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WorkerBee28474 | 3 months ago

NASA still had much smaller jumps in capability between flights. Check out the Smarter Every Day NASA talk.

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dylan604|3 months ago

Sure, we went through Gemini, Mercury, and Apollo 1-7 before humans orbited the moon. However, we started from blank sheet of paper back then. BO has the knowledge learned from Gemini, Mercury, and all of Apollo to start.

I don't need a YT influencer to know my NASA history. I'm old enough it was taught in school while young enough to not have lived through any of it.

stevenjgarner|3 months ago

I am so old I lived through it! - 13 years old staying up all night to watch Neil take his little stroll. Genuine question, how DO they teach it in school? Do they get into the physics of any of it (orbital mechanics, rocketry etc)? Do they get into the cold war geopolitics of it? Do they teach the amazing accomplishments of the Soviet Union as well as NASA?

JumpCrisscross|3 months ago

> Check out the Smarter Every Day NASA talk

FYI, that talk was poorly received in the aerospace community.

Destin missed that the entire point of Artemis is not to one and done the Moon again but build towards getting to Mars. And the repeated "we're going, right?" shtick was condescending in the same way Hegseth wanting generals to cheer and holler for him was.

He acted like a petulant influencer. Not a science communicator.

timschmidt|3 months ago

Few of us like having our work critiqued by an "outsider". Especially when such critique threatens your paycheck.

Nevertheless, it's hard to imagine any kind of sustainability when each launch costs north of $2 Billion and nearly all hardware is thrown away each time. In that sense, his criticism was very valid, even if tough to hear.

bryanlarsen|3 months ago

AFAICT it's "getting to Mars" for SpaceX and their ecosystem, and "sustainable cislunar economy" for Nasa, ULA and Blue Origin and their respective ecosystem. For example, see ULA's "cislunar 1000" concept from ~10 years ago.

Either way, your criticism of Destin's presentation hits. One and done'ing the Moon is not particularly helpful in setting up a sustainable cislunar economy.

brain_staple|3 months ago

That was my interpretation of that talk. It seemed like a regurgitation of opinions of an old aerospace engineer. But that's probably unfair to Dustin, I believe that he actually came to that conclusion himself. But it was a really incorrect take that SLS was somehow the "safe bet" in comparison to betting on Starship. The whole talk just seemed insane based on what I knew about both programs.

imtringued|3 months ago

Nobody is going to Mars anytime soon. It's the moon or nothing.