…and we only did it because there was a dick-waving contest between two nations.
Soviets had no interest in going to the moon (yet) and were more focused on living in space before going outside earth’s orbit. The US was waving it in public on its own
Not seeing how building a rocket to compete with Saturn V means they were also racing to the moon
From the references of the wiki article on the N1 rocket
https://web.archive.org/web/20161031200800/http://www.starbase1.co.uk/pages/n1-project-history.html
Salyut and Mir prove the Soviet’s focus was on manned missions in low earth orbit and not the moon, and considering nobody has gone back to the moon since they’ve made the right call
The US wanted to beat the Soviets at space, and the reality was when it came heavy lifting rockets the soviets were way, way ahead. The moonshot was a different problem that would require a different solution than simply “bigger rocket,” so the US made that the goal. They weren’t sure they could beat the Russians to the moon, but they knew they couldn’t beat them in a lifting contest for something like a space station.
Considering the relative speed of literally everything we can experience as humans, and that light ranks at the tippy top of every single one of them as INSTANT in pretty much any context other than math homework, it’s honestly pretty fucking wild that we not only got humans 1.3 light-seconds away from Earth, but got them back alive to tell about it.
That is straight up amazing.
And those objects that are now 46 billion light years away move away from us faster than light.
They are not moving faster than light.
The distance between us and them is increasing at a rate than means light leaving earth now could not ever reach them. Such is the impact of an expanding universe.
You’re right, let’s send 1 person into the fuck of space just to say we did it.
I’m not being sarcastic.
Let’s invent teleportation, then use the teleporter to merge them into a homunculus flesh beast, and then launch that thing into the sun.
Unrelated, but I thought it would be a good idea.
What if the homunculus argues that it, as a new and distinct being, has committed no crimes, and deserves to live? What if it begs for its life as you load it into the teleporter to split it back up into your science officer and annoying morale officer shoot it into the sun?
Like build one really really big space trabuchet, loaded with a space hotel with all the amenities possible for basically a one way generational ship. Then blast those fuckers towards alpha centari and call it a decade.
Oh, and just for fun, give them one life pod but it only holds 20 people.
But the real kicker? …they never left the ground And it’s all televised.
The launch sequence? Really fast merry go round.
The “artificial gravity”? Lol
The infinite food sources vending machines? Catering.
And we go no further for the next 4 years
If Musk guts NASA, then surely it would be in an attempt to benefit SpaceX and himself, e.g. by removing regulations or funneling more money to SpaceX, and with that accelerating his Moon landing program, not pushing it back.
You assume his goal is actually to get to Mars, not just dangle that as a dream in front of people while siphoning off billions of tax dollars.
