[HN Gopher] NASA is selling a brand-new Moon rover: Never used, ...
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       NASA is selling a brand-new Moon rover: Never used, one previous
       owner
        
       Author : helsinkiandrew
       Score  : 120 points
       Date   : 2024-09-29 06:30 UTC (16 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
        
       | helsinkiandrew wrote:
       | https://archive.ph/2QINr
        
         | bilekas wrote:
         | I just got a very hard block from this link from the `Ministero
         | dell'Interno`...
        
           | veggieWHITES wrote:
           | Scary stuff... Condolences :/ Try TOR?
        
             | bilekas wrote:
             | No need, just a notice to others that would maybe prefer
             | not to support such 'hosting' services. It was not
             | trademark/copyright related I can say.
        
               | tough wrote:
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive.today
        
               | generic92034 wrote:
               | Or you could question the reasoning of your Ministry of
               | Interior. Those archiving sites are vital for the
               | internet to have some kind of "memory".
               | 
               | See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive.today
        
               | bilekas wrote:
               | Thats not what it's bocking it for apperantly. Obviously
               | I wouldn't have a problem with simply archiving.
               | 
               | https://imgur.com/a/RSQIKP2
        
           | lolinder wrote:
           | Yikes, mind sharing which country you're in that has those
           | kinds of hard blocks?
        
             | fragmede wrote:
             | https://www.interno.gov.it/it says Italy.
        
             | bilekas wrote:
             | Yes Italy, I'm not sure why but for others it seems to be
             | working.
             | 
             | I'm sure it's down to the DNS / ISP.
        
           | alfiopuglisi wrote:
           | I am in Italy as well and the link works fine.
        
             | bilekas wrote:
             | The link i get is :
             | 
             | https://imgur.com/a/RSQIKP2
             | 
             | STOP !
             | 
             | PAGINA INTERDETTA DAL CENTRO NAZIONALE PER IL CONTRASTO
             | DELLA PEDOPORNOGRAFIA ONLINE (C.N.C.P.O.)
             | 
             | Il tuo browser sta tentando di raggiungere un sito Internet
             | contenente immagini e filmati di pedopornografia minorile.
             | L'inibizione dell'accesso a questo sito e prevista dalla
             | legge n. 38/2006.
             | 
             | Questo servizio di protezione della navigazione sulla rete
             | Internet e predisposto grazie alla collaborazione tra il
             | Centro Nazionale per il Contrasto della Pedopornografia
             | Online e gli Internet Service Providers italiani.
             | 
             | La visualizzazione intenzionale, la diffusione, la
             | detenzione, la cessione, la produzione e la
             | commercializzazione di questo tipo di materiale sono puniti
             | dalla legge come reato.
        
       | Y_Y wrote:
       | How many moons must a moon rover before you can call it a rover?
        
         | grues-dinner wrote:
         | > Just wait a sodding minute! You want a question that goes
         | with the answer for 42? Well, how about "What's six times
         | seven?" Or "How many Vogons does it take to change a
         | lightbulb?" Here's one! "How many roads must a man walk down?"
         | 
         | One more for the list!
        
         | pxeger1 wrote:
         | How much moon could a moon rover rove if a moon cover could
         | rove moon?
        
           | interludead wrote:
           | If a moon rover could rove as much moon as a moon rover
           | could, that moon rover would rove all the moon it could rove!
        
             | ax0ar wrote:
             | If that moon rover roved all the moon it could rove, then
             | the moon it roved would be the roved moon that no other
             | moon rover could hope to rove.
        
               | woleium wrote:
               | it saddens me to see this site devolve into meaningless
               | reddit like slop. Please do your part to help keep the
               | signal to noise ratio up.
        
               | jerkstate wrote:
               | downvote off-topic content and move on
        
         | vasco wrote:
         | I think you're missing a rover, "(...) must a moon rover rover
         | before (...)"
        
           | echoangle wrote:
           | Wouldn't it be "(...) must a moon rover rove before (...)"?
           | Isn't the verb to ,,rover" ,,rove"?
        
         | CarRamrod wrote:
         | Moon Rover
         | 
         | Wider than a mile
        
           | labster wrote:
           | I'm launching you in style one day
        
           | tripa wrote:
           | Wider than a mole?
        
         | davidhunter wrote:
         | The answer my friend, is rovin' in the wind
        
         | stavros wrote:
         | "How many moons must a moon rover rover before you can call a
         | rover a moon rover?"
        
