
Why Land on the Moon? (1963) - ForHackernews
https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/63aug/jastrow.htm?single_page=true
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elcapitan
"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not
because they are easy, but because they are hard." (JFK) [1]

Probably my favorite quote of all time. Those were the times.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwFvJog2dMw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwFvJog2dMw)

~~~
problems
I always found that quote incredibly pointless. If you just want to do
something because it's hard, there's lots of options, the cheapest is to turn
up the difficulty on a game.

Don't waste tax payer money sending humans to the moon for no scientific
purpose - leave that to the machines. Hard things can be wasteful too, just
because something is hard doesn't make it valuable.

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melling
Come now. We've wasted a lot more tax payer money on endeavors with much less
reward.

[http://thevietnamwar.info/how-much-vietnam-war-
cost/](http://thevietnamwar.info/how-much-vietnam-war-cost/) Vietnam War cost
more than putting a man on the moon

[http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-war-anniversary-
idUSB...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-war-anniversary-
idUSBRE92D0PG20130314)

Imagine how $2 trillion of R&D would have changed the world.

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problems
I agree we've definitely wasted far more money in far worse ways, but it still
doesn't change the fact it's wasteful scientifically and economically
speaking, just because there are bigger wastes doesn't mean we should accept
all smaller ones, this is known as the "fallacy of relative privation" or "not
as bad as" fallacy.

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melling
When you say wasteful, you mean not the most efficient?

Because science and engineering benefited from the project. we are better off
for having done the project. However, we could've gained the same knowledge in
other ways, for less money.

So, if it costs of $25 billion to put a man on the moon, and the same
knowledge could have acquired for $15 billion, you think the effort was
wasted?

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danielbarla
I get the feeling many forget the value in simply inspiring generations of
people; think of all those who have increased aspirations as a result of that
event - what is the worth / value of that?

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simonh
Or maybe the fact that we didn't do it would inspire a new generation to
achieve something (going to the Moon) that is still out there to do. I don't
think anyone is forgetting the inspirational value, just challenging whether
it was value for money.

For what it's worth the moon landing had a profound effect on me. I was 6
during Apollo 17 and still remember looking up at the moon and knowing there
were people on it at that moment.

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danielbarla
You may be right, it's very hard to measure these things. Though that's part
of my point too - why are people so sure when they claim it's a waste? (they
should at least consider they might be mistaken)

Living around the time of Apollo 17 must have been very interesting. I was
born a few years later, with no more manned trips to the moon. In line with
your point, I guess I had to find other things to motivate me!

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losteverything
I use the moon challenge as a time, before cable, when the media was the glue
that kept the country together.

One single view repeated over time.

Then, imo, cable and now the internet has changed glue to acid that breaks us
apart.

I have not changed but how we get information and news has.

Can we have another moon moment? Probably not but to me the better
introspective question is am I adapting to how information is sought, ignored
and processed by me???

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awacs
It's hard to have a "moon moment" in times where there is a large population
that think we never landed on the moon, and half the country believes in
alternative facts.

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losteverything
And the third half have trouble with statistics.

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throwanem
A brilliant example of competition driving human achievement. Pity we lacked a
more worthy opponent, though; otherwise we might well now be on Mars. Or they
might - it'd be a win for the species, either way.

~~~
acqq
The scientists from 1963 were right even then: the robots were enough to
explore the Moon, transporting human flesh and bones around and keeping them
alive is not something that directly increases our knowledge of the Universe.
The "man on the Moon" was a political, not a scientific project.

The worst place on Earth is still better suited for human life than either
Moon or Mars or any other object in the Solar system. We depend on almost all,
compared to the other objects, unique properties of the Earth. And the other
stars, which could have the planets more suited for us are many light years
away. The humanity must learn to respect the Earth. We won't get a way to
easily survive without Earth no matter how we'd like to.

