[HN Gopher] Artemis II crew see first glimpse of far side of Moo...
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Artemis II crew see first glimpse of far side of Moon [video]
Author : mooreds
Score : 373 points
Date : 2026-04-05 14:18 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| islandbytes wrote:
| Incredible achievement but I'll be honest -- if you showed me
| this photo without context I would have no idea it was the far
| side. Just looks like the Moon. Also didn't realize we could
| capture an image like this in what I assumed was total darkness.
| BigTTYGothGF wrote:
| That's because it's the near side, not the far side.
| ufo wrote:
| There's a little bit of far side on the right of the picture.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| > Just looks like the Moon.
|
| It _is_ the moon.
|
| > Also didn't realize we could capture an image like this in
| what I assumed was total darkness.
|
| The "Dark Side of the Moon" is a misnomer. It gets as much
| light as the side we can see.
| cybermango wrote:
| They have live tracker you can follow
| https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/
| jedberg wrote:
| I've been using this one: https://issinfo.net/artemis.html
|
| Better information density.
| jleyank wrote:
| I'm going to be VERY disappointed if there's no Pink Floyd music
| or commentary from the Artemis mission. Particularly now. Life's
| short, and one can't be serious all the time...
|
| Wallis and Gromit would be a partial substitute, but the boomers
| are still around.
| workfromspace wrote:
| I wish the crew quoted "there is no dark side of the moon
| really. As a matter of fact, it's all dark."
| syncsynchalt wrote:
| It's true, too. Lunar albedo is 12%.
|
| https://www.ign.com/articles/2015/08/05/nasa-releases-a-
| gif-...
| mynegation wrote:
| Absolutely. Last year we went to Italy and I played "The Count
| of Tuscany" in the car while driving in Chianti region. My wife
| does not really enjoy Dream Theater but that was in the rider
| for the Italy trip :-)
| kklisura wrote:
| Something in a style of Chris Hadfield [1]. That would be
| great!
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo
| mlfreeman wrote:
| Also don't forget about working in "That's no moon. It's a
| space station." somewhere.
| notorandit wrote:
| Far side != Dark side
| sneak wrote:
| It's approximately the dark side when the moon is full, which
| happened two days ago.
| dust42 wrote:
| > It's approximately the dark side when the moon is full,
| which happened two days ago.
|
| Who downvotes that? It is true.
|
| Edit: maybe you can illuminate why you downvote?
| y1n0 wrote:
| I'm sure it's the flat-mooners downvoting.
| notorandit wrote:
| The moon IS flat! Just like the Sun and the Earth.
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| Well, the Moon, Sun, and Earth are all flatter than most
| surfaces in my house, and I call those surfaces flat, so
| yeah...
| raverbashing wrote:
| Yes and (IIRC) they don't want to flyby while at full moon on
| the far side as to have some shadows to help differentiate
| the terrain
| waynecochran wrote:
| It is this week. Which is interesting because the photo in the
| clip is the familiar near side -- I recognize the bunny.
| bombcar wrote:
| One is the domain of humanoid cows, the other is the domain of
| absent fathers.
| technothrasher wrote:
| The phrase never meant dark as in "unlit". It has always meant
| dark as in "occult".
| encom wrote:
| _There is no dark side of the moon really_
|
| _Matter of fact, it 's all dark_
|
| *heartbeats*
| nasretdinov wrote:
| I like how most people's reactions at this point are "yeah,
| whatever", as if it's every day that humans observe the far side
| of the moon with a naked eye through a window :). We do know what
| it looks like and we have photos from the surface, yes, but
| seeing the reaction from real people who're actually there does
| hit different, at least for me
| izzydata wrote:
| People are struggling to afford every day life and we are
| surrounding by crazy things every day like cellphones talking
| to satellites in space. On any objective measure it is
| definitely amazing to send humans to the moon, but there are
| more pressing issues for most people right now.
|
| If we as a species had more of our ducks in a row we may be
| able to better celebrate this as the achievement for humankind
| that it is.
| wat10000 wrote:
| 1969 wasn't exactly all flowers and sunshine either.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Yeah your life must really suck if you only care about
| immediate hurdles and pains without making room for hope or
| creativity
| trial3 wrote:
| you're making their point, you just don't know it yet
| jameslars wrote:
| And your life might be very privileged to so flippantly
| disregard anyone's reality that is just that difficult.
| philipallstar wrote:
| It's that difficult but they're also commenting on hn.
| pests wrote:
| And? Is that a hurdle or something? You know homeless
| people are allowed to go on the internet? Smartphones?
| You'll find other homeless or desolate people here on HN
| - I won't name anyone out of respect but if you read
| enough comments here over time you would recognize them.
| onraglanroad wrote:
| Well yes. For too many people, life does suck for that very
| reason.
|
| That's not something to mock people for; it's a problem to
| apply your mind to and fix.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it 's a problem to apply your mind to and fix_
|
| In kids, sure. In adults, not sure it's worth the effort
| on a society wide basis.
| bluegatty wrote:
| nah, it just seems like that on Twitter. We have more
| prosperity by far than we've ever had in history, this is a
| time to celebrate.
|
| We have our 'ducks in a row' more now than in the 1960's when
| we went to the moon because of a cold war and nuclear
| annihilation / escalation.
|
| My grandparents were born on farms with no electricity,
| plumbing, there was no real 'police' no social services, no
| healthcare, no antibiotics, 10% of children did not make it
| past age 1. That's in living memory.
|
| Despite the insanity on the news, it's mostly drama, and we
| still have more people coming out of abject poverty than
| ever.
|
| We have 'modern world problems', they are real problems for
| sure, but they are of a different scale entirely.
|
| Frankly, it may never even get that much better as we may be
| hitting diminishing marginal returns on 'progress' - we now
| have to figure out how to live 'long lives and stay healthy'.
|
| It's a fine time to go to the moon.
| izzydata wrote:
| It is a fine time to be going to the moon, but we could be
| doing multiple productive things at the same time. It just
| doesn't surprise me that there are so many people that are
| not caring so much about this.
| bluegatty wrote:
| We are doing multiple productive things. Zillions of
| them.
|
| They are like 50 companies making robots right now that
| will soon do a lot of work.
|
| There are advances in many fields.
|
| Headlines are dominated by something else, the 'news' is
| not a good reflection of reality.
| westmeal wrote:
| What about the workers that will be eventually replaced
| by said robots? You think they're just going to get free
| money to exist? Most likely they'll end up in the private
| prison system or in institutions while the corporations
| pocket all of the savings. Things are a lot more
| complicated than they seem I think...
| bluegatty wrote:
| 95% of us used to labour as serfs on farms. 4.5% were
| technical trades. 0.5% noble class, 0.01% high elite.
|
| The industrial revolution moved almost 95% of people away
| from direct agrarian labour.
|
| We'll find ways.
|
| It won't be pretty in some cases, but we'll figure it
| out.
| westmeal wrote:
| I hope you're right but I think it won't be pretty in all
| cases. It's easy to forget the industrial revolution
| wasn't entirely positive for common people or for that
| matter the environment.
| arscan wrote:
| I don't think people are spending their time on more pressing
| issues. I think they are just are hooked on an endless stream
| of content that is built for addiction and is always within
| arms reach.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| people have been struggling to afford every day life for
| decades. So that's nothing new. Unless only people in the 1st
| world count as people lol.
|
| You're either emotionally consumed by the human struggle or
| not, it's a personality thing - in my opinion. You're allowed
| to be poor and a nerd, unless I missed the memo. I've met
| poor and wealthy people that are excited by space.
| didgetmaster wrote:
| Struggling to meet our basic needs is not a recent
| phenomenon. It has been a part of the human condition for
| millenia, not just decades.
|
| Some people think that if we can just eliminate our
| 'struggles' by building AI tools to do the hard thinking or
| robots to perform all our labor; that civilization would
| become some kind of utopia. I don't believe that. Progress
| happens when we do hard things.
| remarkEon wrote:
| I see that "whitey on the moon" is back.
|
| If it makes you feel better, the amount of money the United
| States spends on space is a very small percentage compared
| overall entitlement spending. There is always going to be
| some level of inequality, so your maxim that we should only
| spend money on space exploration when those problems are
| solved just isn't workable. The enormous amount of money the
| United States spends on "solving" inequality and poverty begs
| the question of if that's even an effective or efficient
| allocation of resources in the first place.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| 1. Do you think that it is the mission that is misguided,
| or the methods, in "solving" inequality and poverty?
|
| 2. What would you rather the money be spent on?
| someothherguyy wrote:
| For some numbers:
|
| The Artemis program has an estimated cost of 93B since 2012
| [0].
