Privately built lunar lander makes history with successful moon touchdown
Privately built lunar lander makes history with successful moon touchdown
The lander, built by Intuitive Machines, touched down on the lunar surface at around 6:24 p.m. ET, overcoming a late-stage glitch with its onboard laser instruments.
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I work in the space industry. I feel like I should be celebrating this, but I just find it hard to be enthusiastic about the commercialization of space.
I didn't get into this to build hotels, and mine asteroids. I feel like as a species we should continue to explore, and push the boundaries.
I just can't get behind private industry on the moon. This is a bad move for humanity overall.
I feel like asteroid mining should be a good thing. We would be able to get the resources we need without sacrificing our planet. I don't feel like that's feasible under capitalism.
Space is expensive, and never gets the attention it deserves. Only a handful of countries could do much space exploration and as they try to explore more it rapidly gets more expensive, longer timeframe. We need to face that from a societal perspective it just doesn’t scale.
Commercializing space doesn’t just mean silly things like orbital hotels, but it means more, better, cheaper access to space and space resources. It means distributing efforts for better scalability. It means multiple funding sources so we’re less dependent on the whims f politicians. It means someone else can take care of the “easy” stuff, so NASA/ESA/JSA/CSA/ASA/etc can focus on the bigger challenges of exploration.
More international cooperation is also a huge part of this. We need to continue the model of cooperation from ISS, so we can all build on each other’s efforts, and reach out into the solar system as “humanity”
You do realize these "commercial companies" such as SpaceX are funded by government contracts right? You're not telling me anything I don't already know. And you're also not going to change my opinion. Space isn't meant to be the next capitalist playground, which is what we are trying to do.
You do realize these "commercial companies" such as SpaceX are funded by government contracts right?
Yes, but it will be cheaper for NASA to outsource cargo and crew transport than if they did everything themselves. Just look at the success of the NASA's Commercial Resupply Services and Commercial Crew programs. Cygnus, Dragon, and Falcon 9 are way cheaper than Orion and Ares I would have been for low earth orbit.
This leaves NASA with more resources to devote towards interesting science and exploration missions. I don't see why lunar exploration would be any different.
Yes, but it will be cheaper for NASA to outsource cargo and crew transport than if they did everything themselves.
That is absolutely wrong. Commercialization in the space sector is - without exception - ALWAYS more expensive in the long run. Not only do you have inefficient company structures much like the public sector administration, you now also have to finance the insane profit margins of some egomaniacs like the little rat that runs shitter these days.
Yet, compare the results of having SpaceX build out launch services currently serving the bulk of world launch traffic, to the Artemis program. The commercial service developed practical reusability that NASA didn’t, refined the service to a fraction of traditional cost, and scaled up far beyond what NASA did. Sure NASA funded and supervised but letting SpaceX do it their way was a great investment and NASA never have delivered the same results. Compare that to the Artemis program, currently expecting to cost $1B/launch with limited usefulness and only four planned launches
I think space is one example where private industries actually can and do deliver cheaper, even if you just blame it on risk avoidance and Congressional interference at NASA.
More importantly, we do have a high value commercial market in satellites. We do have a global market in cooperation with other country’s space development, which are readily served by commercial launch services with only oversight by NASA.
I have no idea what the next phase of commercial development in space will be, but satellites are a resounding success
SpaceX is - among other reasons - faster because they are willing to take more risks. When a crew of astronauts dies on a Dragon spacecraft like they did on the Columbia or Challenger, people might reconsider the costly and slow public approach.
Notwithstanding, they did do some impressive design, however some prices are paid after getting what you invested in. In this case because damage control is necessary with an insecure rich snob kid that owns the place & has public temper tantrums on red wine and sedatives.
Edit: oh, and I forgot to say: basically that stupid Ambien kid alone is ruining astronomy results and polluting near earth orbit with the small dick compensation project starlink.
This argument gets made a lot when talking about privatisation. Lots basic and essential services have gotten privatised over we decades, and none of them got better or cheaper.
The only way you can benefit from privatizing something is when you make others pay for it. In this case, SpaceX is burning other people's venture capital like rocketfuel. I prefer that over spending public money, but unfortunately, they've also spent 1.9billion on a moon lander, with nothing to show.
Lots basic and essential services have gotten privatised over we decades, and none of them got better or cheaper.
