For anyone interested in modern humans' ability to move material around when it is economically advantageous to do so, try a web image search for "largest open pit mines".
2. "Not far" is the difference between "land humans on the surface of the moon and return them safely to Earth" and not doing that. Some of this stuff was unbelievably lucky, go read about the F1 engine baffles - getting that right was pure stupid luck as much as it was engineered.
And there were literally hundreds of these examples - across five different space vehicles and the interfaces between them.
Yes, it's absolutely a lot of work, cost, and risk to design and qualify a new rocket for human spaceflight from scratch. Especially if you've let all your institutional knowledge drift away in the meantime.
I just don't think that comes close to meeting the bar of "lost technology" in the sense that term is used by the extraterrestrial pyramid theorists (i.e., the manipulation of fundamental physical forces allowing the blocks to be levitated into place).
> Landing humans on the Moon by the end of 1969 required the most sudden burst of technological creativity, and the largest commitment of resources ($25 billion; $187 billion in 2024 US dollars)[24] ever made by any nation in peacetime. At its peak, the Apollo program employed 400,000 people and required the support of over 20,000 industrial firms and universities.[25]
A large chunk of those industries and supporting academia no longer exist in the US outside the defense sector.
I remain in awe at the Apollo program, it is a most marvellous thing, and I am aware that it was not always received well at the time.
Comparing the cost, the Iran war cost the US between 25 billion and 113 billion, so 187 spending billion over 9 years is not insurmountable. Political will provided. Alas.
Okay, but dgallow at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48589728 asked "Have we actually forgotten how to land to the moon?", not "can we build a Saturn V rocket which is fundamentally the same as the ones from nearly 60 years ago?"
Reading about the design for the F-1B engine gave me some understanding of the issue.
The F-1B was meant as a modernized version of the Apollo Saturn F-1 main engine.
The original design used extensive hand-welding, and the specific details of how to handle tricky situations likely not included in the manufacturing processes details because it was simply expected from an expert welder of the time.
That sort of expertise is far less common now. But rather than try to find those welders, the designers of the new engine used newer methods like additive manufacturing to replace welding entirely.
The old F-1 engine used a lot of complicated mechanical control methods. The F-1B used computer controls.
The new design had fewer components, was lighter, and was designed for a 15% performance boost over the original design.
So, sure, perhaps we can't exactly build a new Saturn V rocket following the 1969 blueprints, due to missing production floor changes. But we would never try because we are not limited to 1960s building methods if we wanted to use the Saturn V design as the basis for going back to the moon.
You can buy blue checks, I guess. On the other hand they shut off embeds and access to replies unless you were signed in so it's functionally dead as a "website". Oh and sometimes there's child porn? So I guess it was overkill unless you care about things like moderation and safety. Anyway, excited to see how it very fairly handles the next US elections! I'm sure most of the remaining devs have invested their time there.
Not really the point. I think Musk just wanted to trim headcount down to something that could keep the product running, more or less, and get rid of all the costs he could. He didn't care about turning Twitter into a hugely successful business or an amazing product. He just wanted to be able to control and influence what people say on the platform, and push his agenda and politics.
It's how normal people use the word: doing something specifically to inflict pain on a human or animal. Slaughtering animals for meat isn't torture. Keeping them alive while inflicting pain because you enjoy the experience, is.
Have there really been no other more interesting war games in the last quarter-century, or did all the negative attention this got just result in us never hearing about another one?
There have been far more interesting war games in the last quarter century.[0]
This one shows the the US narrowly winning against China in a conflict over Taiwan. The US wins but with tremendous losses -- specifically in the form many munitions that take years to decades to replace.
And it just so happens that we witnessed a conflict play out just a few months ago and that resulted in a similar depletion of munitions albeit with minimal losses of American ships and aircraft.
What's very troubling about this is that in response the US moved munitions from the pacific into the middle east, leaving Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan in a very vulnerable position.
This may explain why the current US president was unusually obsequious to the leader of China when in the past he had been particularly bellicose.
Also, cool fact: While researching this subject I learned that the engines for most American cruise missiles come from a single company.[1]
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