|
| As a comparison:
|
| "Between 2020 and 2024, $771 billion in Pentagon contracts
| went to just five firms: Lockheed Martin ($313 billion), RTX
| (formerly Raytheon, $145 billion), Boeing ($115 billion),
| General Dynamics ($116 billion), and Northrop Grumman ($81
| billion). In comparison, the total diplomacy, development,
| and humanitarian aid budget, excluding military aid, was $356
| billion."[1]
|
| 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#cite_note-
| NASA...
|
| 1. https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/costs/economic/us-
| federa...
| verzali wrote:
| America has spent more than the equivalent of Artemis blowing
| up yet another middle eastern country for no good reason. I
| know which I'd rather get the money.
| baal80spam wrote:
| I see what you mean, but I kind of understand the reaction:
| what does this change in 99.99% of people lives? Nothing at
| all. It's not necessarily ignorance.
| NetMageSCW wrote:
| I think in this case more than 0.1% feel a bit of inspiration
| in a time of darkness.
| thomashabets2 wrote:
| To me, the importance of crewed spaceflight like this cannot
| be overstated. I think my way of thinking was best phrased by
| Eddie Izzard: "When we landed on the moon, that was the point
| where god should have come up and said hello. Because if you
| invent some creatures, put them on the blue one and they make
| it to the grey one, you fucking turn up and say 'well done'".
|
| Now, it's not the reason I'm an atheist, but "getting from
| the blue one to the grey one" (and hearing nothing) is so big
| that to me it disproves at the very least the existence of a
| personal god.
|
| You may think it ridiculous, but I'm trying to convey why
| some people would think that it does change their life.
|
| Most world events don't change 99.99% of people's lives, and
| yet they matter too. The only big world event, maybe in my
| entire life, that affected my life was covid. Because I lived
| in a lockdown country.
| skybrian wrote:
| It's great for them, but I'm not really into reaction videos.
| Pictures taken by space probes are just as good as far as I'm
| concerned.
| thomashabets2 wrote:
| It's not for the reason that the parent commenter said, and
| it's not the moon (yet), but you can't take photos like this
| with probes alone: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/g
| allery/2026/apr/05...
| b00ty4breakfast wrote:
| it's amazing, but I'll refer you to Gil Scott-Heron for my
| feelings on the matter A rat done bit my sister
| Nell With whitey on the moon Her face and arms
| began to swell And whitey's on the moon I can't pay
| no doctor bills But whitey's on the moon Ten years
| from now I'll be payin' still While whitey's on the moon
| The man just upped my rent last night Cause whitey's on
| the moon No hot water, no toilets, no lights But
| whitey's on the moon I wonder why he's upping me?
| Cause whitey's on the moon? Well I was already giving him
| fifty a week With whitey on the moon Taxes taking
| my whole damn check Junkies making me a nervous wreck
| The price of food is going up And as if all that shit
| wasn't enough: A rat done bit my sister Nell With
| whitey on the moon Her face and arm began to swell
| And whitey's on the moon Was all that money I made last
| year For whitey on the moon? How come I ain't got
| no money here? Hmm! Whitey's on the moon Y'know I
| just 'bout had my fill Of whitey on the moon I
| think I'll send these doctor bills Airmail special
| To whitey on the moon
| lookalike74 wrote:
| Great share, thank you!
| sebmellen wrote:
| Interesting. For all of Gil Scott-Heron's brilliance, this is
| by far my least favorite work of his.
| fooblaster wrote:
| It's fine to not be interested, but this time one of the
| astronauts is black
| rybosome wrote:
| I just came across this poem a few days ago and had the
| opportunity to think about it.
|
| It's a valuable perspective to hear. As someone prone to
| getting caught up in the breathless excitement about science,
| progress, human achievement, etc., it is a hard truth that
| these things are abstract and not relevant for people who are
| struggling with day-to-day life, particularly when those
| struggles are a result of the same government that is
| executing this mission.
|
| However, the older I get, the less I bind to the idea of a
| single, correct truth. This perspective doesn't invalidate
| the perspective that the mission is valuable. The complexity
| of the system in which this is taking place means that these
| things (moon missions and affordable healthcare) aren't
| fungible for one another; his poverty wasn't the result of
| the moon mission, it was the result of EVERYTHING that had
| happened over the 100 years prior.
|
| So it's useful to hear. It's a sharp, valid reality check for
| those of us who like to think in big, abstract concepts. And,
| it's one perspective among myriad valid perspectives.
| xoac wrote:
| Kind of a false dichotomy. How about medical care as a
| right for a big abstract concept? He's not anti-science
| here, he's against the inequality of its distribution.
| rybosome wrote:
| > Kind of a false dichotomy.
|
| That's precisely my point. Some stanzas in the poem
| suggest that there's a direct connection between the moon
| mission and his poverty.
|
| > The man just upped my rent last night > cause Whitey's
| on the moon
|
| > Was all that money I made last year > For Whitey on the
| moon?
|
| And my point then was that I can see and empathize with
| his frustration, but I don't feel it's a singularly
| correct perspective to the exclusion of the perspective
| that the missions were of great value.
| xoac wrote:
| But he's not blaming his poverty on "whitey on the moon"
| but the lack of healthcare. There is an opportunity cost
| to war, Moon/Mars missions etc.
| rybosome wrote:
| I don't mean to badger, but how can this stanza:
|
| > The man just upped my rent last night > cause Whitey's
| on the moon
|
| Be interpreted as anything other than directly blaming
| his poverty on the moon mission?
| remarkEon wrote:
| I don't think it's actually a useful perspective at all.
| The poem is racial resentment repackaged as a means to
| guilt trip people into feeling bad about adventure,
| science, and exploration. Unless they were pretty well read
| at a young age, most millennials probably first experienced
| this poem in the film First Man, where it is read as a
| backdrop to Apollo 11 traveling to the moon. It's a great
| scene because the juxtaposition is stark. We can either
| hold ourselves back an an endless and futile journey on
| solving the human condition of poverty and inequality, or
| we can explore the stars. It's an easy choice.
| xoac wrote:
| > We can either hold ourselves back an an endless and
| futile journey on solving the human condition of poverty
| and inequality, or we can explore the stars. It's an easy
| choice.
|
| Wait... Are you suggesting that "exploring the stars" is
| less of an endless and futile journey than dealing with
| poverty and inequality?
| foxglacier wrote:
| Solving poverty and inequality is for the short term -
| they'll come back and need solving again no matter how
| many times you already solved them. But once the stars
| are explored, they stay explored forever. So yea, that's
| moving forwards and the other isn't.
| westmeal wrote:
| The closest stars are way too far to reach on any
| reasonable timescale. That's not even mentioning the fact
| that moving forwards is a vague goal. Moving forwards
| towards what exactly? And if the US government got off of
| it's ass to... Oh I don't know, maybe fix the bullshit
| healthcare system we have and help people with tax money
| instead of bombing people for Israel things would improve
| quite a bit in a very short time. That's assuming we
| don't bomb each other over terroritorial squabbles first.
| In any case I don't really understand your defeatism when
| it comes to inequality but when it's something as
| difficult as interstellar space travel you seem to be
| optimistic.
| hackable_sand wrote:
| They are both moving forward. Moving forward on a circle
| is moving forward.
|
| What crack are you guys smoking?
| moogly wrote:
| > they'll come back and need solving again
|
| So like "whitey going to the moon" again on Artemis II?
| remarkEon wrote:
| No, not at all.
|
| I am saying that there we never be a world in which
| poverty and inequality do not exist, unless we are all
| dead. Maybe it's because I'm an American, but this
| perspective that grand adventure and exploration is
| pointless or not worth it is totally foreign to me.
| b00ty4breakfast wrote:
| > We can either hold ourselves back an an endless and
| futile journey on solving the human condition of poverty
| and inequality, or we can explore the stars. It's an easy
| choice.
|
| "Sorry, poor people; but I want to live on Jupiter so
| you're just gonna have to starve to death".
|
| What a loser
| foxglacier wrote:
| Yea what other technological progress was only wanted by
| losers? Most of it, by your standard. Yet it's also
| technological progress that has reduced poverty. You
| don't care about the people of the future and want to
| keep them in poverty for the sake of the people of today.
| I wouldn't call you a loser for that but you do have bad
| morals.
| Fricken wrote:
| Technological progress had to invent poverty before it
| could reduce it.
| rybosome wrote:
| Is it meant to guilt trip people? Or is it an honest
| expression of the frustration (and yes, racial
| resentment) that the author feels?
|
| This is why I consider it a useful perspective to hear. I
| read this as a human being simply saying "this is how I
| feel in these circumstances".
|
| It's uncomfortable, and I don't believe that space
| exploration should be gated on solving poverty and
| inequality, but it is important to understand that an
| intelligent, thoughtful human being arrived at this
| place.
|
| In a sense I feel that this is actually an appeal to the
| same sense of curiosity that drives space exploration.
