It was fifty years ago today...

JezWynd

Would've been nice if they'd taken their rubbish home...
http://spacegrant.nmsu.edu/lunarlegacies/artifactlist.html

Jalapeno

fandango said:

Grumpyrocker said:

If we hadn't spent 20 years messing around with the mistake that was the Space Shuttle we could have gone to Mars by now.

Regardless of whether the Space Shuttle was a "mistake", I think we could all agree NASA learnt bucket loads from having persevered with it.

NASA HAD to find a reusable and lower cost orbital launch vehicle (shame the bloated shuttle was the answer) - SpaceX, Arianspace, Mitsubushi and the rest have cracked it at a fraction of the cost - though obvously standing on Roscosmos' & NASA's shoulders.

Mind you, the ISS couldn't have been built without the shuttle, and we wouldn't have had the Hubble space telescope (+/- the contact lens)

Jalapeno

darthed1981 said:

Jalapeno said:

I recall watching the moon walk on a big B&W telly in school. Total fan !!!!!!

Apollo 13 was brilliant "jazz" spacefaring - read Jim Lovell's book and watch Ron Howard's adaptation (made without any help or footage from NASA).

Wright Brothers to Apollo 11 took eighty years - we haven't really achieved a lot in the 50 years since Apollo 11 .....

Well we HAVE, especially in computer technology, medicine has advanced a lot.

Flight/Spaceflight hasn't really.    Sure there are refinements, but no more leaps.

Kilgore

Jalapeno said:

darthed1981 said:

Jalapeno said:

I recall watching the moon walk on a big B&W telly in school. Total fan !!!!!!

Apollo 13 was brilliant "jazz" spacefaring - read Jim Lovell's book and watch Ron Howard's adaptation (made without any help or footage from NASA).

Wright Brothers to Apollo 11 took eighty years - we haven't really achieved a lot in the 50 years since Apollo 11 .....

Well we HAVE, especially in computer technology, medicine has advanced a lot.

Flight/Spaceflight hasn't really.    Sure there are refinements, but no more leaps.

We'll be sorted when we start mining dilithium crystals on asteroids.

Grumpyrocker

JezWynd said:

Grumpyrocker said:

If we hadn't spent 20 years messing around with the mistake that was the Space Shuttle we could have gone to Mars by now.

Wasn't the Space Shuttle designed to give easy access to the Space Station? A Space Station seems like a sensible first step to interplanetary travel. Perhaps with hindsight going straight to Mars by rocket would have been a good idea but the at the time the Space Station seemed like a logical progression and must have taught us a lot about the long term issues of living in space.

If the shuttle was the best approach that'd be the direction that Space X etc. would still be taking. But they aren't. 

The primary movers for the shuttle were military - the USAF in particular - and there are still Shuttle flights we don't know about. The goal of the shuttle - the quick turnaround - never happened. This being the prime-seller of the shutter system means the system failed.  The launch system with its solid rocket boosters was a bit of a fudge, and the whole thing was vastly more expensive than what was needed for the pure space launch to space station part of the job. And of course we now know it had inherent safety flaws. 

The current approach - reusable rocket systems - and reusable capsules makes a heck more sense. In many ways a natural progression of Apollo, after the long, dangerous, deadly diversion that was the shuttle. 

scrumhalf

I can clearly remember watching it on telly in the morning, at breakfast time. There was never any telly at that time of day, just the test card.

Next year we had the World Cup morning programmes showing the overnight action from Mexico.

If it wss on telly in the morning it had to be important!

darthed1981

Jalapeno said:

darthed1981 said:

Jalapeno said:

I recall watching the moon walk on a big B&W telly in school. Total fan !!!!!!

Apollo 13 was brilliant "jazz" spacefaring - read Jim Lovell's book and watch Ron Howard's adaptation (made without any help or footage from NASA).

Wright Brothers to Apollo 11 took eighty years - we haven't really achieved a lot in the 50 years since Apollo 11 .....

Well we HAVE, especially in computer technology, medicine has advanced a lot.

Flight/Spaceflight hasn't really.    Sure there are refinements, but no more leaps.