         | Cockbrand wrote:
         | See also: Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo
         | Buffalo buffalo.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffal...
        
         | cs02rm0 wrote:
         | How many moons must a moon rover rove over before you can call
         | it a rover? Over.
        
           | cookiengineer wrote:
           | How many moons must a moon rover rove over until a range
           | rover calls the moon rover the rover of rovers that rovered
           | over the moon?
        
         | rootsudo wrote:
         | You mean moon pie isn't made of moon?
        
           | qingcharles wrote:
           | No, it's a cheesecake.
        
         | mgsouth wrote:
         | While your comment would normally be considered "humor", and
         | thus automatically subject to downvote, the Committee has noted
         | that it seems, based on the numerous replies, to have tapped
         | into an under-served concept in an upscale demographic segment.
         | Even better, the segment appears to have dubious taste. It got
         | legs, baby. Congratulations, and enjoy your upvote.
         | 
         | We have taken the liberty to pass this along to a VC manager
         | who is very interested in discussing future opportunities with
         | you. Please be prepared to discuss specifics of the LLM we, ah,
         | sort of assumed was involved.
        
       | blackoil wrote:
       | Meh. I have few Mars, Europa rover in case anyone is interested.
        
       | metaphor wrote:
       | Outsider looking in, this article[1] published circa Jul 2022
       | appears to add some historical color to the status quo...it all
       | seems related to CLPS[2] failures surrounding a few involved
       | primes[3][4].
       | 
       | In any case, sure does look like a nasty Nunn-McCurdy breach that
       | NASA has on their hands.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/nasa-replans-clps-
       | delivery...
       | 
       | [2]
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Lunar_Payload_Servi...
       | 
       | [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrobotic_Technology
       | 
       | [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masten_Space_Systems
        
         | philipwhiuk wrote:
         | That's not the case.
         | 
         | The rover itself, made by NASA, experienced cost growth. This
         | is a longstanding problem in science missions and so, in an era
         | of fiscal tightening, they chose not to add more money to
         | VIPER.
         | 
         | "Nunn-McCurdy" is weapons regulation. It doesn't apply here
         | directly, but there are Congressional reporting requirements
         | for it.
        
           | 0xffff2 wrote:
           | It's absolutely the case. The rover was built in the middle
           | of Covid. Given the challenges that created, the cost growth
           | on the rover itself was quite reasonable.
           | 
           | The problem right now is that NASA HQ has no confidence in
           | the CLPS contractor building the lander, but it's not
           | politically correct to throw a private company under the bus.
        
       | seydor wrote:
       | still looks better than the cybertruck
        
         | interludead wrote:
         | And the moon rover is designed to handle actual craters
        
           | nolist_policy wrote:
           | At 0.166g thought.
        
         | glitchc wrote:
         | The OG EV truck.
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | Here are the keys. And by the way, we parked it on the Moon.
        
         | woleium wrote:
         | A fully functioning rover on the moon would be worth
         | significantly more than on earth, no?
        
           | freedomben wrote:
           | Yes, but only if it also comes with all the communication
           | equipment. If it's fully functional, but you can't talk to
           | it, probably not worth anything.
        
             | iambateman wrote:
             | I think the collectible value of "only rover on the moon"
             | would be extraordinary regardless of functionality.
        
               | wongarsu wrote:
               | It would be the ninth. The honor of the first lunar rover
               | goes to the Soviets. And in recent times China, India and
               | Japan have all successfully deployed rovers on the moon.
               | 
               | If it had been launched fast enough it could have become
               | the first American (self-driving) rover on the moon. And
               | still among the first ten rovers. That would be worth
               | something to some collector
        
               | trothamel wrote:
               | In 1993, the price of a non-functional lunar rover was
               | $68,500.
               | 
               | That's how much Richard Garriott (son of astronaut Owen
               | Garriott, creator of the Ultima game series, and after
               | that, private astronaut that spent 12 days at the ISS)
               | spent to purchase the rights to Lunokhod 2 and the Luna
               | 21 lander.
        
             | hshshshsvsv wrote:
             | I want to know what kind of mental models you used to
             | arrive at that conclusion. Curious.
        
               | rdlw wrote:
               | Personally I would want the purchase to make a tangible
               | difference to my life. If I can't control, communicate
               | with, or see my purchase, that's functionally equivalent
               | to me not owning it
        
               | mystified5016 wrote:
               | I have a bridge to sell you in Holland
        
         | LorenPechtel wrote:
         | It hasn't been launched.
        