| Why do we explore space? To learn and understand. Why
| should we consider human perspectives we don't agree
| with? To learn and understand.
| marxisttemp wrote:
| > an endless and futile journey on solving the human
| condition of poverty and inequality
|
| It's very telling that you think poverty can't be solved.
|
| --
|
| I can't pay no doctor bills
|
| But whitey's on the moon
|
| Ten years from now I'll be payin' still
|
| While whitey's on the moon
|
| The man just upped my rent last night
|
| Cause whitey's on the moon
|
| No hot water, no toilets, no lights
|
| But whitey's on the moon
|
| I wonder why he's upping me?
|
| Cause whitey's on the moon?
|
| Well I was already giving him fifty a week
|
| With whitey on the moon.
|
| Rest in peace Gil-Scott Heron.
| hagbard_c wrote:
| Yes, I remember that nihilistic piece of race rage bait and I
| remember it well. Now that 'non-whitey' is gliding past the
| moon and has shown he is past all that race-rage baiting by
| stating that [1] _this is just -- this is human history ...
| It's the story of humanity -- not black history, not women's
| history_ I hope that the like of Scott-Heron and those who
| like to push this type of narrative are willing to finally
| take that hammer to ram down that nail into the coffin of the
| 'systemic racism narrative'.
|
| No, I'm not holding my breath, the narrative if far too
| profitable for far too many people [2] to be put to rest.
|
| [1] https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-black-astronaut-on-
| arte...
|
| [2] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/11151740-racism-is-not-
| dead...
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Wanda Sykes is also famous for a pithier more recent take
| on it
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| Why are you so angry about a black person's perspective of
| what the moon landing meant to them? Rather than putting a
| nail in the coffin of the "systemic racism narrative", your
| post underlines how long we still have to go as a society
| to take black people's perspectives seriously, rather than
| simply denigrating them as "race bait."
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Their HN profile is a bunch of complaints about being
| rate-limited for shitty takes. It's the norm.
| kelnos wrote:
| I get the general frustration there, but it's weird to focus
| on NASA's budget when it's such a teeny tiny fraction of the
| total.
|
| Yes, there's a lot of government waste, but NASA ain't it.
|
| And I would suggest that the billionaire class and unfettered
| capitalism are far more responsible for the modern day
| version of Scott-Heron's woes than the good ol' government
| scapegoat.
| elteto wrote:
| If DOGE served for anything at all it was for showing that
| there isn't even that much "waste" per se. If there's any
| waste it's in the Pentagon which can't even audit itself,
| but of course DOGE didn't even get close to that. It was
| all performative for them.
| rationalist wrote:
| I think they proved that the waste is not easily defined.
| I would call fraud, waste, but a computer program isn't
| likely to discover it without boots on the ground looking
| to see if the money is actually going where the records
| indicate.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| The richest person in the world, who has had billions
| from government handouts, decided they were going to
| audit government spending.
|
| Fraud doesn't even begin to describe it.
| dotancohen wrote:
| The author of this poem went to great lengths to show his
| racism. It reminds me of a post, probably on Reddit, of a
| similar racist nature. Just when it's going in the other
| direction it's clearer.
|
| The post was by a man, supposedly white, who had to pull his
| child or children from private school because he could not
| pay for it. His frustration was based on the fact that his
| taxes were higher than the school tuition, and that another
| student at the school, a black student, was having his
| tuition paid by the government. He implied that he was paying
| for another person's education, and could not afford his own
| child's education. He saw the same dichotomy as that
| expressed in the poem, in the other direction.
| beacon294 wrote:
| He could be expressing the generational frustration of
| being black in America. When things are so segregated you
| feel you are looking across at a different country landing
| on the moon, you might write such a poem.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _He could be expressing the generational frustration of
| being black in America_
|
| I'm sure that's how the racist young Republicans would
| defend themselves too. It's hard being a young man in
| America today.
| GolfPopper wrote:
| Speaking for myself (who has been fascinated with the space
| program since I was a small child), any joy I might feel around
| Artemis II feels tainted, by the immense amount of pork
| involved (SLS is called "Senate Launch System" for good reason)
| to the point where Artemis is more corporate welfare that
| happens to involve the Moon than a real space program, and by
| my belief that it is intended to be little more than a quick,
| dirty, and vainglorious Apollo repeat by a failing government.
| al_borland wrote:
| I ran across this video[0] yesterday with Neil deGrasse Tyson
| talking about how it's always been political. The first moon
| landing was more about global politics than science. As a
| child you likely weren't concerned about that side of it, or
| were shielded from it.
|
| It isn't always the purist motivations that push the human
| race forward, but forward it moves us.
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/j_AlXChA9F4
| ryandrake wrote:
| I don't think OP's problem with it is that it's "political"
| but that it's a product of pork and corporate welfare. The
| political thrust of the Apollo program was more "beat the
| Russians" and less "funnel money into dozens of already-
| rich corporations in favored districts." Even thought there
| was a lot of that, too. Modern space (and defense) projects
| seem to be almost 100% "pork funnel" and zero anything
| else.
| bombcar wrote:
| The pork funnel is going to exist unless something
| _major_ changes; so I 'd rather get moonshots out of the
| pork.
| dingaling wrote:
| But how many Moonshots could we have got out of $100
| billion of vegetarian non-pork?
|
| Everything about SLS, and most of Artemis, has been
| dictated by Congress, often overriding expert advice.
|
| Why not just give NASA the money and let them get on with
| it?
|
| The same happens with the US military, Congress
| constantly deleting funding for programs they don't like
| to fund ones they do.
| trothamel wrote:
| We're about to find out.
|
| The new NASA administrator, Isaacman, seems to have done
| a very good job of convincing the various Senators to, if
| not get rid of the pork, allow him to allocate it in a
| way that benefits the lunar program.
|
| The result was the Ignition event, which looks like it's
| planning to send up 17 small and 4 crew-capable landers
| by 2028, along with a fleet of orbital assets.
|
| You can find out more https://www.nasa.gov/ignition/ ,
| especially the "Building the Moon Base" section. The cost
| is $10B spread out over 3 years.
| bobmcnamara wrote:
| we've also got 50 years of baseline tech improvement to
| try out.
|
| In the 60s we weren't going to land in the darkness
| because we couldn't see to land.
|
| But the shadows are probably where the water might be,
| and that's where we're going next!
| overfeed wrote:
| > The political thrust of the Apollo program was more
| "beat the Russians" and less "funnel money into dozens of
| already-rich corporations in favored districts."
|
| Artemis feels a bit more "Beat the Chinese, and show the
| world we still got it." I think cost-effectiveness[1] is
| a fig-leaf for what are SpaceX fanboys: had the same
| mission been on a Starship, HN would be awash with how
| other companies (Blue Origin) were late to earth-orbit,
| and the gap had widened beyond Earth's orbit.
|
| 1. In contrast, I haven't seen _any_ complaints about
| Military-Industrial pork on any of the Iran threads, even
| when contrasting the cost of interceptors vs drones. Let
| slone have pork dominate the thread.
| bps4484 wrote:
| It's not "almost 100% pork funneling" and I know this
| because....they're there! they are at the moon! I don't
| like pork either, but let's not blow this out of
| proportion.
|
| How much do we think that it _should_ have cost, if
| everything was perfectly optimized, to get to the moon?
| 50b instead of 100b? so ok, 50% was pork, and that 's
| bad, but let's not overstate it and instead allow a
| little joy in our lives.
|
| also the original apollo program was about 300b in
| today's dollars, so seems like things have always been a
| little porky.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Only 300b for the Apollo program? That sounds downright
| lean.
| richwater wrote:
| Not when you consider how we got lucky on some aspects
| KellyCriterion wrote:
| > more about global politics than science
|
| I had a great Prof during my bachelor from Russia - this is
| what he always told -> and it makes sense: Back then was
| cold war
| nemo44x wrote:
| It's a weak take and here's why. Huge tasks like going to
| the moon are made up of many different individuals that
| have different goals. Some are rocket scientists that want
| to innovate on the science of rocketry. Others are
| government admins with political goals.
|
| So to call the entire thing "political" ignores the purpose
| of those involved and critical to the outcome at the
| expense of just labeling it all "political".
