• Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      9 months ago

      Technically we can’t send people to the moon anymore but that’s not really relevant to whether or not we can build a pyramid because one of them requires special technology and the other requires a general purpose crane

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        We could send people to the moon, we haven’t lost the knowledge or resources needed. It’s just that it’s no longer a priority. It was incredibly expensive the first time. Although it would be less expensive the second time, this is a case where there’s absolutely no justification for not working from home (i.e. using robots).

        • decisivelyhoodnoises@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          we haven’t lost the knowledge or resources needed

          Yeah its not that simple. Knowledge is pretty much lost in terms that there is not any easy or practical way to reconstruct for example the computer that navigated the Apollo and assume that this will provide a flawless trip. This hardware is also outdated so it would had been dumb to attempt to reconstruct something so many decades old. Also the code that run there was coded for this specific hardware which makes it unsuitable for modern hardware. So yeah, the knowledge exists in archives but is not really usable as is

          • merc@sh.itjust.works
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            9 months ago

            I don’t know why you’re talking about Apollo hardware and software. The programmers and engineers who wrote that stuff did it from well known scientific and engineering principles. They didn’t have to start with a previous moon mission. The scientific and engineering principles are even better known today, and we have much more experience for space flight.

            The only advantage you’d have with Apollo era stuff is that it has been tested and the bugs are well known. But, so what? Any modern mission to the moon would start from first principles again, not by trying to extend the Apollo stuff.