Agreed.  We now have a permanent presence is space with the ISS but no giant leaps.

guitars4you

scrumhalf said:

I can clearly remember watching it on telly in the morning, at breakfast time. There was never any telly at that time of day, just the test card.

Next year we had the World Cup morning programmes showing the overnight action from Mexico.

If it wss on telly in the morning it had to be important!

I recall it was like black 'n' white TV for 69 and the moon landing, but colour by the time we got to the Mexico 70 WC - Dad must have had a bonus !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Grunfeld

I was five when this happened.  The moon shot is there as one of my early memories.  I was definitely aware at the time that it was a big thing.  My memories of the TV news from that time are basically, Vietnam, The Moon, and The Beatles.  It seems weird thinking of history like that.

Chatting to my son yesterday who's really interested in the whole 50th anniversary thing, (oh and who recommended a really good book btw which I'm loving**, Chris Hadfield, "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth"). 

And he was saying that for him his first equivalent news history memory is the Death of Princess Diana.  Again, aware it was huge but not aware why exactly. 

**The subtitle is, "Life lessons from Space" and that's the hook: Hadfield comes across as a really sound, sorted guy.  He's done stuff and he pays attention.  Quietly impressive and I envy, in a good way, how he's done it. 

ICBM

I was two when Apollo 11 landed, so I wasn't aware of it. My dad bought our first TV so I could watch the Apollo 17 landing - the *last* Moon mission. He obviously thought it was important, and he was right - but I bet he didn't expect it to be the last in what could well be his lifetime... he's 83 now.

But it's definitely not right to say we've made little progress since then - we have, enormously. Just not in manned visits to a place which after the initial exploration would have had little purpose. I understand why we haven't been back yet - but that may change.

Mars is a whole different ball game - as said earlier it's not the getting there which is so difficult, it's the getting back. The reason you only need a small rocket to take off from the Moon isn't so much the lower gravity, although that is a factor - it's the lack of atmosphere. There's nothing to slow the capsule down, so all the energy from the rocket adds to its speed. Launching from Earth, the majority of the energy is used in overcoming air resistance - and will be even on Mars where the atmosphere is far less dense. Basically, to take off from Mars you need something not that much smaller than an Earth-launch vehicle, with its support base... that's really difficult to do, when you're not already established on Mars. Catch-22.

The simplest alternative is not to have a return mission... that's already been proposed. The first explorers would have to be prepared to establish a sustainable colony - although re-supply from Earth is possible - and probably not ever come back. That sounds extreme, but that's essentially what colonists on Earth expected in the seafaring age - I'm certain there would be people willing to do it, too.

Kilgore

ICBM said:

The simplest alternative is not to have a return mission... that's already been proposed. The first explorers would have to be prepared to establish a sustainable colony - although re-supply from Earth is possible - and probably not ever come back. That sounds extreme, but that's essentially what colonists on Earth expected in the seafaring age - I'm certain there would be people willing to do it, too.

In such a scenario the technology wouldn't be the problem, it would be the people. How would you establish a healthy functioning community in what would essentially be a prison? 

What would happen without the legal, social and cultural norms that keep people in check on earth. Arguments, sex and relationships, boredom, possibility of mental illness, all potential powder kegs. It could possibly end up as a grown up Lord of the Flies.

darthed1981

They could also build a really big spaceship, and take loads of fuel with them, essentially have a Saturn V that can take off from Mars again carried as cargo.

Seems a bit wacky, and would need to be built in space, but much more practical if the mission could be launched from the Moon, instead of taking off directly from Earth.  Would require dozens of flights to provision such a mission from the moon though, although these could all be unmanned, using new cheaper commercial rockets.

Kilgore

darthed1981 said:

They could also build a really big spaceship, and take loads of fuel with them, essentially have a Saturn V that can take off from Mars again carried as cargo.

Seems a bit wacky, and would need to be built in space, but much more practical if the mission could be launched from the Moon, instead of taking off directly from Earth.  Would require dozens of flights to provision such a mission from the moon though, although these could all be unmanned, using new cheaper commercial rockets.

How would you get such a vehicle onto the Martian surface? If the resources are there, then wouldn't manufacturing fuel on the surface be the better solution?

