Remember The Apollo Program

Remember the Apollo Program. Truly inspiring:

The Rocket That Took Us To The Moon

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(54:16)

We need big challenges that capture the imagination, and leaders who can take us there.

Reply to
Steve Wilson
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On a sunny day (Sat, 7 Dec 2019 16:19:51 -0000 (UTC)) it happened Steve Wilson wrote in :

China will likely have Chinese Restaurants on mars and find life there even before the US empire falls apart. They are not hampered by Republican religious fanatics objections about life in the universe and are not hampered by a dual locked government that constantly opposes itself.

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

Challenging, inspiring, dangerous, expensive, and useless.

Imagine what might have been done with all those resources.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
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Reply to
jlarkin

Did you think those resources and the knowledge was wasted?

The space program gave the US a huge lead in technology and created the background where pretty much all of us work and play.

Abandoning the moon was your 'Avro Arrow'.

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Sigh...

John :-#(#

Reply to
John Robertson

It would never have matched the significance of the Apollo program.

Much of the technology we take for granted today was invented in the Apollo program. As Kennedy said, "We choose to go to the Moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard." His words galvanized the entire nation, and showed what could be accomplished. This inspired countless people to take on challenges they would not have tried. The nation and the world was better for it.

A lot of people want to go to Mars to save humanity in case of a catastrophe on Earth. Besides having their brains fried on the trip, there is little point in going there. Go to the moon instead and set up an installation on the south pole where there is plenty of sunshine that lasts all year.

If you could get enough people interested, they could say, "Yes, we've done that, so it is definitely possible." Without leaders who can capture the imagination, none of this is possible.

Reply to
Steve Wilson

Mostly, yes. What knowledge was created that we couldn't have learned with unmanned spacecraft? Moon dirt turns out to be pretty boring.

Space is very hostile to humans. "Exploring outer space" is silly. It's mostly nothing.

Disagree. The manned moon program diverted billions of dollars and thousands of engineers from doing useful things. The manned spaceflight program (I designed flight hardware for S1B) used a lot more existing technology than it created.

Do they still sell Tang?

I suspect that unmanned combat aircraft, and maybe ships, will be replaced by drones.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

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Reply to
jlarkin

Steve Wilson wrote in news:XnsAB1E7344CD2F3idtokenpost@144.76.35.198:

I posted pictures of the US Mint's commemorative for the 50 year anniversary of the landing.

So, yeah... I rememeber it. Way more than most, and far more than a dope like Donald J. Trump does. And sadly, that stupid bastard would try to take credit for the US Mint's release, since it happened while the non-elected dangerous buffoon was in his highchair when it happened.

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

Name some please.

As Kennedy said, "We choose to go to the Moon, not because it is

Doubt it.

Going to Mars would be a death sentence.

What would people do on the moon?

Let's have leaders who do something useful. What our leaders usually do is inspire cost-plus contracts.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
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Reply to
jlarkin

Jan Panteltje wrote in news:qsglrr$fv$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

But if you look at their mission status, they are quite adept at failed missions.

So I doubt they will get there before us, much less put men or a base there.

You fantasize a bit too much.

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

snipped-for-privacy@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

John Larkin, the ultimate college degreed total retard, self imposed.

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

Steve Wilson wrote in news:XnsAB1E85FF8FCDBidtokenpost@144.76.35.198:

Very well put, but nice job of failing to tell someone claiming to be so intelligent and mature that he is nuttier than a fruitcake is your fail. John Larkin is that nut.

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

Tang

No one can know but IMO it gave us a lot. No manned mission has given us anything useful since. OTOH unmanned probes have increased knowledge a lot.

Agreed, particularly in anything Musk makes,

Moon the earth. It might be useful for astronomy but robots can do it better.

What our "leaders" want to do is exactly the opposite of "useful".

Reply to
krw

can take

hmmm ask Bob Noyce if he would have invented high rel 3 input nand gates fo r the AGC (both the fab technology and redundancy concepts) if space progra m didn't motivate the issue. I know 3 colleagues who did their PhD work at MIT on computer architecture (AGC) and dependability theory of computer ha rdware and software which translated into foundational knowledge for that t echnology for the next 20+ years....It was not reusing known concepts....

