Posted on 11/29/2022 7:29:23 PM PST by bitt
SpaceX and Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk said recently that the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon-landing mission was an “anomalous situation.”
What Happened: “The fact that we were able to go to the Moon in '69 was such an anomalous situation, it was like reaching into the future and bringing the technology forward,” said Musk on the "Full Send" podcast.
The landings, which saw Neil Armstrong become the first human to step on the lunar surface, were “not the natural pace of technology development,” according to the SpaceX founder.
“It’s just that the United States just collectively decided that this has got to be done,” Musk said, referring to the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
Why It Matters: Musk agreed with the podcast hosts that it was “weird” that the U.S. had not returned to the Moon’s surface since 1972.
"We’ll go to the Moon, SpaceX has an asset contract to take astronauts to the Moon," Musk said, adding that SpaceX’s super-heavy-lift launch vehicle Starship is “gigantic compared to anything that’s been done before.”
“It’s capable of putting 100 tons of payload on the Moon. You could build a Moon base with a Starship.”
Musk said, “We could go way beyond what was done with the Apollo program, where they had a small lander.”
SpaceX would take astronauts to the Moon before it took them to Mars, the billionaire entrepreneur said.
"I think we should build a city on the Moon and on Mars."
also see:
Elon Musk On Aliens Asks If Universe Is 13.8B Years Old, Shouldn’t They Be ‘Everywhere?’
“I think we should build a city on the Moon and on Mars.”
= = =
And the roads will be full of electric cars.
Because those were the best of times for America. I want those back.
Stanley Kubrick would disagree. 🤡
No cheese on the Moon is a deal breaker...
Screw the electric cars...I want my FLYING car!
Why was it weird? It was expensive, dangerous and a dozen more visits wouldn't have pushed science, commerce or geopolitics forward much. Have we even yet fully exploited the samples we brought back?
Now that China is sniffing around the moon the geopolitical reasons look like they are coming back.
I am old enough to remember watching all of the Apollo missions on TV. It is hard to believe it has been 50 years since the last one. Even harder to believe that we did it using slide rules when the most powerful supercomputers in existence had less computational power than a smartphone.
Landed on the moon - and took off to reunited with an orbiting spaceship - AND did it with a collection of computers that together weren’t half as powerful as an iphone.
Yeah, I found plenty of green cheese in the back of my fridge recently.
If we had a permanent base on the Moon, what would be its purpose? I could see manning a huge telescope or telescope array on the dark side of the moon would be great when it was facing away from the Sun.
If there is something to H3 for fusion, but is that really harvestable in reasonable amounts as in the movie "Moon"?
It was “weird” because congress demanded the highest possible scientific and engineering standards, and expense was a distant tertiary consideration.
The reasons were geopolitical, yes, but JFK’s legacy was, I think, equally important.
With billions of stars, nearly unlimited planets and endless time the likelihood of life is possible.
But our timing maybe off.Their civilization may have peaked and destroyed itself, others never really grasped technology and died off. Other’s still in their primitive stage.
Or maybe we’re all there is.
One can stare at the starry skies and twist oneself into knots.
I cannot conceive of if you go to the end of the universe, then what’s beyond the end? Infinity, as a concept is hard to wrap one’s mind around. As is different dimensions.
And God could be found in one of them.
Or not!
Is Helium 3 a legitimate opportunity from the Moon?
I think along those same lines... the use of the slide rule never ceases to amaze.
I had my trusty Lutz out just a couple of weeks ago.
They were using slide rules. They did not have computers on board. It was amazing. And they could have died a thousand different ways. It was truly amazing.
And that actually vastly overestimates the Apollo computers’ power. An iPhone is more powerful than a 1980s Cray supercomputer. The Apollo computers were no more powerful than a late-1970s programmable calculator.
Not weird, LBJ and the democrats crippled us funding the Great Society.
Supporting generations of negro welfare left no money for anything else.
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