This seems like a rather broad statement. Are there really zero cases where a privatized service got cheaper? Do you disagree with the example of NASA’s CRS and CCP programs in my previous comment?
but unfortunately, they’ve also spent 1.9billion on a moon lander, with nothing to show
I think stating that they have nothing to show is slightly disingenuous. They've done multiple successful suborbital hops with upper stage prototypes, and two (partially successful) launches of the full stack. I'm eagerly awaiting IFT-3, which could happen as early as March.
Space is unfathomably enormous. I'd much rather have heavy industry fucking up shit in space than destroying our planet to strip it of its resources. I say let them go up there for asteroid/moon/whatever mining.
Yes, that's true, but low earth orbit isn't. If we put too much junk up there, we can kiss going to space goodbye.
we can kiss going to space goodbye.
and all satellite services, such as GPS & earth observation...
I didn't say anything about LEO, as last I checked there isn't much heavy industry that would be appealing to do in that area. Asteroid or moon mining and production would be outside of LEO. But yes, too much space garbage in LEO is a bad thing that should definitely be avoided as much as possible.
I just think taking a strict anti-commercial stance in space is a bit naive and unreasonable. Like I said, it's enormous, who gives a shit what Blue Origin or SpaceX or whoever ends up doing in the asteroid belt a hundred years from now?
Did you miss the part where I said I work in the space industry, I have 10 years of engineering experience, and I've been out of school a long damn time. Don't insult my intelligence. I'm not a child, and I'm certainly not naive. Go spout off your uninformed opinions elsewhere. I'm in a bad mood today, haven't been sleeping well, and I really don't feel like explaining basic shit to you just so you understand my point of view.
It’s not though. New regulations require 5 year deorbit from Leo, and StarLink has bedn delivering on that
Yeah, China has done a bang up job of following that by blowing up satellites... they basically undid 25 years worth of cleanup efforts with that one selfish act. Seriously, yall need to go somewhere else. I'm not having this conversation with people who are uninformed. I'm tired of it.
Luckily, the moon is in Low Earth Orbit! It's good to have you on out side, comrade
The moon isn't in LEO actually. But you have to go through LEO to get there.
Space isn’t meant to be the next capitalist playground, which is what we are trying to do.
Regardless of what it's "meant" to be it will be the final capitalist playground.
Space, the final frontier. trumpet music These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise, on a mission to explore strange new markets, to seek out new profits and new business opportunities, to boldly trade where no one has traded before. doot DOOOOOOOT
Home is where the heart is, but the stars are made of latinum. -- 75th Rule of Acquisition
1,000% agree with you. What will the first Applebee's on the moon serve?
Artisanal, locally sourced, organic cheese.
Wensleydale?
While I agree, isn't the end goal setting up a base on the moon?Hopefully it will be science first and tourism later. I wish I could just fast forward to star trek time :)
Probably, and as much as I love the science fiction of space travel, real life me isn't so into have space truckers hauling dorritos to the moon.
This stuff creates environmental damage, tons of space debris, and the more activity there is in near earth orbits, the more possibility there is for conjunctions, which means moving your satellite and wasting fuel. It's just not that smart.
But we're gonna do it anyway.
creates environmental damage, tons of space debris, and ... wasting fuel.
So, pretty much, the things that humans excel at.
They had a lot of luck on Venus..
Mid-term goal is to have a base near the moon to use as a staging point for interplanetary trips.
I hear you, brother. Same situation, same feelings about this :/
Hotels would be just a vanity thing, but we would(could?) collectively benefit from mining asteroids and having industrial construction capabilities in space would make space exploration and space based energy collection easier.
The Cold War fueled space exploration up to the point political support waned. It would be nice to see another space race to foster competition and technological advancement, hopefully without the Mutually Assured Destruction this time around.
Private industry is going to fill the void of a politically unpopular public space program, which is a shame.
It's not very reassuring that the last attempt crashed and burned, then NASA had to come in with the save on the landing for this one (the lander's laser landing guidance failed, and NASA jumped in with "don't worry, we brought one too just in case"
It's probably a joint effort anyway, they almost always are.
Their lasers failed because they forgot to turn them on (physical switch before launch).... Unbelievable.
My hope is maybe eventually that gets us to the point ordinary losers like me can take a vacation pretending to be the astronaut I never became.
Because otherwise I'll never into space.