really cool" and I wish I could do it, too. I grew up being passionate about Apollo and the ISS. But then I realised that the ISS is extraordinarily expensive and really doesn't bring much (still I would love to go!). Worse even: the more popular space programs get, the more likely it is that SpaceX and the likes succeed in commercialising space and polluting more and more while doing it. And another thing I have realised is that other people passionate about human spaceflights usually either don't give a shit about the fact that we are destroying the conditions of our survival or don't understand how bad the situation is. Look at the comments here on this topic: when someone questions the fact that manned space missions are scientifically useful (nobody ever denies that they are super cool), they get downvoted very fast. Nobody ever engages in a constructive discussion of "why they may, actually, be useful", other than by saying "but look, a fraction of the money we put into space programs helped develop some things that we could have developed without the space program, but I want to believe that we may have not developed them or much slower". I do have hobbies indeed, but they don't involve throwing away billions of taxpayer money.
nicbou 7mo ago
> at something that we already know we can do Something that we know we could do. I think of it as the third act of a movie when the main character is pulling himself out of the gutter. That being said, I agree with you. America has bigger, nearer problems to solve with that sort of money. It reminds me of Gil Scott-Heron's poem about how it feels to struggle while "whitey's on the moon". It was brilliantly used in First Man. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVQuqQndsFA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVQuqQndsFA
kavok 7mo ago
> It's costing a lot, it's not bringing much. It kinda depends on what you mean by “much”, but we’ve certainly had advances from the ISS in the last decade. Several experiments with microgravity manufacturing such as ZBLAN fiber optics, 3D bioprinting, and other medical technologies. Microgravity manufacturing can offer some significant quality improvements and prevent settling. There are other improvements as well. Foundational research is very important and space has a solid track record of delivering science that we turn into very useful technology on earth. Sources: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/iss-research/out-of-this-world-discoveries-space-station-research-in-2025/ https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/iss-research/out-of-th... https://issnationallab.org/press-releases/2024-iss-national-lab-scientific-results/ https://issnationallab.org/press-releases/2024-iss-national-...
ponector 7mo ago
I would rather be watching four humans travelling to the moon than four aircraft carriers travelling to the Gulf.

by palata 7mo ago

outworlder 7mo ago

> it's just a matter of wasting enough money for some people to have the time of their life. That's such a cynical viewpoint. We are not doing this so that astronauts can have fun. Yes, we have been screwing up our planet. On that note alone, we should develop capabilities to access resources beyond our planet. We could have made that same argument before we had the capability of launching satellites ("why are we wasting resources sending something to space that can only beep while people are dying of hunger?"). Nowadays, they are crucial if we want to have a chance at saving what remains of our planet. Moon missions may not give an immediate benefit, but we have always benefitted from scientific and technological advancements from space missions. I doubt it's going to be different this time. I'd certainly prefer countless more moon missions than a new aircraft carrier.

palata 7mo ago
> That's such a cynical viewpoint. We are not doing this so that astronauts can have fun. Don't get me wrong: I would totally love to be in their shoes, I completely understand why they want to do it. > Nowadays, they are crucial This is the typical "we need to do it because it's hard, and we don't know what we will learn from it, and BTW there are things we developed for the space program that got into civilian use" argument. But it is flawed. For one, we know a lot more today than we did in the 50s. It would be like saying "in the past, they thought that the Earth was flat, so who knows, maybe tomorrow we will realise that humans are capable of telekinesis". The truth is... "most likely not". > we have always benefitted from scientific and technological advancements from space missions. I doubt it's going to be different this time. Let's play a game: you're not allowed to read about it. Off the top of your head, what technological advancements did the different space programs bring? Gemini? Apollo? Soyuz? The space shuttle? Mir? The ISS? And if you manage to give more than one correct answer to that, do you genuinely believe that it wouldn't have been possible to develop that technology without the corresponding space program? I doubt it. It's like saying that we needed to spend billions developing a race car in order to improve the stability of a skateboard. Technically, that is wrong, so the only argument I heard to defend the idea was something like "because brilliant people would be interested in developing a race car, but if it wasn't possible, instead of improving skateboards, they would be bureaucrats or financiers". Not very convincing. > I'd certainly prefer countless more moon missions than a new aircraft carrier. Agreed. But that's not a justification for spending billions sending humans in space for their own pleasure (and not without risk) and for the pleasure of all the nerds who enjoy working on that (and I count myself as part of those nerds).
- fy20 7mo ago
  The Apollo program had a big impact on the development of integrated circuits, turning software engineering into a real discipline, and fly-by-wire technology. Could this have happened without? Probably yes, these technologies aready somewhat existed, but the program pushed them much harder than they would have done otherwise. Same thing for later space missions, they pushed technology to the limits of the time. A good example here is solar panels. They were invented before the space race, but for what, why do you need them on earth? We had cheap oil and fossil fuels, nobody cared about renewables. But for the first 50 years after they were invented satellites was what kept them alive, as it made sense to use that technology there. That gave them a real use case, which continued investment and development into them. I doubt today we would have the same level of satellite technology today if the space race didn't happen, so it's unlikely we would have the same level of solar panels either.
adjejmxbdjdn 7mo ago
> Yes, we have been screwing up our planet. On that note alone, we should develop capabilities to access resources beyond our planet. The second absolutely does not follow from the first. But even if it did it doesn’t justify manned missions.

