The Apollo missions were very well thought out. For example, the trans-lunar injection burn was there to correct the speed of the Command Module (CM) assembly once they were out of earth's gravity and to coincide with the trajectory of the moon. i.e., if we misjudged the earlier stage burn times we could adjust the CM speed and therefore insure capture by the moon's gravitational pull.

Not only were the rocket and mission guys real smart, there were lots of small adjustments installed to increase the odds of success.

That is not to say that the astronauts did not have big cajones, they were the best of the very best. They were the best pilots in all the military branches and they pushed for contingencies to insure success.

quote:

Originally posted by Hound Dog:
It's not about the technology or the smarts.

It's about resolve.

I agree with this, and I'll add money to the list. The Apollo program cost the equivalent of $700B in today's dollars, and that was at a time when we had a federal budget surplus. Today we have trillion dollar annual deficits.

I take nothing away from those crusty old engineers. What they did was amazing, and I was fortunate to have a few from that generation as professors in college. Still, knowledge and technology marches on, and our capabilities today are vastly greater than theirs. It's not that we're smarter, but our tools are much more capable.

To illustrate the point, I recently read back through the independent panel report on the Teton Dam failure prepared for the Bureau of the Interior in 1976. The report was prepared by a team of 10 engineering professors and their graduate assistants. These men were giants of civil engineering including Wallace Chadwick, Arthur Casagrande, and Ralph Peck. Books have been written about them. International awards are named for them. The mention of their names is accompanied by angelic choirs and moments of awed silence in engineering circles. The analysis that they performed in that report, given the state of technology at the time, amazes and humbles me. And yet the fact remains that I could perform the same analysis today, come to the same conclusions, and write the same report by myself in less than the time that it took them. Not because I'm smarter (quite the contrary!), but because the tools available to me are so much better.

We stand on the shoulders of giants.

quote:

Originally posted by GWbiker:

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:
other than "novelty rocks from the moon" is there anything up there to mine or bring back?

Alice Kramden?

Going to the moon and planets for exploration is all well and good. We'll learn lots of stuff, some of it will probably be very interesting and useful stuff. Most importantly, we'll develop outstanding technologies, materials and manufacturing capabilities, many of which will find their way into consumer products and things people will use in their everyday life. Integrated circuits would probably have been invented without the space program of the 1960's, but the space program hugely accelerated the development of small, lightweight, sophisticated (for their time), low power electronics.

Colonizing, however, is a different animal altogether. A colony needs an economy. There has to be a viable economic reason to stay on the moon or Mars or elsewhere. Something valuable to mine that isn't easy to obtain on earth. Space travel is going to have to get very cheap for tourism to contribute to an economy. Without economic justification, visits to the moon and planets are going to be brief and far apart.

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:
other than "novelty rocks from the moon" is there anything up there to mine or bring back? Anything like some mineral or chemical which you cannot obtain here on earth?

The value of a presence on the moon isn’t what we’ll bring back from there; it’s real value is as a stepping stone base for expansion, whatever that expansion ends up being. The moon has billions of pounds of water ice at the poles alone, and more frozen water below the surface (ie- rocket fuel, water, air, etc) and the very low gravity and no atmosphere makes for an excellent launch pad due to the fact that you won’t burn a lot of fuel launching off the surface.

The moon would be a logical prep point for missions to Mars, although I really don’t see the value personally in going there...other than saying “I went to Mars and lived to tell the tale”.

If we’re bent on exploring space further and further out, mining asteroids for precious metals, traveling to the outer planets, etc, it will start at the moon once bases are established.

The other moon post has me wondering who the first person born on the moon will be. And what will be the circumstances?

IMO, the main reason more space exploration has not occurred is that it just costs too much.

flashguy

quote:

Originally posted by armored:
Were the Engineers and Scientist that much smarter 50 years ago?

Whats the deal?

I think it's expense, context, potential benefit, etc. We spent about $28 Billion getting to the moon between 1960 and 1973. That's adjusted to about $283 Billion today. NASA in that time spent a total of $49.4 Billion ($482 Billion today). This probably only works because of the competition with the soviets. It was a major national endeavor that was simultaneously about America and about all of mankind.

NASA's entire 2020 budget is "only" $22 Billion dollars. Taking the simple math on the figures and years above, they're essentially funded about 40% of what they were in the Apollo days and they're doing a hell of a lot more with it. Why haven't we been back to the moon? Maybe it has more to do with what else can be done with the money.

What's amazing about what is going on now, and I think a big part of the renewed interest is that we're able to do with private industry now.

quote:

Originally posted by signewt:

quote:

The woke crowd wants our research dollars spend on all sorts of green projects.

Decades ago my buddy had a t-shirt that said:

"Earth First", always getting the thumbs up from the Eugene crowd.

On the back was "We'll log the other planets later"......

and as far as "novelty rocks from the moon"....has anyone read recent reports on just what happened to them all?

I was a science major back then and saw the rocks first hand.

quote:

Originally posted by armored:
Were the Engineers and Scientist that much smarter 50 years ago?

Whats the deal?

Look at it differently...
Budget plays a major role, I believe both NASA and USAF SAC combined was pulling in 1/4-1/3 of the overall US budget at the time. Close to half-a-million people were employed in the business of sending man into space and then onto the moon. Clear goals with distinct and progressive objectives were laid-out and everyone involved knew what the deal was and how they contributed. Each Mercury, and then Apollo mission built upon the gains of the previous mission, the public understood the importance of Apollo 8 and why they WEREN'T going to land on the moon. Mass communication continued to improve in both radio and television; people were not only fascinated with more and more programing choices but, also felt a sense of connection as each of the space missions progressed visually.

The moon missions today should progress, focusing on establishing habitation or, at the very least, being able to set up communication relays and various other space exploration instruments that we wouldn't otherwise be able to use on earth or, rely on an orbiting platform.