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| this is why I mark the divide between the manned and
| unmanned space program. Historically the unmanned
| accomplishments have been less political (at least IMO) and
| made far larger advances. I don't need a human to take a
| photo of the dark side of the moon and then email it to me
| if a satellite can do it (with 1980's tech)
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| The manned space program launches from Florida but is
| controlled from Houston. Why? Wouldn't it make more sense to
| have both in the same place?
|
| Florida is because there's no other safe place in the US to
| launch a big rocket on an easterly trajectory* than Florida.
| Or the extreme southern tip of Texas, which SpaceX uses.
|
| Houston is because NASA needed LBJ's support. They even named
| the place after him.
|
| * Why easterly? Because that's the direction Earth rotates.
| If you orbit in that direction you get some free momentum
| from the planet itself.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| I know the RS-25 engines[0] (aka SSME, Space Shuttle Main
| Engine) were "reusable" in an academic sense (needing a ton
| of refurbishment after each use) but it hurts my heart that
| we're dropping them in the ocean and it makes it hard for me
| to feel good about the Artemis program. It's irrational but
| it makes the kid who loved the Space Shuttle (which, itself,
| was a political pork barrel and a jack-of-all-trades-master-
| of-none kind of program) sad.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-25
| philistine wrote:
| You and me both. They don't even put a parachute on the
| boosters to get them back. Some pieces on these boosters
| have been in use since the 80s.
| NetMageSCW wrote:
| And all of that reuse was so expensive that it set back
| reusable rocketry for decades as the common wisdom said
| it was uneconomical - even after it was demonstrated that
| you could have reuse without expensive refurbishment.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it hurts my heart that we 're dropping them in the
| ocean_
|
| They are functionally obsolete. Chances that we're still
| using SLS in ten years is slim. Any resources going towards
| refurbishment are better spent on Starship and Blue Moon.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| > my belief that it is intended to be little more than a
| quick, dirty, and vainglorious Apollo repeat by a failing
| government.
|
| If the USA successfully sends people to the Moon, achieves
| all of NASA's technical goals, and the astronauts make it
| back in one piece, isn't that literally the opposite of
| failure?
|
| It might be expensive and you can argue that it's wasteful.
| But even to that point, the $11B cost of SLS is nothing for
| the US Gov. For example the F35 is a >$1T government program.
| That doesn't seem a lot to explore a new frontier and expand
| the scope of humanity.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| > That doesn't seem a lot to explore a new frontier and
| expand the scope of humanity.
|
| There is no gain in knowledge from this mission. It's more
| like cheering for your favorite soccer team.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _There is no gain in knowledge from this mission_
|
| This is wrong. We're learning a lot about the new life-
| support systems. (Courtesy of the ESA.) We're also going
| to learn more about the heat shield on 10 April.
| anjel wrote:
| Its not Pork and its not science. Its a strategically
| costly land grab rather than a political vain-glorious
| stunt.
|
| Same as Mercury/Gemini/Apollo except this time China
| instead of Russia.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _its not science. Its a strategically costly land grab_
|
| Step away from your screens. Framing everything
| exclusively in these hard terms isn't healthy (or true).
| jrumbut wrote:
| > the immense amount of pork involved (SLS is called "Senate
| Launch System" for good reason
|
| Most of science has always had this dual use purpose.
|
| No senator ever would have voted for any kind of space
| program just to send a few tourists to the moon. It's a way
| to have a substantial workforce, spread across a wide area
| (so they can't all be hit by the same bomb), that knows how
| to make and launch rockets and to do weird stuff in space and
| to work with very energetic materials.
|
| But I agree that it feels hollow right now because of the war
| abroad and also the needless disrespect we've shown to our
| Canadian friends at home.
|
| It reminds me a little bit of _The Man in the High Castle_ ,
| it's like these videos are sent from some happier timeline
| that we don't live in. Hopefully they inspire some people to
| bring the spirit of curiosity and friendship they present
| back to our earth.
| influx wrote:
| You know the whole point of the space race was to prove that
| we could send ICBMs to the USSR right?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the whole point of the space race was to prove that we
| could send ICBMs to the USSR right?_
|
| No, it wasn't. The real world seldom has single causation.
| Some people supported Apollo as a messaging exercise. Most
| had other reasons.
|
| And in any case, there are easy ways to demonstrate ICBM
| competence. Pyongyang isn't going to the Moon to prove it
| can bomb Alaska.
| Bnjoroge wrote:
| there's zero difference between a photo taken by them and one
| by cameras on ISS.
| gus_massa wrote:
| Stealing a link from a comment by ceejayoz, the difference is
| like a 5% or 10% [it got deleted now] https://www.reddit.com/
| r/Astronomy/comments/1sd797j/the_moon...
| gus_massa wrote:
| Too late to edit: perhaps a bit more than 10%. See
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47651659
| nixon_why69 wrote:
| I'm not being a hater, but we landed on the moon 55+ years ago
| and now we're doing a flyby with 35+ year-old engine tech. It's
| good that we're doing something but we should be doing better.
| nine_k wrote:
| In 2-3 years we should expect a Starship mission to Moon, at
| a much more sensible scale, as in the amount of scientific
| gear and actual researchers delivered to the surface (and
| then back).
| juleiie wrote:
| There is literally not many things in life I hope so much
| for than starship success. Sounds strange perhaps but I
| just love space and I hope it succeeds.
|
| Funnily I absolutely despise Musk at the same time for
| being absolute buffoon
| pstuart wrote:
| We're days away from the SpaceX IPO that will make Musk
| even richer than he is now. I don't trust him with that
| money.
| juleiie wrote:
| I trust his gargantuan insecurity
|
| Sometimes the flaws of someone make him completely
| predictable. Very trustworthy to repeatedly pour billions
| in an attempt to become someone he fantasizes to be.
|
| There are innumerable amount of assholes in history that
| sold things we use daily, sometimes at the expense of
| original inventors. It is hard to cope with the idea that
| greed, ambition and ruthlessness are the building blocks
| of everything that stands around us.
|
| Sometimes it makes me want to reject everything I know of
| good and human and feed these traits until they fill the
| hollow parts of mind with wealth, empty fame and too many
| lonely sunsets on a private island.
| brightball wrote:
| Last time he got a bunch of money he used it to fund
| SpaceX and Tesla.
|
| Now also Neuralink.
|
| It's hard to imagine anyone else who's done more for the
| planet with his money than Musk.
| biaachmonkie wrote:
| He is also directly responsible for the deaths of many
| thousands of people via the shutdown of USAID-funded
| programs.
|
| Get out of hear with your glazing of that Fascist Sieg-
| Heiling Asshole.
| rdtsc wrote:
| How do we take it away from him?
| rantingdemon wrote:
| 2 to 3 years is wildly optimistic. Of the 5 launches last
| year 3 were failures and it's not even close to be ready
| for humans yet.
| NetMageSCW wrote:
| Some people don't understand the difference between
| testing and use. You can afford to test when your
| launches cost 1/100 of SLS launches instead of risking
| human lives. Artemis II was human rated with zero
| launches of its life support equipment, modeling failures
| of its heat shield, multiple power issues in its only
| predecessor flight in space. Starship will carry humans
| after hundreds of launches and landings.
| verzali wrote:
| I don't believe that to be true. Starship may host humans
| next year if it can get to a stable orbit and manage to
| demonstrate sufficient control for docking. It is
| extremely unlikely to demonstrate any environmental
| control before that.
| harrall wrote:
| You're not seeing better engines because there aren't any. We
| are reaching the limits of physics.
|
| That's why we are working on alternatives like refueling in
| space or reusable ships.
|
| The Artemis missions are testing things that we still have a
| lot of area to improve upon -- materials (a huge one),
| international standards for things like docking ports,
| computing, radiation safety, and a lot more.
| NetMageSCW wrote:
| Artemis II doesn't have any docking hardware since it won't
| have anything to dock with. And Artemis in general is just
| using the IDSS used on the ISS and by Dragon and Starliner,
| nothing new being discovered or tested there.
| hydrogen7800 wrote:
| Yeah, RS25/SSME still have a higher specific impulse than
| any boost stage engine in operation, past or present.
| GolfPopper wrote:
| <snark>Did we really need to spend $90 billion and send
| people past the Moon to troubleshoot Bluetooth?</snark>[1]
|
| Sharing because this seems to capture the _je ne sais quoi_
| that seems _off_ about Artemis for me.
|
| 1. https://github.com/RICLAMER/Artemis_II_2026
|
| NASA's Artemis II Live Views from Orion, 04 - Day 1-2 -
| 03-04-2026 - 1645-Transcript-EN.txt: "03/04/2026 - 18:57:27
| (-3 TMZ) | 01:23:22:27 (Artemis Clock) "No joy seeing the
| device in the list of available devices when I attempt to
| re-pair it after doing the Bluetooth forget."
