I know it didn't exactly serve any scientific purpose but an image like that could have been very inspirational to a lot of people.
It's an example that comes up when discussing plans to make it harder to IPO and I'm hopeful things will change to make the JP market generally more attractive. For space activities, nothing wrong with chasing dreams but it really needs to be kept private IMO - there's plenty of private capital out there. The price bump before the launch and after hours collapse after the news looks more like a rug pull than anything.
antibull•8mo ago
voidUpdate•8mo ago
Mistletoe•8mo ago
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-is-it-so-much...
“All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.” -Edward Gibbon
generic92034•8mo ago
AStonesThrow•8mo ago
Did you know that while the Apollo 11 lander was on the Moon's surface, and the astronauts were out there exploring the Moon, the Soviet Union's Luna 15 crash-landed into the surface -- about 554km away from the Eagle LM.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_15
Yet, the very next mission, Luna 16, was the first successful sample-return mission from the Moon (or anywhere I guess), and the Soviets did it uncrewed, in 1970.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_16
It only took one more iteration, Luna 17, to carry a rover to the Moon: Луноход-1; and have it successfully rove around up there, uncrewed! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_1
That was so fun that the Soviets followed it up with a second successful rover!
The Soviets also did Venera missions to Venus. They sent like 12 of them. Many were successful landings or atmospheric entries with good data. 4, 5, 6, and 7, to begin with.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_space_program#Venusian_...
Sorry I went a little heavy on the Soviet side of things, but rest assured that NASA was enjoying robotic success as well, including the Surveyors on the Moon, which blazed trails for Apollo landings.
I believe that the radio round-trip delay, from the Earth to the Moon and back, is something on the order of 3 seconds. "Cowboy Neil's" manual intervention isn't the only way to land there.
That being said, NASA's Viking and Pioneer programs were qualitatively different from the newer probes coming out of JPL, and even different still are the commercial ones. All these space agencies need to try out their own combinations of inspiration, perspiration, and high-tech.
foxyv•8mo ago
iSpace is running on a $50 million budget. The moon landing was $250 billion in today's dollars.
Edit: To put that in perspective, SpaceX has invested about $5 billion into Starship. The F-35 program cost about $2000 billion.