Of course pundants may say that those things would have eventually been 'di scovered' but the point is the issues were unknown and hard and the program provided a focus. Yea, other programs could have provided a focus, but si nce they would probably be military based, we may have blow ourselves up an yway. At least now we have a way to save some humanity when we destroy this plane t.

Reply to
jjhudak4

I designed flight electronics for the S1B, and for the Mississipi Test Facility where they static tested the big booster rockets [1]. I didn't learn a whole lot, because the electronics was by design very conservative. We used established hi-rel (military) parts.

I invented some creative arguments why we *couldn't* use expensive JAN-TX transistors. NASA knew my arguments were bogus but complimented me on the reasoning.

[1] people thought my acoustic pickups were oscillating. Turns out they were picking up previously unknown subsonic mating calls of bull alligators.
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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

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Reply to
jlarkin

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Actually they inspire government acquisition policies that are forced to sp ell out every single deliverable and the contractors use that to hide behin d when ever they forego doing their engineering diligence to actually produ ce something that works (reliably). This allows them to go back to the gov and say Oh yea, we will do that if you want us to....that will be another x xxxx million USDs.

I have witnessed this first hand on a few occasions. One specific one: Company contracted to design and build a control system. Company delivered control system and when put in operation, gov noticed occasional 'shudderi ng' of the system. As part of a team of SMEs asked to look at the problem, the question was asked: Could we see the results of system stability analys is that you did. The answer: we did not do one. Reason: the gov contract didnt specify it as a deliverable. Followed by: if they request it, we will be happy to provide a quote to do the work.

Well the gov paid and guess what....there was resonance at a very low frequ ency "within the operational band of the system". Which was part of the r equirement spec from the beginning. Oh, you want us to fix that problem, t hat will be another xxxxx USD. And the gov paid for some other related adde rs related to their lack of engineering diligence. Great work if you can get it........Bordering on ethics violation IMHO....

Reply to
jjhudak4

The military drove more semi development than the space program. The military buys in volume.

We used already mil-qualified semiconductors for the S1B electronics.

DEC was selling minicomputers before the moon project. They seeded computer development 100x times what NASA did.

Silicon transistors and ICs pre-date NASA.

Nobody is going to survive on the moon or Mars for long in the next few hundred years.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

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Reply to
jlarkin

Buy more nuclear bombs and stealth bombers!

Reply to
bitrex

Research antibiotic resistance.

Buy vitamins so kids in Africa don't go blind.

Build better schools and serve better lunches in poor neighborhoods.

Fund more vocational education in prisons.

Instead we get a few pounds of moon dirt and some dead astronauts.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
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Reply to
jlarkin

ho can take

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for the AGC (both the fab technology and redundancy concepts) if space pro gram didn't motivate the issue. I know 3 colleagues who did their PhD work at MIT on computer architecture (AGC) and dependability theory of computer hardware and software which translated into foundational knowledge for tha t technology for the next 20+ years....It was not reusing known concepts... .

The PDP 1 was first sold in 1960. It was all discrete semiconductors on 'f lip chip' modules. The guidance computers on both the Gemini, Apollo CM and LM had computer requirements of size, weight, and power that could never b e met by the PDP1, PDP5, or the PDP8 even if repackaged. A number of engin eering studies were done on existing computers of the time to see if any of them would meet the physical, performance, and reliability specs that wer e being cited for the Apollo CM and LM computers. They could not.(with out significant redesign). The problem was more fundamental: all discrete tran sistor implementations could not meet the reliability and weight requiremen ts. The program had to make a decision about using IC's (that were not ful ly meeting mil specs at the time) or relax and change other system constrai nts. )

It was proven that 100% transistor ALUs would not work because of reliabili ty and power. IC's at the time of preliminary design investigations (1964)could not meet the design requirements to implement the flight computer(s)

'discovered' but the point is the issues were unknown and hard and the prog ram provided a focus. Yea, other programs could have provided a focus, but since they would probably be military based, we may have blow ourselves up anyway.

anet.

Reply to
jjhudak4

Getting moon rocks provided some insights for research into the frequency of potentially catastrophic-to-technological-civilization solar flares so might eventually prove a good value on that point alone

Reply to
bitrex

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