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| Also the heatshield is designed in a way that is cheaper to
| manufacture but less safe.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _but less safe_
|
| Depending on the outcome, that's also a way to say less
| overengineered.
| yread wrote:
| It's also not the first time humans are seeing the far side of
| the moon, Ronald Evans orbitted the Moon 75 times in the
| orbital module during Apollo 17 (and other ppl did before him),
| so he also saw it right? The only unique thing is that its the
| first mission where they dont really do anything more
| interesting than looking at the far side
| NetMageSCW wrote:
| Apollo 8 did pretty much the same thing so not a first there
| either, but a first for today's Orion architecture.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I'm very excited about the later steps of the Artemis project!
|
| Landing on the Moon South Pole and start setting up the lunar
| station there will be a huge step, especially after 50 years of
| nothing!!
|
| But _this_ flight has already been done without a crew. Doing
| it with a human crew is important, but it achieves nothing new
| and exciting.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it achieves nothing new and exciting_
|
| I thought this but have since changed my mind. On board, real
| humans tax life-support systems in a way that's difficult to
| simulate. And real human astronauts garble processes and
| communications with ground control in ways that a nation that
| hasn't done deep spaceflight in a generation could probably
| do with practice on.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I half agree. It _is_ new and important.
|
| But it's hard, at least for me personally, to get really
| excited about it...
| kurthr wrote:
| Actually, at this moment, the top 3 parent posts are all about
| how people aren't responding positively enough to this event. I
| think it's really cool, and more people would be more exited,
| if there wasn't so much else going on. To be fair, I already
| had the conversation this weekend that the late 60s-70s were
| also quite fraught.
|
| Maybe we really have just been jaded by hours of youtube and
| tiktok shorts? I watched it on a 9" B/W crt and I was amazed!
| Of course I hadn't seen 2001, StarWars, Contact, or The
| Expanse.
| majkinetor wrote:
| FYI: https://issinfo.net/artemis
| rcpt wrote:
| Oh man 10-day long airplane ride. No thanks.
| encom wrote:
| That site absolutely murders my CPU by... drawing vector
| graphics. This one displays basically the same info and is made
| by someone competent: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-
| ii/arow/
| majkinetor wrote:
| Its the opposite for me. NASA site is unusable for me in
| Firefox while above one works without hitch.
| d-e-r-e-k wrote:
| There's too many problems here on earth for me to get excited
| about a trip to the moon
| FrojoS wrote:
| Given how many of these problems are self-inflicted, maybe we
| should focus more on trips to the moon and beyond, not less.
| davidw wrote:
| Yeah, if we cut back a bit on the war crimes we could easily
| fund _both_ more moon missions and cool science, as well as a
| shit ton of great programs to help people with the basics
| like food and rent and health care.
| bluebarbet wrote:
| Agreed. I remember following the various Mars rover missions of
| the 1990s-2010s with avid interest. I have now lost my interest
| in space completely. The house is on fire and we're going on
| holiday again? It's beginning to feel almost indecent.
| Aboutplants wrote:
| I completely understand and agree. But there is still something
| magical about spaceflight that will forever put me in awe. It's
| a small moment of wonder in a world of disappointment. I'll
| take anything I can get these days
| throwatdem12311 wrote:
| The trip to the moon just makes me depressed about all the
| problems here because they seem so pointless in perspective.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| In fact a trip to the Moon gives me hope for our species--that
| not _everything_ is shit.
| czbond wrote:
| Optimism will get you through.... Humans have bumpy rides, but
| in the aggregate we figure it out and move on
| jibal wrote:
| In the aggregate we live miserable lives and then die.
| NetMageSCW wrote:
| That was true the last time we went to the Moon, but this
| time in the aggregate we live less miserable lives.
| herodotus wrote:
| I am curious. If it is on the far side, where does the light come
| from for the photos? Other stars?
| ziftface wrote:
| The sun
| phantom784 wrote:
| The sun still. It's just that that side never points towards
| the earth, but it still gets sunlight. Same as how the side we
| see isn't fully lit except during a full moon.
| nkrisc wrote:
| The moon is tidally locked with the Earth, which means the same
| side always faces the Earth. So, for example, when the moon is
| between the Earth and the sun, the far side (from the
| perspective of Earth) would be fully illuminated by the sun.
|
| The "far side" of the moon refers to the hemisphere that can't
| be seen from Earth.
| dust42 wrote:
| Yes, and right now is full moon, thus the far side is only
| illuminated by stars.
| davidw wrote:
| I wonder why they decided on that timing? If it were better
| illuminated by the sun, couldn't they get some better
| photography?
| ranger207 wrote:
| They want to fly by at lunar sunrise as the shadows help
| see depth better. Also, they have very sensitive cameras
| (up to 3,280,000 ISO!); the Earth photo the other day was
| taken at night, so you can see how they'll be able to get
| detail even in the dark parts
| smilespray wrote:
| 640 ISO ought to be enough for anyone.
| brabel wrote:
| My guess is that this mission is not about imaging the
| far side of the Moon at all as that has been done
| already.
| davidw wrote:
| Fair, but these images are going to get a lot of public
| attention, so making them good ones would be worthwhile.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| current 2nd stage is underpowered, so it has to be
| compensated by 1st stage right from the start
|
| and since launchpad is in the north hemisphere, Moon has
| to be at the south part of its orbit
| layer8 wrote:
| And a little bit by asteroids like 20 Massalia and comets
| like 24P/Schaumasse.
| _moof wrote:
| It isn't full right now. It's a waning gibbous, so the far
| side is a waxing crescent.
| kzrdude wrote:
| The other well publicized photo they did was of the dark side
| of the earth (it was night), so same idea(?)
| _moof wrote:
| The sun. The moon always shows the same side to Earth, so the
| far side has phases just like the Earth-facing side does. When
| we see a full moon from Earth, the far side is a "new moon";
| when we see a new moon, the far side is full. And so on for the
| other lunar phases.
| _fw wrote:
| Am I losing it? They can't be seeing the far side of the moon
| right now, because they haven't adjusted course to go round the
| far side of the moon yet...
|
| So does this suggest the BBC is wrong and it's the side of the
| moon we're used to seeing, but just it's "dark"?
|
| But then the astronauts are saying it's weird seeing the moon in
| a whole new light (excuse the paraphrasing pun).
|
| I don't understand.
| AnduCrandu wrote:
| I think they're saying they can see a sliver of the far side,
| and that seeing the moon from a slightly different angle is
| weird having seen the near side so often. But they didn't
| really make that clear.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| Sounds like marketing speak.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| They're far enough out that they can see _some_ stuff you don't
| see from Earth. They aren't seeing the entire far side yet.
|
| Illustrated:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Astronomy/comments/1sd797j/the_moon...
| runjake wrote:
| Hence the use of _first glimpse_.
| gus_massa wrote:
| It got deleted now. It would be nice to see a new versions if
| abailable.
|
| So, let's make some guess, but IANAA. Orion is in the middle
| of the trip going to the meeting point to the Moon in a quite
| straight line but the Moon is still not there. It will be
| there in 2 or 3 days, that is like 45deg of the orbit.
| O .
| . o Earth > . .
| . . Moon
| Orion in 3 days
| .
| .
| .
| .
| .
| . o
| Moon
| now
|
| Using some sloppy Math and sloppy Astronomy, I estimate that
| the difference between our point of view and their point of
| view is 20deg or 30deg. So the visible surface has like a 10%
| difference, that is consistent to call it a "glimpse". My
| estimation is also similar to the graphic posted in Reddit,
| but I'm not sure what was the problem.
|
| I actually can't tell the difference in the photo to save my
| life, but I have a friend that is astronomer and I'm sure
| that if I show the photo to him, he could use a sharpie to
| mark the difference on my screen without any problem.
| syncsynchalt wrote:
| Take a look at https://issinfo.net/artemis.html
|
| Your illustration is about right, but the angle they're
| catching now is even a bit further than you've shown.
| roelschroeven wrote:
| Have a look at the tracker at https://issinfo.net/artemis.html
|
| They're already at a point where they see the moon from a
| different angle than we see it from Earth, enough to see a bit
| of the side that we can't see from here.
| riazrizvi wrote:
| It would be good for the interviewer to ask about this! I
| imagine a lot of people are pretty confused by the basic
| geometry. Thanks for explaining.
| addandsubtract wrote:
| It took me this diagram to realize they're shooting to where
| the moon _will be_ , when they cross its orbit, and are not
| flying straight at the moon. /facepalm
| beloch wrote:
| Imagine you're holding a ball with drawings on it. Hold it out
| at arms length and fix how it looks in your memory. Now bring
| it close to your face and move your head a tiny bit to the
| side. You're not seeing the whole back-side of the ball. Far
| from it! However, you are seeing some bits you weren't seeing
| before and the whole picture you can see now looks different
| than it did when the ball was at arm's length.
|
| That's my guess. They're seeing _parts_ of the dark-side of the
| moon because they 're now close enough that they have a
| different viewing angle than we do on Earth. Remember, they're
| not flying _straight_ at the moon. That 's not how transfer
| orbits work.
| bdbdbdb wrote:
| I was also very confused, but after some reading I figured it
| out.
|
| > In an interview with NBC News from space, NASA astronaut
| Christina Koch described seeing the moon out the window of the
| Orion capsule and realizing that it looked different from what
| she was accustomed to on Earth.
|
| > "The darker parts just aren't quite in the right place," she
| said. "And something about you senses that is not the moon that
| I'm used to seeing."
|
| They are not on the other side of the moon seeing the full dark
| side, but from their position they're seeing the moon at a
| slight angle, meaning that SOME of what they now see is "the
| dark side", or the part we can never see from earth since the
| same side always faces us
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| > "And something about you senses that is not the moon that
| I'm used to seeing."
|
| Almost philosophical /S
| mathgeek wrote:
| "First glimpse of the dark side of the moon" rather than "the
| whole dark side of the moon". Title is pretty accurate for my
| understanding.
| implements wrote:
| Remember that they're not flying towards the Moon but to a
| point in space where they and the Moon will be closest together
| in a day or two, hence the Moon is now 'off to their side' and
| they can see a segment of it that is hidden to Earth observers
| ... I think.
|
| Also, the dark side of the Moon is often illuminated but we
| call it dark because it's also hidden from earth due to the
| Earth and Moon being tidally locked (the same side of each
| always faces the other body).
