Just to interject here. For those wondering the actual thing holding up the lander and liftoff lunar vehicle is a really sore spot. Because what’s stopping us isn’t some technical challenge.
SpaceX owned by Elon Musk and Blue Origin owned by Jeff Bezos are having a spat over who gets to build the HLS. And the objecting and complaining to courts that NASA isn’t being fair to (insert either of these players) has easily set back going back to the moon at least half a decade if not moreso.
So this pretty specific part of the whole moon landing has actually held up a lot surprisingly but mostly because we’ve got two very rich people having a very visible cat fight that’s slowing everything else related to moon travel down to a crawl.
But according to Nasa channel’s own programs, the challenge of getting to the moon is not the challenge of getting there, it’s how to get back again. Which puzzles me, since the claim is we easily did it in 1969 (though the return part of the trip was very much not talked about). I’m not claiming the moon landing didn’t happen, I sure want to believe it did. I just find it weird that this could be true.
And I’m very much a cheerleader for getting us back there and beyond. I want my little yellow starship vest with crew insignia on it.
I know they spent years planning it and testing it all, so I’m not saying it wasn’t possible. I just thought it was a little too “smooth” and predictable, the way it all went without much of a hitch. But - I’m hoping that will be how it goes the next time we make a landing there.
In the 1960s we built a moon rocket. Single purpose built for going to the moon and back.
Today, companies are trying to build general purpose ultra heavy lift rockets and slapping a moon mission on them. Starship? Not a moon rocket. New Glenn? Not a moon rocket.
Its like living in an RV and saying “living in it isnt the problem, its the plumbing!” Plumbing is an easy solved problem for fixed houses. You’ve only made the situation harder on yourself by trying to be dual purpose
Hmm good point. I think with today’s technology there CAN be more they can do in terms of making it multi-purpose, and hopefully they can work out all the kinks. I would love see us back on the moon in the next decade or so.
We did it using analoge technology that is no longer produced and with security standards much lower than is acceptable today. The tech that we are “missing” is modern tech used for the same purposes with acceptable reliability and security. One hurdle with digital over analog is that radiation affects it a lot more. Not insurmountable, but requires work to prove it lives up to modern standards.
Just to interject here. For those wondering the actual thing holding up the lander and liftoff lunar vehicle is a really sore spot. Because what’s stopping us isn’t some technical challenge.
SpaceX owned by Elon Musk and Blue Origin owned by Jeff Bezos are having a spat over who gets to build the HLS. And the objecting and complaining to courts that NASA isn’t being fair to (insert either of these players) has easily set back going back to the moon at least half a decade if not moreso.
So this pretty specific part of the whole moon landing has actually held up a lot surprisingly but mostly because we’ve got two very rich people having a very visible cat fight that’s slowing everything else related to moon travel down to a crawl.
But according to Nasa channel’s own programs, the challenge of getting to the moon is not the challenge of getting there, it’s how to get back again. Which puzzles me, since the claim is we easily did it in 1969 (though the return part of the trip was very much not talked about). I’m not claiming the moon landing didn’t happen, I sure want to believe it did. I just find it weird that this could be true.
And I’m very much a cheerleader for getting us back there and beyond. I want my little yellow starship vest with crew insignia on it.
Who was claiming that “easily” was how we did it?
Lamo it was not easy. It was rigorously planned and quadruple checked. Many lab tests and smaller satilite launch to test rockets.
I know they spent years planning it and testing it all, so I’m not saying it wasn’t possible. I just thought it was a little too “smooth” and predictable, the way it all went without much of a hitch. But - I’m hoping that will be how it goes the next time we make a landing there.
In the 1960s we built a moon rocket. Single purpose built for going to the moon and back.
Today, companies are trying to build general purpose ultra heavy lift rockets and slapping a moon mission on them. Starship? Not a moon rocket. New Glenn? Not a moon rocket.
Its like living in an RV and saying “living in it isnt the problem, its the plumbing!” Plumbing is an easy solved problem for fixed houses. You’ve only made the situation harder on yourself by trying to be dual purpose
Hmm good point. I think with today’s technology there CAN be more they can do in terms of making it multi-purpose, and hopefully they can work out all the kinks. I would love see us back on the moon in the next decade or so.
We did it using analoge technology that is no longer produced and with security standards much lower than is acceptable today. The tech that we are “missing” is modern tech used for the same purposes with acceptable reliability and security. One hurdle with digital over analog is that radiation affects it a lot more. Not insurmountable, but requires work to prove it lives up to modern standards.