Mars Rover Perseverance Landing... and continuing...

Umbran

Mod Squad
Staff member
Supporter
So here's the issue. The moon landing was in 1969. We can't even do that today if we wanted. I remember Obama saying during his presidency that he'd like to see us get to the moon in a few decades. How can the tech to have done this in the 1960s have regressed so far that we can't do it now ... easily?

Because we stopped. We no longer have the facilities and tooling. While we have the plans for the Saturn V (the only rocket to take people out of low Earth orbit), the manufacturing processes for some of the parts have been lost to time. To recreate a Saturn V, we'd need to figure out how to make them again with sufficient quality.

From there, there are two reasons why we have lost the capability - one is that, due to the perceived high costs in both money and lives, NASA has been forced to become extremely risk-averse. If NASA missions fail, it becomes a point of politics, not of science and engineering. The other is that there is no such thing as a "general purpose rocket", and there are no general purpose rocket parts. In order to design a launch system, you have to define the requirements that system must meet. And, again due to politics, NASA has not been allowed to settle on what missions their next heavy launch vehicle is supposed to serve.

Between the risk aversion, and not knowing what the mission is, development on a new system is extremely slow. Compared to, say, Space X, which has no issues if their test vehicles blow up, so long as the result is a reliable flight. They get to revel in and learn from mistakes in a way NASA cannot.
 

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Umbran

Mod Squad
Staff member
Supporter
I've heard this rover is also set up to better detect signs that life existed in the past. That also sets it apart from all prior rovers.

Yes. Curiosity was designed to look for evidence fo water (past and present), explore geology, and generally help figure out if its landign site ever had cnditions suitable for life. Perseverance is more loaded out to seek out more direct evidence of past life, along with a few forward-looking experiments (sample return and the Ingenuity helicopter, for example).
 

Ryujin

Legend
I've worked in government since the 1990s, so I can attest to this.
However, NASA is also a government agency, so you're also saying that you think they could do all of these same tasks to send a man to the moon with the computing power of a calculator in the 1960s. I have my doubts they could've done it then (or now).
The old adage that, "Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead" is close to being accurate. I was a kid during the original Apollo missions and, despite being Canadian, the whole school would turn out to watch. We watched the first moon landing on a half a dozen TV sets, in the gymnasium.

In total there are 3 retroreflector arrays that were placed on the moon, by Apollo 11, 14, and 15. Want to see if someone has been to the moon? If you know someone with a sufficiently powerful astronomical laser, just bounce a pulse off one of them.


It's not the technology that we lack, for going back to the moon. It's the will. NASA was getting major, serious budgets in the 1960s, because of the Space Race and Kennedy's speech. These days, if they could justify spending the money, India could put a man on the moon. Private corporations are putting people in low orbit, with an eye toward following Hauser's advice from "Total Recall."
 



mars_landing_video.png
 

First, I'm not saying that we definitely didn't go. I'm saying that if it came out that it was hoaxed, I'd simply shrug and say, "I'm not surprised. The whole thing seemed a little fishy anyway."
So here's the issue. The moon landing was in 1969. We can't even do that today if we wanted. I remember Obama saying during his presidency that he'd like to see us get to the moon in a few decades. How can the tech to have done this in the 1960s have regressed so far that we can't do it now ... easily?
We haven't been back since the early 1970s. It was exciting for a few years, and we just never cared again? All of a sudden?
We would have had every reason to lie about it. We were at the height of the space race of the Cold War and the Soviets had beaten America on nearly every front.
I'm not saying it was a lie. Just saying I wouldn't be surprised.
moon_landing.png
 

Retreater

Legend
My casual research seems to indicate that GPS technology came from NASA, so I'd say that is a big accomplishment. I'd put that above Velcro, Tang, or the Mars rovers.
Likely, like many of you, I wasn't around to have memories of any great successes from the space program. The first notice I gave it was when I watched in school the Challenger disaster, live on television, after we had followed the project for months. And then the shuttle program failed on live TV with the Columbia disaster, which was a day I was getting together with some of my friends for a game of D&D.
Witnessing these events with my peers had a heightened effect on me. To me, it's hard to see that anything that we've discovered has really been worth it.
 


Umbran

Mod Squad
Staff member
Supporter
My casual research seems to indicate that GPS technology came from NASA, so I'd say that is a big accomplishment. I'd put that above Velcro, Tang, or the Mars rovers.

Velcro, and Tang were used by the space program, but not developed by them.

Witnessing these events with my peers had a heightened effect on me. To me, it's hard to see that anything that we've discovered has really been worth it.

So, as of 2020, there have been a total of 30 people, worldwide, who have lost their lives in activities related to spaceflight - this includes actual launches and in training and testing exercises.

What nobody has likely ever done is shown you what those 30 deaths have gotten us.

Here's one: the bioreactor. It was originally designed to grow cells in a closed, zero G environment for experiments. Today, lifesaving drugs are produced by microbes grown in bioreactors. Countless people are alive today due to the drugs made in, and the research performed with, bioreactors.

Here's another cool spinoff - the most common breathing apparatus used today by firefighters would not be possible without an aluminum composite material NASA developed for rocket casings.

In Tokyo and San Francisco, buildings are constructed with giant shock absorbers to help them withstand earthquakes. Those shock absorbers were first designed to safely remove fuel and electrical connectors from the Space Shuttle during launch.

The FDA guidelines that currently keep your seafood, juices, and dairy products safe are based in guidelines created by Pillsbury for handling and preventing contamination of foods going into space.
 

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