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Man on the Moon...?

Did we land a Man on the Moon July 20th 1969

  • Total voters
    225
  • Poll closed .
CYKOFAN said:
I'm fairly certain we did it, but far from 100% positive. The main thing that troubles me is if we could land a man on the moon 40 years ago why haven't we advanced much farther as the computer and technology have advanced. It seems like we've gone backwards from that point in our space program. I would think we would be traveling to the moon routinely by now and perhaps beyond considering how far technology has advanced in the last 40 years. Our current shuttle seems like a giant step backwards from a moonlanding.
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Where would you like to go next? NASA thought the shuttle, being partially reusable, was more fiscally responsible than throw away rockets.

Mars is a LOT farther than the moon, like a 3 month trip.
 
CYKOFAN said:
I'm fairly certain we did it, but far from 100% positive. The main thing that troubles me is if we could land a man on the moon 40 years ago why haven't we advanced much farther as the computer and technology have advanced. It seems like we've gone backwards from that point in our space program. I would think we would be traveling to the moon routinely by now and perhaps beyond considering how far technology has advanced in the last 40 years. Our current shuttle seems like a giant step backwards from a moonlanding.
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I'll be very interested to see what happens with all these private organizations that are trying to break into space exploration.

Further breakthroughs in exploration aren't being hindered by technology, like other's said these guys went to the moon with a giant graphing calculator (and not one of those fancy TI-89s either). IMO until we find a more efficient fuel source we won't be able to design a more effective propulsion system, which is what is stopping us now.

And as superfan laid out, NASA really lost sight of their goals. I agree the shuttle was a step back and the ISS is a big hole in space you throw money into.
 
CYKOFAN said:
I'm fairly certain we did it, but far from 100% positive. The main thing that troubles me is if we could land a man on the moon 40 years ago why haven't we advanced much farther as the computer and technology have advanced. It seems like we've gone backwards from that point in our space program. I would think we would be traveling to the moon routinely by now and perhaps beyond considering how far technology has advanced in the last 40 years. Our current shuttle seems like a giant step backwards from a moonlanding.
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The reason we quit going at the time, I belive 2 or 3 planned missions were scrubbed out of lack of public support. The main disadvantage back then is that people lost interest in us going to the moon. The public wasn't looking beyond the moon. Funding stopped and putting stuff into orbit was all that was important. Plain and simple, we lost the funding.

We have the technology to go back to the moon and could probably do it safer at this point, but again, no one wants to put the money behind it that it would take.

The shuttle was actually quite a step forward in space technology, for the time. The problem was, it was proposed as a "Cheaper" way to get payloads into space and then a quicker turnaround to get back up. That never materialized as it ended up being quite a bit more expensive than just launching a rocket into orbit. Hence, it never really developed on advancements for the shuttle. Any thought of looking into a new one was pretty much scrubbed because the shuttle benefits didn't outweight the cost associated with it. If you are just putting stuff in orbit, it's much cheaper to use a rocket.

In the end, the shuttle itself, with it's time, money and resources, is kind of what stunted our heavy lifting rocket budgets. And therefore was a kind of "Step Backwards" Without the shuttle though, it's doubtful we'd have ever seen a picture from the Hubble telescope.

I believe there is talk of getting back to the moon in 2012 though. I think the biggest problem now is that it's going to be a worldwide effort, not just NASA and the US, therefore we have to deal with a lot of political BS, just to even decide on what rocket to use or even what space capsule.

The current us version in development is based a lot on the Apollo Capsule.
 
superfan said:
As before, the answer to the first part is very simple. Money.

If you look at the costs of Mercury through Apollo 11 (1958-1969), the space program cost the USA around 34.8 billion dollars (1960's money). Adjust that 40 years forward with inflation and you're talking about around 221 billion dollars.

How many countries have that kind of coin to spend? The US did, the Soviets thought they did (turns out they didn't - helped lead to some of the major economic problems that caused the fall of the Soviet Union). Japan? Nope. The EU? Nope. Central/South America/Africa? No way. China? Not until recently, and they're working on it. India? See China.

The other part of the equation is that since the Saturn V was (tragically) axed in 1971, the world hasn't had a heavy-lift vehicle sufficient to get a large payload to the Moon.
-The Saturn V could put 100,000 lb. to the Moon, 262,000 lb. to Low Earth Orbit (over half of that obviously being the propellant to get to the Moon). -The Space Shuttle can put around 53,000 lb. to Low Earth Orbit, most of that being the Shuttle itself.
-The biggest contractor rockets - Delta IV Heavy (ULA/Boeing): around 56,000 lbs. to LEO. Atlas V Heavy (ULA/Lockheed): 65,000 lbs. to LEO. -Internationally, Ariane 5 (ESA): 46,000 lbs.

As for how the US beat the Soviets... turns out the Soviet space program got very political, at one point with about 30 rocket designs competing for the same money, as opposed to the US, who picked one idea and pumped money into it. The Soviets actually were still ahead up until 1967 (Apollo 8). Another big problem was that the Soviet chief engineer, Sergey Korolyov, died (possibly of cancer) in 1965. Two years later, politics forced the USSR to launch Soyuz 1 when it still had design faults, resulting in the death of a cosmonaut (They wanted a man on the Moon in '67, in time for the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution). The resulting year-and-a-half delay gave the US enough time to sprint to the finish line.

*edit* There's actually a great op-ed in the NY Times today about it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/opinion/18iht-edbignami.html
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Thank you for laying out that reasonable explanation for people who obviously don't understand how complex and EXPENSIVE the operation of sending manned missions to land on the moon was.
 
norseclone said:
I'm hoping. Of course, after posting that, now I can't find any corroborating evidence. Someone posted an apparent press release on the bad astronomy forums. LRO Apollo images, tomorrow! - Bad Astronomy and Universe Today Forum Unfortunately, I can't find the original or anything else that gives that date. Guess I'll just keep my fingers crossed.
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Good call on you. They were just released...

NASA - LRO Sees Apollo Landing Sites

More high-res images coming in the next few weeks.

369234main_lroc_apollo11labeled_256x256.jpg
 
Here's a man walking around on Mars:

123marsmanclose550x404.jpg


It's actually an eroded rock. Also, have you seen the hi-res photo of the pic Tyke posted? It thoroughly debunks the "man face" on Mars myth.
 
isucyfan said:
Here's a man walking around on Mars:

123marsmanclose550x404.jpg


It's actually an eroded rock. Also, have you seen the hi-res photo of the pic Tyke posted? It thoroughly debunks the "man face" on Mars myth.
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Sure, bring facts into the discussion. :confused:

cyd_face_big.jpg
 
I'm shocked to see one-in-ten in this poll think it was a hoax. I had assumed most on this forum were college educated, but maybe 10% weren't?
 
it could have only happened if we find Alice in one these pictures.

-keep.
 
When you see pictures of the astronauts is space how come you don't see stars in the background.

flag.jpg
 
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