Global warming or a nuclear weapon "accident" are too probable to wipe out
what the humanity achieved up to now for us to ignore the necessity of
urgently solving these. Not to mention even more "inconvenient" questions of
the whole approach to the use of all the Earth resources.

We still have to clean up our own backyard first. There is no known reachable
second Earth waiting for us and we won't discover it by experimenting with the
survival of a few persons on Mars. The human life is not self-sustainable
there and it won't be even if we create some "colony."

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adrianN
What makes you think human life on Mars is not sustainable? Mars has
everything we need to live.

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rimliu
Except air, water, food and protection from space radiation?

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Neliquat
We can generate/recycle most if not all of these from or on mars. Surely not
trivial, but possible. Air, water, food are a loop we already know well, and
structures arent new...

~~~
acqq
We don't have even sustainable use of the Earth resources, even if the Earth
is actually suited for human life, but you somehow imagine that we'd be able
to do better on Mars, which isn't suited for life at all, having no
magnetosphere?

Please study where the energy on Earth comes from and how the rare materials
are obtained.

The basic assumption of all "Mars colonies work" theories is the functioning
Earth civilization that supports it, paying a lot for it (at least in
resources and work) to support it.

The argument for having a Mars colony is "in case something happens to Earth."
But "in case something happens to Earth" the Mars colony dies. It's that
simple.

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elsonrodriguez
> We don't have even sustainable use of the Earth resources, even if the Earth
> is actually suited for human life, but you somehow imagine that we'd be able
> to do better on Mars, which isn't suited for life at all, having no
> magnetosphere?

Is a magnetosphere the only way to shield from radiation?

> The basic assumption of all "Mars colonies work" theories is the functioning
> Earth civilization that supports it, paying a lot for it (at least in
> resources and work) to support it.

Supply ships are essential for the bootstrapping of any colony, but Mars does
have everything we need long term.

> The argument for having a Mars colony is "in case something happens to
> Earth." But "in case something happens to Earth" the Mars colony dies. It's
> that simple.

It's not simple, it's actually quite complex and interesting. Read up on Mars
exploration, everything has been addressed except for the will of the people.

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acqq
> Mars does have everything we need long term.

Earth doesn't have it for the long-term high-tech life under our current ways
of life. We use hydrocarbons as the main source of energy, and we used up half
of them in just 100 years. The other significant source of energy is liquid
water in the atmospheric cycle, completely not existing on Mars, due to the
lack of the comparable atmosphere.

We have problems with the small changes in weather here on Earth, consider the
weather conditions there if we would try to mess up with the atmosphere there.

If you tell me "nuclear energy" \- look how fragile it is on Earth. In Mars
environment it's even more. The life on Mars is not self-sustainable. Having a
colony there won't allow us to discover the solutions which we lack right now
on the Earth.

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adrianN
Solar works on Mars. Nuclear energy is not fragile.

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libeclipse
Damn it guys. We've been on the moon! We actually launched rockets carrying
people off the planet to _the moon_.

What the fuck. If that doesn't give you butterflies and plaster a massive
childish smile on your face, I'd conjecture that there's something wrong with
you.

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throwanem
It helps not to know in detail the difference between the space program we
had, and the one we could have had. If you've seen _2001: A Space Odyssey_ ,
its entire first act, and a fair fraction of the second, were predicated on
the assumption that the Apollo missions would serve as the preliminary to
_real_ human space colonization which their architects intended that they be.

For those excited about the concept of space colonization who wish to stay
that way, I don't suppose I can unreservedly recommend detailed study of the
US manned space program's history, especially not that post-1969. To say that
such study can be disillusioning beggars language. It does, though, answer a
whole slew of questions which all more or less boil down to: "What the hell
_happened?_ " But it's up to each interested individual to evaluate for
herself whether the acquisition of such knowledge is worth more or less than
the fatigue its possession is likely to inflict on her idealism.

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jonathansizz
