Just conspiracy. We can get to the moon, the issue is that there’s no real reason to now. During the Space Race, it was a combination of “We need to test rockets in case the Cold War goes hot” and “WE HAVE TO SHOW THE COMMIES WE’RE THE SUPERIOR ENGINEERS”
Once we actually got up there and did some basic tests, it was very much “Yep, this is what every scientist predicted it would be: a barren rock that costs a horrific amount to get to and back from.” It’s still of some scientific interest, but not “Pour billions of dollars to push a few guys there and back” level interest. The ISS in low-earth orbit is cheaper to get to, more scientifically useful, and has its costs split between several countries instead of one country trying to fund a dick-waving contest.
India and China have both done unmanned moon landings in the past few years for the prestige, because unmanned is much cheaper.
But when will we install a borosilicate dome on the dark side of the moon and fill it with an artificial atmosphere to preserve biodiversity in case of an apocalypse on earth?
Sci-fi plans to “save humanity” from catastrophic climate change usually remain in the planning / CGI stage. That’s much cheaper, and it is all you need to placate people who might otherwise make demands about our economy and ecology here on earth.
We just need a little more compute, and then all our plans will be in reach. Please pledge $100 billion today. We can only guarantee a 5000% ROI in ten years. And you’ll even get this cool mug. See, it says “Space Wiz.” Wouldn’t it look great on your desk?
They can’t replicate many things straight from the blueprints because nobody produces those parts anymore. But take the AGC (Apollo Guidiance Computer) and the earthly counterparts: they can be replaced by modern technology. Like some guys recently did, they were working with a telemetry module that sent data from the rocket back to the earth. They did not have the earthly counterpart of it anymore, a wall of cabinets with electronics to receive and decode the data. They just replaced that wall of cabinets with a script running on a Raspberry Pi.
There are teams out there doing reconstruction of the AGCs. I mean, they have real ones there and try to figure them out. The most sophisticated “computer chips” on that thing are basic logic chips: 10 pins, two for power and ground (12V, IIRC), and 2x4 pins for three-input NOR gates. They used them for everything: building flip-flops for registers, adders, and other stuff to for a kind-of 16-bit computer.
There is loads of documentation out there on the net.
Weve already sent Artemis 1 to the moon and Artemis 2 which is due to be a crewed launch to Luna orbit is currently being rolled out to the launch pad and will likely launch next month. Then Artemis 3 which will actually land on the moon will launch next year (hopefully if SpaceX can actually pull through)
And yet haven’t they lost the technology to get to the moon? Or is that just a conspiracy?
Just conspiracy. We can get to the moon, the issue is that there’s no real reason to now. During the Space Race, it was a combination of “We need to test rockets in case the Cold War goes hot” and “WE HAVE TO SHOW THE COMMIES WE’RE THE SUPERIOR ENGINEERS”
Once we actually got up there and did some basic tests, it was very much “Yep, this is what every scientist predicted it would be: a barren rock that costs a horrific amount to get to and back from.” It’s still of some scientific interest, but not “Pour billions of dollars to push a few guys there and back” level interest. The ISS in low-earth orbit is cheaper to get to, more scientifically useful, and has its costs split between several countries instead of one country trying to fund a dick-waving contest.
India and China have both done unmanned moon landings in the past few years for the prestige, because unmanned is much cheaper.
They literally pushed the rocket for a crewed loop round the moon to the launch pad today in fact. Hopefully Artemis III goes ahead next year.
But when will we install a borosilicate dome on the dark side of the moon and fill it with an artificial atmosphere to preserve biodiversity in case of an apocalypse on earth?
Sci-fi plans to “save humanity” from catastrophic climate change usually remain in the planning / CGI stage. That’s much cheaper, and it is all you need to placate people who might otherwise make demands about our economy and ecology here on earth.
We just need a little more compute, and then all our plans will be in reach. Please pledge $100 billion today. We can only guarantee a 5000% ROI in ten years. And you’ll even get this cool mug. See, it says “Space Wiz.” Wouldn’t it look great on your desk?
They can’t replicate many things straight from the blueprints because nobody produces those parts anymore. But take the AGC (Apollo Guidiance Computer) and the earthly counterparts: they can be replaced by modern technology. Like some guys recently did, they were working with a telemetry module that sent data from the rocket back to the earth. They did not have the earthly counterpart of it anymore, a wall of cabinets with electronics to receive and decode the data. They just replaced that wall of cabinets with a script running on a Raspberry Pi.
Oh that would be a really fun experience. If the code is available anywhere I’d love to turn it into Rust.
It is!
https://github.com/chrislgarry/Apollo-11
Note that it wasn’t saved digitally, so this is reconstructed from paper and might have transcription errors
Well
There goes my Saturday
There are teams out there doing reconstruction of the AGCs. I mean, they have real ones there and try to figure them out. The most sophisticated “computer chips” on that thing are basic logic chips: 10 pins, two for power and ground (12V, IIRC), and 2x4 pins for three-input NOR gates. They used them for everything: building flip-flops for registers, adders, and other stuff to for a kind-of 16-bit computer.
There is loads of documentation out there on the net.
Weve already sent Artemis 1 to the moon and Artemis 2 which is due to be a crewed launch to Luna orbit is currently being rolled out to the launch pad and will likely launch next month. Then Artemis 3 which will actually land on the moon will launch next year (hopefully if SpaceX can actually pull through)