How Did Folks With 0.1% Of Todays Tech Land On The Moon?

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Re: How Did Folks With 0.1% Of Todays Tech Land On The Moon?

Post by Calilasseia » Sat Sep 19, 2015 8:44 am

Item 1: Navigating to the Moon would have been easy for NASA, once they had a spacecraft capable of reaching the Moon. Because, lo and behold, NASA managed to navigate an unmanned probe all the way to Venus successfully as far back as 1962, in the form of Mariner 2. Likewise, NASA successfully sent Mariner 4 to Mars in 1964. With those navigational successes behind them, the Moon would have been easy. Though since plotting trajectories of objects in space under the influence of planetary gravity has been a staple of applied mathematics since the days of Newton, no one who paid attention in class should be surprised about this.

Item 2: The Saturn V delivered massive amounts of brute power. It had a throw-weight of 118 tons. This meant that it could push into low Earth orbit, a mass equivalent to two Mack container trucks with trailers. Or, if you want an equivalent mass of military hardware, the Saturn V could loft an M1A2 Abrams and two Stryker MGS systems into low Earth orbit together. Not difficult to get three men to the Moon when you have that sort of heavy lifting power at your disposal.

Item 3: There were enough brave men willing to take part in the flight. The Apollo 1 incident taught us much about the risks they were facing.

Item 4: A lot of people co-operated, with determination and resolve, to get the job done.

Item 5: The Apollo missions had payoffs for other, rather more sinister programmes, such as the ICBM programme. Which is one reason why the design details for the Saturn V reside in a secure warehouse under armed guard, because the US government doesn't want anyone else to be able to work out how to build a missile with a 118 ton throw weight. Doing so would enable in turn the construction of a multi-orbital warhead delivery platform that could rain down over 1,000 warheads on a target continent. While the nuclear powers haven't adopted a "many eggs in one basket" approach of this sort, just being able to build one such system and launch it successfully is a very scary prospect. The US Air Force was probably toying with a delivery system of this very sort, until they worked out that a Saturn V would be a very conspicuous piece of hardware, needing a vast silo. Even so, the thought of this being the ultimate MIRV dispenser wasn't that far from their minds.

That's just the items I can think of off the top of my head. :)

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Re: How Did Folks With 0.1% Of Todays Tech Land On The Moon?

Post by cronus » Sat Sep 19, 2015 9:27 am

Americans bottled it. That's why they keep putting off going back into space. They've freaked and their nerve is gone and shot. Won't even be climbing ladders soon. Even here on Earth. :read:
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Re: How Did Folks With 0.1% Of Todays Tech Land On The Moon?

Post by Forty Two » Tue Oct 20, 2015 6:37 pm

Seth wrote:Unbelievable amounts of taxpayer money diverted from more important things without taxpayer permission...
The amounts were believable, given the accomplishment. And, in my view, there were few more important things. Hardly anything is more important than manned space programs, relative to the long-term survival of the human species.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

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Re: How Did Folks With 0.1% Of Todays Tech Land On The Moon?

Post by Forty Two » Tue Oct 20, 2015 6:39 pm

mistermack wrote:The Moon's not hard to find.
Once you're above the atmosphere, it's dazzling. You can't miss it.
And landing on the Moon isn't hard to work out. There's no weather to blow you off course.

The big mystery, is why nobody's been back.
:
It's not a mystery. It's just political shortshightedness.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

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Re: How Did Folks With 0.1% Of Todays Tech Land On The Moon?

Post by laklak » Tue Oct 20, 2015 8:34 pm

Scumple wrote:Americans bottled it. That's why they keep putting off going back into space. They've freaked and their nerve is gone and shot. Won't even be climbing ladders soon. Even here on Earth. :read:
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Re: How Did Folks With 0.1% Of Todays Tech Land On The Moon?

Post by Forty Two » Wed Oct 21, 2015 12:21 pm

We should have doubled the NASA budget as part of the "Stimulus" program back in 2009 and onward.

Remember all the billions dumped into the economy as bailouts and handouts to wealthy financiers and such? Some folks talk of wasting money where there are more worthwhile programs on Earth...but, then we hardly hear a peep from those folks when half a billion dollars are frittered away by Solyndra, or billions are dumped into boondoggle pet-projects of Senators and Representatives in misguided attempts to stimulate the economy.

Fund space exploration, and you get hard science done. You get jobs in the STEM fields by the crate. You get inspiration to a generation of young people to become scientists, astronauts, engineers and other relevant STEM folks. You get technological development that ripples through the economy and society. And, something is actually done.

Or, we could just hand 100 billion here and 100 billion there to bankers and hedge fund managers.....
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

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Re: How Did Folks With 0.1% Of Todays Tech Land On The Moon?

Post by pErvinalia » Fri Dec 11, 2015 9:01 am

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Re: How Did Folks With 0.1% Of Todays Tech Land On The Moon?

Post by pErvinalia » Fri Dec 11, 2015 2:29 pm

It was faked by Stanley Kubrick anyway.

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Re: How Did Folks With 0.1% Of Todays Tech Land On The Moon?

Post by Jason » Fri Dec 11, 2015 3:17 pm

:lol:

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Re: How Did Folks With 0.1% Of Todays Tech Land On The Moon?

Post by Hermit » Fri Dec 11, 2015 3:34 pm

LOL.

This is what the real Stanley Kubrick looked like less than three months before he died:

Image

The "interview" is bound to be a huge hit with the conspiracy theorists at large anyway.
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Re: How Did Folks With 0.1% Of Todays Tech Land On The Moon?

Post by pErvinalia » Fri Dec 11, 2015 3:43 pm

That's Salman Rushdie :tinfoil:
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Re: How Did Folks With 0.1% Of Todays Tech Land On The Moon?

Post by Hermit » Fri Dec 11, 2015 3:57 pm

LOL

This is Salman Rushdie:

Image
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Re: How Did Folks With 0.1% Of Todays Tech Land On The Moon?

Post by pErvinalia » Fri Dec 11, 2015 4:20 pm

No, that's Lyle Lovett.
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Re: How Did Folks With 0.1% Of Todays Tech Land On The Moon?

Post by Sean Hayden » Fri Dec 11, 2015 4:25 pm

No, that's Robert Trivers.

This is Lyle Lovett:

Image
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