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| > they haven't adjusted course to go round the far side of the
| moon yet
|
| No course adjustment is necessary (at least in the sense of an
| engine burn). The moon's gravity will sling them around and
| back toward Earth.
| pierrec wrote:
| >they haven't adjusted course to go round the far side of the
| moon yet
|
| They did, 3 days ago! Maybe this is being pedantic (?) but the
| trans-lunar injection burn they did on April 2 put them on the
| complete trajectory including return to Earth. Though there are
| still possible correction burns that can be done to increase
| precision (the first 2 of these were already canceled).
| _fw wrote:
| I relish in the pedantry. Thanks Pierre
| NetMageSCW wrote:
| They did that change a long time ago. They are on a course to
| go around the Moon from the TLI burn (trans lunar injection)
| Thursday at 7:49pm EDT. They don't need any more burns for
| that.
| baxtr wrote:
| I think they could not communicate if they were really on the
| far side of the moon.
|
| So I guess they see it differently than us, eg from the side
| but not from the back.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| They've actually already on course to go around the moon for a
| couple days! There's been the option of performing some some
| minor course corrections to make sure they look back around to
| the right Earth orbit, but I think those haven't actually been
| necessary
|
| Source: NASA's YT channel + way too many hours playing KSP.
| Skipping the course correction burn yesterday gave them the
| opportunity to try and unclog the liquid waste valve
| davidw wrote:
| It makes me tear up seeing the absolute 'best of us' as humanity
| striving and exploring in the midst of so much wretched evil and
| awfulness.
| deepfriedbits wrote:
| Same. There's a lot out there to get us down, but most people
| are fundamentally good at the end of the day, regardless of
| culture or borders.
| throwatdem12311 wrote:
| edit: knee jerk reaction was wrong
|
| Still think what he said is worth hearing.
|
| https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWvRjeEgecb/?igsh=MXZoYjZobDM...
| Cider9986 wrote:
| That is a shame they cut that out.
| layer8 wrote:
| What you link to is from a different interview:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpPTnR5jin0
| throwatdem12311 wrote:
| thank you, as usual...knee jerk reaction was wrong, apologies
| and updated
|
| I still liked what he had to say so gonna leave up the link
| itself
| layer8 wrote:
| Latest published image of the moon: https://www.nasa.gov/image-
| detail/amf-art002e009006/
|
| Photo and video gallery: https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/journey-to-
| the-moon/
| busymom0 wrote:
| Kinda surprised the gallery doesn't allow me to use the arrow
| keys on my keyboard for next/previous navigation.
| sgt wrote:
| Will Elon set up a lot of colorful and blinking billboards to
| make it less grey?
| encom wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l60MnDJklnM
| kklisura wrote:
| On one of Apollo missions they've read from Bible, Book of
| Genesis [1]. I wish they did something like that here - and I'm
| not even a Christian, let alone religious. They did relay some
| beautiful message [2] though.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4tDZye57D4
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELslc6O4UVk
| delecti wrote:
| I sure hope they don't. Even just the hint of connecting this
| achievement to the supposed Christian nature of the US would
| reinforce a lot of the bad things in the world right now.
| Namely, that we're actively at war in the middle east
| (Christianity and Judaism vs Islam), in a burgeoning cold war
| with China (more Christianity vs "godless" communists), and run
| by an increasingly fascistic administration (the ties between
| religion and government are a hallmark of fascism).
| dotancohen wrote:
| I am not a Christian, but it was arguably the Christian value
| system which forged the government and institutions that made
| these achievements possible. Such progress happens only in
| high trust societies.
| jedberg wrote:
| > but it was arguably the Christian value system which
| forged the government and institutions that made these
| achievements possible.
|
| Many of the founders were specifically anti-Christian. They
| were deists, and believed in a higher power, but
| specifically rejected the idea of a divine intervention of
| God or Jesus.
|
| Christians do not own the idea of being nice to others and
| trusting others.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| Of the 45 delegates to the continental congress, only two
| (Benjamin Franklin and another) were known to be deists.
| One's membership records couldn't be found. The other 42
| were active members and on the books in their
| churches.[0]
|
| Jefferson also was a deist, but he wasn't present at the
| constitutional convention of 1787 (though he earlier
| authored the Declaration of Independence).
|
| [0] M. E. Bradford. _Founding Fathers: Brief Lives of the
| Framers of the United States Constitution_ , second
| edition. University Press of Kansas, 1994.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| typo - *55 delegates attended the constitutional
| congress, 52 of which were on the church registers as
| active church members.
|
| note: only 39 delegates signed the resulting document
| dotancohen wrote:
| I stated that the United States is based on Christian
| values. Not that the United States is a Christian state.
|
| Do you value separation of state and religious authority?
| Women's rights? Minority rights? Human dignity? Equality
| before the law? Sanctity of life? Individual moral
| responsibility? Monogamous marriage? The objective study
| of history? Fair trial? Witnesses at trial? Tolerance of
| alternative viewpoints?
|
| Those are all Christian values. For what it's worth, I'm
| not Christian.
| jedberg wrote:
| > I stated that the United States is based on Christian
| values. Not that the United States is a Christian state.
|
| And I said:
|
| > Christians do not own the idea of being nice to others
| and trusting others.
|
| But let's look at your list:
|
| > Do you value separation of state and religious
| authority? Women's rights? Minority rights? Human
| dignity? Equality before the law? Sanctity of life?
| Individual moral responsibility? Monogamous marriage? The
| objective study of history? Fair trial? Witnesses at
| trial? Tolerance of alternative viewpoints?
|
| First of all, these are all _Jewish_ values that
| Christian 's adopted. And secondly, none of these are
| exclusive to Christianity. In fact they appear in many
| religions worldwide, as well as secular societies.
|
| These are all just common decency, which is _why_ they
| appear in most religions, and non-religions.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > These are all just common decency, which is why they
| appear in most religions, and non-religions.
|
| You and I both wish these decencies were common. Some
| cultures have some variations on some of these decencies,
| but they are not common. Assuming that they are common is
| projecting your culture onto others.
|
| This is why I mentioned the importance of high trust
| society.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Christian values are always whatever individual
| Christians say they are.
|
| There's really no such animal in practice. Over time
| Christian values have included charity for the poor,
| rapacious capitalism, slavery, the abolition of slavery,
| anti-science, science, war, peace, and the rest.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _stated that the United States is based on Christian
| values. Not that the United States is a Christian state_
|
| I believe most of the founders expressed disdain at the
| notion that the United States was built on Christian
| values. They were privately Christian. But publicly
| American. They were trying to break the cycle of history
| that building countries on religious values brings.
|
| Saying we were built on Christian values is arguing for a
| continuing role for Christian values. Which, in turn,
| leads to a Christian state. And then we're back to popes
| and mullahs in charge, and the SecDef and Speaker of the
| House giving sermons.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| The Renaissance and Enlightenment were anti-religious
| ideals, of the power of mankind over the gods.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Yes, exactly. Being anti-religion does not mean throwing
| away the entire value system.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Being anti-religion does not mean throwing away the
| entire value system_
|
| It does mean being deeply sceptical of anyone importing a
| religious value system, or building religious
| institutions.
| mempko wrote:
| Actually a lot of the enlightenment ideas (which our
| government is based on) came from native American critiques
| of European societies. Read The Dawn of Everything for the
| details.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| This is a bold claim that would do better than a
| throwaway source.
