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RE: Moon Landing: Fake or Real?
June 13, 2014 at 10:06 am
(This post was last modified: June 13, 2014 at 10:11 am by Cyberman.)
Well, I'd heard that America had dumbed down in recent years, but I hadn't realised things were so bad they can't do what their ancestors in the seventies did all the time.
ETA: I think somebody ought to tell India: http://m.indiatoday.in/story/after-mars-...33244.html
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: Moon Landing: Fake or Real?
June 13, 2014 at 10:11 am
(June 13, 2014 at 9:19 am)Rhythm Wrote: Now for the shitty part. While we -did- get our business together and go to the moon back in the day...we are currently incapable of repeating the trip....
We have more technology and more know how today, by far, then we did in 1969.
The issue is sending men to the moon was not, and continues to not be, effective use of money for space exploration. The only real justification for doing it in the 1969 was to say "we are better than the Russians" to a somewhat impressionable and idealistic audience.
Hard realists would never have sanction the moon landing even back in 1969.
The only possible justification for doing it now continues to be not to advance space exploration the most for the available funding, but to thump one's chest.
In fact, the next men to land on the moon will likely be there mainly to plant a flag, under the thin and ridiculous disguise of collecting rocks, but this time for the Chinese.
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RE: Moon Landing: Fake or Real?
June 13, 2014 at 10:17 am
(This post was last modified: June 13, 2014 at 10:21 am by The Grand Nudger.)
"More tech" doesn't mean "the right tech". If we had a working launch vehicle I wouldn;t worry too much about the money. Private programs have been finding it these days even when gov can't. Theres always kickstarter...lol.
(I think manned missions are next to useless...I simply lament the loss of capability due to everyday buerocratic inanity. We went from "we got this" to "we could work on it, maybe".)
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Moon Landing: Fake or Real?
June 13, 2014 at 10:19 am
(June 13, 2014 at 10:03 am)Rhythm Wrote: Easy? Funding would only be a problem if we could build and operate the vehicles...which we cannot, and then ask an astronaut aboard, which we cannot - in good faith.
You say we cannot but it is precisely the funding problem which means we cannot. If NASA pumped money into the innovation and designing of Lunar vehicles then they could do it. Easily.
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RE: Moon Landing: Fake or Real?
June 13, 2014 at 10:24 am
No, Napo..I say we cannot because even if we had the money we would still have to design and manufacture a working vessel.
Simply put, we don;t have a nice enough boat anymore, the dockyards that built them are closed, the plans that they were built from are spotty, the crews experience is lost or fragmentary...and the shipwrights are dead.
Capish?
Money wont buy
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Moon Landing: Fake or Real?
June 13, 2014 at 10:24 am
(June 13, 2014 at 9:51 am)Rhythm Wrote: No, we're not perfectly capable. We're busy reverse engineering our own old rockets so that we have a launch vehicle capable of making any such trip again. Some of our best stuff is currently attached to warheads...
This is what happens when you gut your space program......
The underlying dynamics have changed.
In late 1950s and 1960s, military missile technology and space launch technology were one and the same. Investing in space launch technology is nothing more invetsing strategic missile force by other means, without the money being seen to balloon the actual defence budget. Furthermore achieving superiority to space launch capability is prima facia evidence, understood by all, that one has achieved superiority in strategic missile technology.
By mid 1960s, missile technology have specialized and diverged away from civilian space launch technology. Investing in civilian space launch technology no longer brings nearly as much benefit to the pentagon, and pentagon spending on missiles no longer further space launch technology much.
This is one important reason why real funding for space launch technology fell dramatically after Saturn 5.
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RE: Moon Landing: Fake or Real?
June 13, 2014 at 10:28 am
(This post was last modified: June 13, 2014 at 10:30 am by The Grand Nudger.)
While on the civilian side, unmanned craft met and then exceeded the abilities of a crewed vessel. Thus the manned craft did not see the sort of continued and extensive development. The frenetic pace of development, a more successful rival system, and the mechanics of large government agencies trying to keep track of pieces of paper all converged to create a shitstorm of sardonic bliss. It's easy to see how and why we got here, but I do like to bring attention to the deplorable state our space programs are in - in reality, as opposed to how people see them through the lens of heroes past.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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Moon Landing: Fake or Real?
June 13, 2014 at 10:31 am
(June 13, 2014 at 9:57 am)Napoléon Wrote: (June 13, 2014 at 9:51 am)Rhythm Wrote: No, we're not perfectly capable. We're busy reverse engineering our own old rockets so that we have a launch vehicle capable of making any such trip again. Some of our best stuff is currently attached to warheads...but even they aren;t capable of pushing a manned craft there. We still have a few of the old ones laying around but due to some truly hilarious fuckups we no longer fully understand how or why they work the way they do.
(that's why they're planning to use our old rockets btw Nap..just as soon as they figure out where the power switch is)
This is what happens when you gut your space program......
I'm pretty sure if you put the resources into NASA like you do with your defence budget you'd overcome these problems pretty easily. Like I said, the problem isn't that you simply can't, it's that you don't want to.
A fraction of them.
If we funded NASA like we fund our military, we'd be half way to Mars and testing warp drives.
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RE: Moon Landing: Fake or Real?
June 13, 2014 at 10:36 am
(This post was last modified: June 13, 2014 at 11:09 am by Anomalocaris.)
We could definitely have been on mars or even Europa by the end of the 20th century, but warp technology is likely centuries away no matter what the spending.
The fundamental gap between us and warp speed is not technology or know how, whose rate of progress are highly sensitive to funding. The gap is the primitive state of our basic science, whose rate of progress, especially over the short span of a few decades, is much less sensitive to the amount of money being thrown at it.
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RE: Moon Landing: Fake or Real?
June 13, 2014 at 10:38 am
(This post was last modified: June 13, 2014 at 10:38 am by Napoléon.)
(June 13, 2014 at 10:24 am)Rhythm Wrote: No, Napo..I say we cannot because even if we had the money we would still have to design and manufacture a working vessel.
Not like you haven't done it before. I could understand you saying you're not capable if you hadn't already came up with the rockets, or the science behind putting man on the moon, or you didn't have the world's largest economy with the greatest space agency in the world. But you have all that, or at the very least you have had that. Coming up with the design and manufacturing of a working vessel is pretty damn trivial in reality.
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