JezWynd

Kilgore said:

ICBM said:

The simplest alternative is not to have a return mission... that's already been proposed. The first explorers would have to be prepared to establish a sustainable colony - although re-supply from Earth is possible - and probably not ever come back. That sounds extreme, but that's essentially what colonists on Earth expected in the seafaring age - I'm certain there would be people willing to do it, too.

In such a scenario the technology wouldn't be the problem, it would be the people. How would you establish a healthy functioning community in what would essentially be a prison? 

What would happen without the legal, social and cultural norms that keep people in check on earth. Arguments, sex and relationships, boredom, possibility of mental illness, all potential powder kegs. It could possibly end up as a grown up Lord of the Flies.

Possibly not that different to the establishment of Australia (only there isn't an existing population to massacre).

Kilgore

JezWynd said:

Kilgore said:

ICBM said:

The simplest alternative is not to have a return mission... that's already been proposed. The first explorers would have to be prepared to establish a sustainable colony - although re-supply from Earth is possible - and probably not ever come back. That sounds extreme, but that's essentially what colonists on Earth expected in the seafaring age - I'm certain there would be people willing to do it, too.

In such a scenario the technology wouldn't be the problem, it would be the people. How would you establish a healthy functioning community in what would essentially be a prison? 

What would happen without the legal, social and cultural norms that keep people in check on earth. Arguments, sex and relationships, boredom, possibility of mental illness, all potential powder kegs. It could possibly end up as a grown up Lord of the Flies.

Possibly not that different to the establishment of Australia (only there isn't an existing population to massacre).

I'm not so sure, all colonists on Earth have had the simple luxury of being able to go "outside". You can't do this on Mars. I

think that some form of limited terraforming would be required to make it psychologically bearable, especially if you know you're never going to leave.

Sassafras

Kilgore said:

ICBM said:

The simplest alternative is not to have a return mission... that's already been proposed. The first explorers would have to be prepared to establish a sustainable colony - although re-supply from Earth is possible - and probably not ever come back. That sounds extreme, but that's essentially what colonists on Earth expected in the seafaring age - I'm certain there would be people willing to do it, too.

In such a scenario the technology wouldn't be the problem, it would be the people. How would you establish a healthy functioning community in what would essentially be a prison? 

What would happen without the legal, social and cultural norms that keep people in check on earth. Arguments, sex and relationships, boredom, possibility of mental illness, all potential powder kegs. It could possibly end up as a grown up Lord of the Flies.

It could be controlled from Earth as a Big Brother like reality TV scenario. Viewers could vote for the most unpopular colonists to be evicted from the Martian pod. The commercialism could go some way to paying for the whole grizzly enterprise.

darthed1981

Kilgore said:

darthed1981 said:

They could also build a really big spaceship, and take loads of fuel with them, essentially have a Saturn V that can take off from Mars again carried as cargo.

Seems a bit wacky, and would need to be built in space, but much more practical if the mission could be launched from the Moon, instead of taking off directly from Earth.  Would require dozens of flights to provision such a mission from the moon though, although these could all be unmanned, using new cheaper commercial rockets.

How would you get such a vehicle onto the Martian surface? If the resources are there, then wouldn't manufacturing fuel on the surface be the better solution?

Funnily enough I was reading about this earlier, and while NASA think a single stage rocket would be sufficient, landing it would be "difficult", big heavy and full of explosive fuel as it would be.

If you could manufacture fuel on the surface that would be great, and this leans towards the "establish a permanent base" idea.

A space elevator could be an idea as well, but this would of course be mega-construction and entering the realms of science fiction.

shrinkwrap

Jalapeno said:

Wright Brothers to Apollo 11 took eighty years - we haven't really achieved a lot in the 50 years since Apollo 11 .....

I think landing on comets and asteroids and potentially bringing bits back.to Urth, is one hell of an achievement.

Black and white TV at school too, I watched the others on our new colour telly at home.

Anyone see the Buzz Aldrin video with him reacting to Trump's 'speech' ?

iseverynamegone

RandallFlagg said:

The lunar module descent in full, this is gripping stuff:

Awesome thanks for that @RandallFlagg great watch. 

VimFuego

I had no choice to watch the landing, my dad was working on the film crew at the time.