scubbo 7mo ago

> the current mass extinction we are living in is happening orders of magnitude faster than the one that killed the dinosaurs Fascinating. My naive perception of the extinction event was that it was relatively sudden, on a personal rather than geological timescale - decades or maybe generations. But it looks like it might be "_rapid extinction, perhaps over a period of less than 10,000 years_" [0]. Goes to show how unintuitive geological and evolutionary timelines are! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_extinction_event#Duration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_e...

palata 7mo ago
Yep. We all know that "the dinosaurs disappeared", but very few know how long it took. The dinosaurs were not witnessing the climate warming year after year, by a long shot... What we are witnessing right now is happening exceedingly fast.

majkinetor 7mo ago

> we are throwing so much resources at something that we already know we can do. No, "we" knew how to do it with 10x more money and people on the board, in a very unsafely manner. It was a few times muscle flex and thats why it stopped. Making entire thing routine, cheap and safe is something else, and "we" don't know yet how to do that, or we would have at least few scientists constantly on the Moon. It's a difference between running a marathon and dropping dead, and doing it all the time. > we have ...[other]... problems This kind of thinking is nonsensical. With so many people around, there can be arbitrary group of people working on any kind of problem, without them needing to point to other groups as doing imaginary problems. You talk like unless everybody works on solving specific problem, its not going to get solved. Life simply doesn't work that way, mythical man month explained it well why for one, and then, you can't know what unexplored spaces bring (maybe game changing discoveries).

palata 7mo ago
I am not sure what you are trying to say. So people should be ecstatic about it because "it's almost the same thing, but this time the people having fun onboard are not taking remotely as much risk (other than NASA sending them knowing that the heat shield is unsafe), and the whole thing is a lot cheaper"? And then should we invest billions do go there in 3 days instead of 6, and expect that people will be impressed? > With so many people around, there can be arbitrary group of people working on any kind of problem Sure. It's just that this particular group of people does it with taxpayer money, and it's measurably not very useful. That money could go to... I don't know... feed people? Just one example. > You talk like unless everybody works on solving specific problem, its not going to get solved. Actually, if you read a bit about the problem that I am mentioning (i.e. our survival), I think it's relatively clear that "solving it properly" is impossible (that ship has sailed), and "solving it badly" will require sacrifices from pretty much everybody alive. We literally need everybody to change their lifestyle in order to have more chances of survival. And even that will not prevent very bad things from happening to most people. And I am saying that being pretty optimistic about it. A shortcut is simply "we're pretty much screwed". And if you don't realise it, it's probably because you don't really understand the problem.
- 7mo ago

Gagarin1917 7mo ago

I’m not sure I’m following. Do most people not care because of the environment? Because that’s certainly not the case. Most people don’t care about the environment either. Plus, do you not have any other interests besides the state of the world? No interest in entertainment or sports or tech news at all? I doubt that if you’re on HN. My bet is that you wouldn’t care even if the world was objectively better than ever. You’re just coming up with excuses for why you don’t care. It’s fine if you don’t care, but it’s certainly not because of the state of the world. Otherwise you wouldn’t have any interests at all, including HackerNews.

tonyedgecombe 7mo ago
>Most people don’t care about the environment either. They will start caring when it stops feeding them.
- orwin 7mo ago
  By then it will be a bit late.
palata 7mo ago
> You’re just coming up with excuses for why you don’t care. I do care, as in "it's really cool" and I wish I could do it, too. I grew up being passionate about Apollo and the ISS. But then I realised that the ISS is extraordinarily expensive and really doesn't bring much (still I would love to go!). Worse even: the more popular space programs get, the more likely it is that SpaceX and the likes succeed in commercialising space and polluting more and more while doing it. And another thing I have realised is that other people passionate about human spaceflights usually either don't give a shit about the fact that we are destroying the conditions of our survival or don't understand how bad the situation is. Look at the comments here on this topic: when someone questions the fact that manned space missions are scientifically useful (nobody ever denies that they are super cool), they get downvoted very fast. Nobody ever engages in a constructive discussion of "why they may, actually, be useful", other than by saying "but look, a fraction of the money we put into space programs helped develop some things that we could have developed without the space program, but I want to believe that we may have not developed them or much slower". I do have hobbies indeed, but they don't involve throwing away billions of taxpayer money.

nicbou 7mo ago

> at something that we already know we can do Something that we know we could do. I think of it as the third act of a movie when the main character is pulling himself out of the gutter. That being said, I agree with you. America has bigger, nearer problems to solve with that sort of money. It reminds me of Gil Scott-Heron's poem about how it feels to struggle while "whitey's on the moon". It was brilliantly used in First Man. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVQuqQndsFA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVQuqQndsFA

kavok 7mo ago

> It's costing a lot, it's not bringing much. It kinda depends on what you mean by “much”, but we’ve certainly had advances from the ISS in the last decade. Several experiments with microgravity manufacturing such as ZBLAN fiber optics, 3D bioprinting, and other medical technologies. Microgravity manufacturing can offer some significant quality improvements and prevent settling. There are other improvements as well. Foundational research is very important and space has a solid track record of delivering science that we turn into very useful technology on earth. Sources: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/iss-research/out-of-this-world-discoveries-space-station-research-in-2025/ https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/iss-research/out-of-th... https://issnationallab.org/press-releases/2024-iss-national-lab-scientific-results/ https://issnationallab.org/press-releases/2024-iss-national-...

ponector 7mo ago

I would rather be watching four humans travelling to the moon than four aircraft carriers travelling to the Gulf.