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| The "Christian value system" isn't something to revere.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| I suggest you look up the founding fathers' views on
| religion.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I was addressing values, not religion, but I seem to have
| touched a nerve. I'm not Christian, but I recognize that
| Christian values lead to high-trust society, leads to
| innovation in industry and science. > I
| suggest you look up the founding fathers' views on
| religion
|
| Alright:
|
| "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to
| political prosperity, religion and morality are
| indispensable supports." - George
| Washington
|
| "It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the
| providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be
| grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his
| protection and favors." - George
| Washington
|
| "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious
| people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any
| other." - John Adams
|
| "The Bible contains the most profound philosophy, the
| most perfect morality, and the most refined policy that
| ever was conceived upon Earth." - John
| Adams
|
| "I hold the precepts of Jesus, as delivered by himself,
| to be the most pure, benevolent, and sublime which have
| ever been preached to man." - Thomas
| Jefferson
|
| "Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God
| is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever."
| - Thomas Jefferson
| hackable_sand wrote:
| Bro this comment chain is so fucked up
|
| Well done
| pigpop wrote:
| I'm more worried about Chinese fascism than the American
| kind.
| delecti wrote:
| China may be authoritarian (I would agree that they are),
| but they're not fascist. They're also a much smaller threat
| to anyone living in the US. I'm more worried about the
| jackbooted thugs on my own streets than the ones halfway
| around the world.
| throwaway25231 wrote:
| Can you explain what "Chinese fascism" is? Not citizen of
| any super-power, but how can you be sure you're not fallen
| under some propaganda where you see "them" as being evil
| and not just some other-way-of-living?
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| no shared values exist to draw upon.
| joshcsimmons wrote:
| That was intentional unfortunately.
| Fricken wrote:
| Are they going to land, to get out, take a look around? No. We
| have moon rocks at home.
| dbacar wrote:
| Rather than the far side, what about the Dark Side of the Moon?
| kqr wrote:
| Because it's not always dark. Only during a full moon on Earth
| is the far side fully dark.
| syncsynchalt wrote:
| ... matter of fact it's all dark.
|
| (The moon has an albedo of 12%)
| nodesocket wrote:
| It's sort of curious that BBC always seemed to get linked to the
| Artemis news on HN instead of the official NASA website or US
| news agencies.
| areoform wrote:
| It's interesting to me how cautious NASA is being with Artemis
| II. I wrote about the risk / mortality calculation behind this,
| but everything from the trajectory, the decision not to do an
| orbital insertion, the checkout in high-Earth orbit is _very
| cautious._
|
| I wish this mission took greater risks. Or, just at least go as
| far as Apollo 8, but stay for a bit longer, and try out new
| things. It would be fun to take a finicky low mass radio
| telescope experiment to the far side of the moon.
| neurostimulant wrote:
| > I wish this mission took greater risks
|
| It's already risky enough:
| https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly....
| areoform wrote:
| Yes, and that's part of what spaceflight is.
| https://1517.substack.com/p/1-in-30-artemis-greatness-and-
| ri...
|
| It has always been a touch-and-go affair
| dd_xplore wrote:
| I don't think they'd or any other space mission will take that
| much risk anymore. Atleast without the pressure/tension of cold
| war space race.
| NetMageSCW wrote:
| It is not possible for them to say a bit longer because Orion
| doesn't have the deltaV necessary to go into LLO and orbit the
| Moon like Apollo 8. Orion is like HlS in that it is the worst
| possible craft for a mission to the Moon, but it's the one we
| have. At least Starship has a potential future for further
| missions.
| Tepix wrote:
| Did you miss "Artemis 2 is not safe to fly"
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47582043 ?
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Just some humans doing proper awesome human stuff and being good
| people advancing international brotherhood and scientific
| advancement.
|
| Love seeing our Ontario native Jeremy Hansen on the microphone,
| and those two flags properly positioned beside each other.
|
| I'm not a Christian today, but was raised that way. This is the
| hopeful message I want to see on this day, and the true meaning
| of the symbol. Hope for all humankind. Working together.
| thegrim33 wrote:
| It's pretty depressing that on a corner of the internet that's
| supposed to be a gathering of tech/geeks/nerds/stem people,
| discussing topics that "good hackers would find interesting",
| it's seemingly impossible to have a single thread about something
| like this that isn't almost entirely negative or political
| bickering.
| telman17 wrote:
| These people existed in the Apollo era just not on a website.
| We weren't exactly living in a utopia then either and you'd
| have difficulty convincing some folks to be excited about space
| exploration then too.
|
| Some people feel their outlook on the world takes precedence.
| And they'll shit in other people's celebrations to get their
| point across. Best to downvote or ignore them and embrace what
| nuance you can find.
| modeless wrote:
| My problem isn't that these people exist in the world. My
| problem is they're increasingly drowning out other voices in
| a community I'm part of. I would prefer significantly more
| active moderation against politics and general non-technical
| negativity on this site.
| guax wrote:
| I would be more depressed if, looking at the current political
| landscape this corner decided to be entirely alienated or
| oblivious to the environment in which this massive achievement
| is made.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| do you think the current environment is more or less just
| than it was during the 1969 moon landing?
| downrightmike wrote:
| Nixon wasn't in office yet, but he did have his campaign
| manager got to Vietnam and promise the VietCong a better
| deal if they walked away from negotiations, which lead to
| FIVE more years of war and countless lives lost for nothing
| other than a point to talk about on his soap box
| kurthr wrote:
| The difference seems to be that Nixon may have been
| crooked, but he was largely competent. He operated on
| experience, expertise, and causal reality. Our current
| political situation is largely free of facts, knowledge,
| or causality. Much of the corruption that happens today
| is in plain sight and basically ignored. The goal is
| governance through depoliticization and post-truth
| infotainment.
|
| Note that Nixon was actually impeached by his own party
| and would have been removed for what would now be a
| single day of news cycle, only on a few networks/papers,
| and completely ignored by a major political party.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I think the tech world is fundamentally difference, though
| I'm not old enough to experience it in '69. I don't believe
| we had tech moguls who built enormous wealth and realized
| they could by the influence they couldn't muster with
| social influence, and that has made the world net-worse.
| Eji1700 wrote:
| I have family who worked for NASA until the 70s. They're one of
| the biggest sources of criticism of this project.
|
| There are negative things to observe about this project. They
| should not be ignored
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| I'd love to read your family member(s) criticisms; anywhere
| to do so? The perspective of a former NASA employee could be
| fascinating.
|
| If you don't mind me asking, what did they do for NASA?
| throwaway132448 wrote:
| It's unfortunate, but if you're blaming the people in the
| thread for this, I think you're directing your energy in the
| wrong direction. Focus on the people who foment and benefit
| from this division and distraction instead. If you want people
| to appreciate the bigger picture, you can't keep forcing them
| to live on a shorter and shorter term outlook. The HN that
| you're presumably nostalgic for existed in a time when there
| was a lot more fat on the bone, and every efficiency hadn't
| been extracted for nebulous benefit to the average person.
| YZF wrote:
| Is there really less "fat on the bone" though? What metric
| are you tracking for that and what are the historical norms?
|
| "forcing them to live on a shorter and shorter term outlook"
| -> social media?
|
| Rather than assigning blame I think it's fair to ask the
| people here to behave. Maybe it's not their fault they spend
| their day doom scrolling and have the attention span of a cat
| but they do have agency to change that. [EDIT: This is an
| attempt at humor]
|
| Isn't "Focus on the people who foment and benefit from this
| division" asking for politics? The way we get at "those
| people" (and let's not even argue about who they are) is to
| regulate ourselves (or for the moderators to do that) and
| have a more substantive and positive discussion regardless of
| our perceptions.
| throwaway132448 wrote:
| > Is there really less "fat on the bone" though? What
| metric are you tracking for that and what are the
| historical norms?
|
| It's just my experience over the last 15 years. If it
| doesn't align with yours, that's nice to know.
|
| > "forcing them to live on a shorter and shorter term
| outlook" -> social media?
|
| Sure, but it could be lots of other things like 24hr news
| or the emergence of the gig economy.
|
| > Isn't "Focus on the people who foment and benefit from
| this division" asking for politics?
|
| No it's not, it's asking for agency, personal
| accountability and self-awareness, as you yourself allude
| to. If that means politics for you, that's up to you. I
| don't imply to "get at" anyone, but to do best by ourselves
| instead of doing best by those who benefit from dividing or
| distracting us.
| YZF wrote:
| > It's just my experience over the last 15 years. If it
| doesn't align with yours, that's nice to know.
|
| I know it's the narrative that times are bad. But me, my
| coworkers, my neighbors, my local mall, etc. all seem to
| be doing really great. And look, moon mission! I would
| think that there are a lot of people in tech who are
| doing better than ever. We've also seen layoffs and I
| know it's hard for people to find a job. This is why I'm
| asking for metrics because I don't think it's actually as
| clear as the narrative that this is _the_ worse over 15
| years. The pandemic was pretty bad? We had the financial
| crisis? Gas prices were a lot higher in 2021 ... I guess
| as they say perception is 99% of reality ...