       | highwayman47 wrote:
       | "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
        
         | hatsix wrote:
         | Heh, I mentioned this to my wife a while back, she said that
         | we've had a pair of shoes since our first (of three) that had
         | never been worn, and that shoes at our second hand store are
         | often labeled that way. Turns out, baby shoes are aesthetic
         | only, baby's feet aren't really foot-shaped yet so they're hard
         | to put on, and if they're moving, they're crawling, and shoes
         | make it impossible to use their feet while crawling. The shoes
         | were either a gift, or something she bought before the baby was
         | born... So that story made her think of the naivety of pre-
         | parents and chuckle, I had to explain why people found it sad,
         | and her response was "those people have never tried to put baby
         | shoes on a baby".
         | 
         | Which is to say, I think that her take makes this even more apt
         | response... the people getting sad about this have never tried
         | to put a rover on the moon.
        
           | thfuran wrote:
           | I tried, but I'm not tall enough. And the big ones are really
           | heavy.
        
       | hristov wrote:
       | It is very suspicious that the companies bidding are NASA
       | contractors. This may be a case of corruption. I.E., NASA sells
       | the moon rover for 85 M and then pays 200 M for the moon rover to
       | do something for them for future NASA missions.
        
         | BolexNOLA wrote:
         | This is some pretty heavy speculation based on very little
         | information. Saying "maybe a case" is really doing a lot of
         | heavy lifting here.
        
         | KyleBerezin wrote:
         | "It's petty suspicious that the only companies trying to buy
         | this mining equipment are other mining companies." Did you
         | expect Walmart to make a bid on it?
        
         | freedomben wrote:
         | In general, I'm with you about being skeptical.
         | 
         | However, in this case, I don't think there is anything weird
         | going on, at least not with the information we have. I've never
         | worked at one of these contractors who service NASA, but in the
         | past I worked for a large defense contractor who in part
         | provided some pretty high-tech stuff to the Air Force among
         | others.
         | 
         | One of the things I worked on specifically was the
         | communications computer for the Predator drone. It was the
         | piece of equipment that received all command and control from
         | the ground station, and sent the video back from the drone
         | camera. The actual plane itself was made by a separate company
         | who was more specialized in that aspect.
         | 
         | We were very proud to work on Predator, and we absolutely would
         | have loved to have bid on something like that. Even though we
         | made part of it, we didn't have a complete unit. Had we have
         | won a bid to get one, it would have gone into a glass case in
         | our visitor area, where we would proudly display it like a
         | trophy. I would not be surprised in the least if that is what
         | these bidders have in mind.
         | 
         | Consider how much fun it would be if you are showing up for a
         | job interview and you see in a glass case in the lobby an
         | actual brand new moon Rover! I know that would be pretty cool
         | for me. I do tend to love museums though, so maybe I'm not the
         | best test case.
        
           | II2II wrote:
           | Stipulations include performing the science mission and
           | releasing the data. While there the cool factor would be
           | orders of magnitude greater, there are also considerable
           | commitments and risk involved. So the question is: what other
           | benefits would be involved? I'm sure there would be many,
           | particularly if you could prove that you could launch and
           | operate such missions, but I doubt that having a museum piece
           | would be one of them. (And you would only have that museum
           | piece if there is a twin that remains on Earth, which seems
           | to be common for NASA missions.)
        
         | wongarsu wrote:
         | Everyone who has the capability to land this on the moon is a
         | NASA contractor or a competing space agency. And I don't know
         | how congress would feel about selling this to Roskosmos, the
         | Chinese CNSA or Indian ISRO. Maybe ESA.
         | 
         | Of course somebody else could buy it and pay somebody to put it
         | on the moon. But that seems unlikely given the provision that
         | findings have to be shared. For companies that sell moon
         | landings it's good marketing, for anyone else there wouldn't be
         | much upside
        
       | bmitc wrote:
       | "No low balls. I know what I have."
        
         | theflyingelvis wrote:
         | Does the ac blow cold?
        
       | nimbius wrote:
       | I'm gonna have to call in my NASA moon rover expert. Best I can
       | do is $40.
        
       | yabbs wrote:
       | Dark side of a Hollywood basement
        
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       (page generated 2024-09-29 23:01 UTC)