It makes me sad when I think of the sacrifices made by previous generations
for the greater good, to consider that in our time we're happy to gamble with
the future just to make things more comfortable for us in the present.

In the 1940s, millions of people made the ultimate sacrifice to defeat
tyranny, then in the 60s huge amounts were invested into technology,
transforming society, but we can't even agree on a carbon tax to start to pay
for the mess we're making, never mind trying to come up with ways to reverse
the damage.

A green economy should be our generation's Moon landing. Massive investment in
basic research and into renewables, energy storage and transport, and improved
materials could again transform the world, and benefit all of us, but I guess
if you can't physically see your enemy then there's just not enough urgency.

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mkmk
I recommend the book 'Flight' by Christopher Kraft. It's a quick read, and a
really enjoyable history lesson about the development of the US space program.

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chrismealy
That was completely unconvincing. Sending people to the moon was a mistake.
Totally a job for robots.

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Arizhel
They didn't have robots in 1969, at least nothing that could do almost
anything useful. They did send a bunch of automated probes to orbit and the
Moon back in those days, and most of them failed because the tech was so poor,
and the few that didn't fail didn't do much useful science anyway.

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strombourg
To be clear, Venera 7 landed on Venus and transmitted data in 1970. We did
have robots (probes, landers) that while crude by today's standards, did serve
a scientific purpose.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera)

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Arizhel
Venera 7 lasted less than an hour and only transmitted one or two crappy
images, along with some sensor data. Granted, humans can't do any better on
the surface of Venus due to the temperature and pressure, but humans _can_ do
far better than that on the Moon with ~1969 technology, and they did. Humans
brought back many kilograms of rock samples, they set up a bunch of
experiments, they drove around for hours on a buggy (in the later landings,
not Apollo 11); they did FAR more than any lander of the time could possibly
have done.

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strombourg
I'm thrilled that we went to the moon, and am glad we did. Venera is just an
example of a possible alternative to what we chose to do by sending humans in
that era. Less science for less money.

1969 space technology was the result of a mandate to get humans on the moon. A
mandate to get robots on the moon would have likely radically increased the
ability of these robots to collect data as compared to what Venera
accomplished.

I'm still +1 for human exploration.

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Arizhel
You're forgetting that we _already sent_ landers to the Moon before we sent
people. We didn't get much out of them. We just didn't have the technology,
and the public wasn't going to be excited by a campaign that went like this:
"it's too dangerous and expensive to send people to the Moon, so we're going
to invest a ton of money into robotics technology so we can send robots there
in 40 years!" A mandate to put robots there any faster wouldn't have worked;
we just didn't have the technology. We developed a _lot_ of our current
computing technology IN the Apollo program itself, so the reason our computer-
driven automation is so good these days is because we _did_ send people to the
Moon, instead of waiting and hoping for technology to improve.

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hyperpallium
Can be read as a question about real estate.

The moon was not claimed for the USA (though a USA flag was planted). What if
the moon was less like Antartica, amd more like California?

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lispenlightment
After USA got schooled by a bunch of "commies" who were able to make history
by putting the first human and satellite in space (among other things),
America had to prove to the world that a nation as filthy rich as theirs was
not a total waste of space and was still capable of rivaling the dirt poor
USSR which only a few decades ago consisted primarily of illiterate, toothless
peasants.

US claimed that they did it for mankind, yet they never shared any knowledge,
technology, or offered any assistance to other countries to allow them to make
the similar advances in an effort to progress our world towards bigger goals.
Who knows, maybe mankind could've been on Mars by now if everyone had the
know-how. The whole thing was an impressive, yet selfish and ultimately
useless, feat.

Well, at least all the American kids can now claim that "they've" been to the
moon.

~~~
burkaman
What are you talking about? Have you heard of the ISS? Hubble? NISAR? The
Apollo-Soyuz Test Project? In what world does NASA not share its knowledge and
technology?