| Avicebron wrote:
| How often do you find yourself wondering how you'll be
| able to pay rent and your car payment during the month?
| What happens if you need to get dental work? Does that
| shift your calculus for expenses day to day? Not it in
| 2021 or whatever, but like this past week?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I've been there. I have friends who have been there in
| the last month. None of them reacted by projecting onto
| space exploration or science. It's absolutely a choice as
| to what one channels one's frustrations onto.
| YZF wrote:
| I've had a long career in tech and so for me and I assume
| people like me these are not concerns. I'm not doubting
| what you describe is the experience for many people.
|
| I'm not American but I work with many Americans who are
| doing _really_ well (also long careers in tech).
|
| I'm old and I own my house but when I was younger I never
| leased a car, I always bought used cars that I could
| afford. So the question of making a car payment wasn't
| there. I always saved and compared prices in good times
| and bad times. I rented a cheap enough place to have
| enough safety margin.
|
| Anyways, being a software engineer through the golden era
| of software engineering is not your typical person
| experience.
|
| I still think we need to be more data driven in how we
| evaluate the state of the economy. The parent was
| suggesting it's the economic difficulties faced by people
| on this forum (presumably many in tech) that lead to
| shallow and political discussion and it's hard for me to
| gauge that.
| Avicebron wrote:
| tl;dr depending on old you are the bootstraps >> "when I
| was younger I never leased a car, I always bought used
| cars that I could afford. So the question of making a car
| payment wasn't there. I always saved and compared prices
| in good times and bad times. I rented a cheap enough
| place to have enough safety margin."
|
| were still there. They've been notably missing/further
| and further out of reach depending on where you started
| these past 15 years. I would argue actually closer to 20.
|
| https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1970/demo/p60
| -72... https://www2.census.gov/programs-
| surveys/nrs/tables/time-ser...
| https://www.thezebra.com/resources/home/housing-trends-
| visua... https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-
| american-income-vs-...
| https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-
| spe... https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-
| trends-and-repo... https://usafacts.org/articles/how-
| much-is-spent-on-personal-...
| https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/life-expectancy-vs-
| healt... https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-
| college-by-year https://educationdata.org/average-
| student-loan-debt-by-year
| https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/is-the-stem-job-
| shortage-ov... https://issues.org/what-shortages-the-
| real-evidence-about-th...
| https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2015/article/stem-crisis-or-
| ste... https://www.whatjobs.com/news/shocking-entry-
| level-job-exper...
| https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20198/s-e-labor-market-
| conditi... https://issues.org/stem-workforce-shortage-
| data-hira/ https://listwithclever.com/research/home-
| price-v-income-hist...
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| >> Rather than assigning blame I think it's fair to ask the
| people here to behave
|
| First, are you not doing just that - blaming the people
| here for making you unhappy?
|
| Second, you're welcome to demand this, but they/we are just
| as welcome to tell you to piss off.
| YZF wrote:
| As I was typing my reply I did pause to think about
| whether I am being part of the problem. I still decided
| to reply. My excuse is that I'm not the one who brought
| politics into this and I feel ok pushing back against
| that once others do.
|
| > First, are you not doing just that - blaming the people
| here for making you unhappy?
|
| I don't think so?
|
| > Second, you're welcome to demand this, but they/we are
| just as welcome to tell you to piss off.
|
| If the majority of people around here just want to argue
| politics non-stop and turn everything into that there's
| little I can do.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _Focus on the people who foment and benefit from this
| division and distraction_
|
| your comment is entirely politcal, i.e. contributing more to
| the problem.
|
| qui bono? we for sure don't bono.
| throwaway132448 wrote:
| Choosing one (deliberately ambiguous) line to label the
| comment "entirely political" is the kind of thinking that
| explains why tribalism has been so effective.
| fsckboy wrote:
| "Focus on the people who foment and benefit from this
| division and distraction"
|
| is a political statement. It says: "don't talk about the
| actual issue, instead let's go after the enemies, we know
| who they are." It doesn't say "let's find them", it
| assumes we know who they are.
| Arainach wrote:
| > if you're blaming the people in the thread for this, I
| think you're directing your energy in the wrong direction
|
| Much of the current environment is driven by the SF Bay Tech
| Elite/Culture.
|
| Peter Thiel funded and enabled Curtis Yarvin, whose work was
| the backbone of the modern alt right, project 2025, etc.
| Plenty of tech VCs/elite are investing huge amounts in
| fighting effective government, pushing models of city states
| immune from regulation, policing the discourse, and more.
| Musk gets more press coverage than most but tons of folks who
| are either on HN, are connected to startups talked about
| here, etc. are primary forces driving what America has
| become.
| supliminal wrote:
| It is possible but you have to cultivate it. There is no
| mechanism here that automates it, so it's up to each author's
| sentiment to shape the outcome as they see fit.
|
| Submit threads that are apolitical and guide conversations to
| be positive.
| rishabhaiover wrote:
| If one can't find their true purpose in life, they resort to
| seek purity in morals and virtue (in themselves and people
| around them).
| awesome_dude wrote:
| Not all hackers!
| happytoexplain wrote:
| Yes, but it's depressing because of the environmental factors
| causing the problem, not the people experiencing the problem.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > it's seemingly impossible to have a single thread about
| something like this that isn't almost entirely negative or
| political bickering
|
| I quickly browsed the top 10 comments, didn't see much
| negativity.
|
| And maybe this is because this is a forum of
| "tech/geeks/nerds/stem people" that you'd expect some educated
| and critical comments.
| Fricken wrote:
| There was a man on the moon in 1969. 65 years of so-called
| technological progress and the US is worse than it was before,
| so we can rule out an interest in technological progress as a
| reason for any of this. Getting all teary eyed about a second
| rate mission from a has-been space agency is kind of cringe-
| inducing, HN.
|
| Maybe we should revive Pamela Anderson's career, or bring Mike
| Tyson out of retirement to fight a youtube influencer in an
| effort to re-live past glory. Oh, yeah, that's right. America
| already did that. America did that and it was sad.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| There's just so little science here though, to expect the
| audience on HN to get excited about redoing something 65 years
| later for the purpose of political grand-standing and
| nationalism while the world literally burns and so many are
| hurting... I'd be more upset if a bunch of insulated tech nerds
| obliviously continued to along their easy trajectories without
| a though of everyone else. We may not be the 1% but we're
| definitely the 5%
| sega_sai wrote:
| I think it would have been much better, if the nation that
| launched that mission did not in the same time start a war... I
| personally simply cannot separate these two things.
| fortran77 wrote:
| I always wonder about the people on HN who hate the West, are
| pro terrorism, are anti-capitalism, etc. There are a lot of
| them. Is it a PsyOp operation from some hostile nation? Or are
| there reallhy just a lot of deranged people in tech?
| md224 wrote:
| A fun way to track the mission is via NASA's Eyes on the Solar
| System visualizer:
|
| https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/solar-system/#/sc_artemis_2
| tonymet wrote:
| very cool visualization thanks for sharing. I was impressed at
| how smooth the rendering ran on my 5+ y/o iPad Air.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Really drives home how bloody empty almost all of space really
| is.
| _moof wrote:
| I just need to say it's an extremely huge bummer how much
| cynicism and negativity there is about this mission. Is it
| perfect? No, of course not. Neither was Apollo.
|
| We are all _painfully_ aware of the things that make it
| imperfect.
|
| It's still joyous and exciting.
|
| Try to let it be.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| Most of us feel that way, but that comes with a desire to avoid
| engaging with unhappy internet denizens finding company in
| their misery.
|
| Remember that social media is a distortion of reality driven by
| whoever is willing to dedicate the most time and effort to
| dominating it.
| _moof wrote:
| Thanks for the reminder - genuinely. It's hard to keep in
| mind sometimes.
| flopsamjetsam wrote:
| I checked out some subreddits on the mission, and left pretty
| quickly for that reason. It's nice to find some positivity
| and wonder at it. I love what Artemis II is doing, found the
| launch very exciting and a little nerve wracking, and can't
| wait until they get even closer to the Moon.
| echelon wrote:
| Naysayers need to realize that very soon humanity will have a
| permanent presence on the moon. One that will outlive us all.
|
| That's beyond exciting.
| cucumber3732842 wrote:
| So they let them just wear hoodies in space now? Or are these
| fancypants space hoodies that cost a quarter mil and weigh a
| couple grams less? Or does that level of weight reduction not
| matter because the rocket is nowhere near maxed out?
| starkeeper wrote:
| Why don't they have any decent external cameras absolutely goofy
| (or maybe they do and I am goofy?) also, framing!
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