Artemis vs Apollo (split from What is DEI, and why is it dividing America?)

[Trurl]

Well the video highlighted the mission would highlight that women and minorities lead the mission. Which is ok. I am just poking fun of the fact that it is costing a 100 billion dollars.

This mission is way behind. If we were on the moon in 1970’s why is it so hard to go back?

Yes I know these women are good astronauts. Putting someone on the moon is great, but if you say first woman on the moon, $100,000,000,000. Eliminating the need for DEI, priceless.

[CharonY]

46 minutes ago, Trurl said:

This mission is way behind. If we were on the moon in 1970’s why is it so hard to go back?

As mentioned above, the mission is different. It is like asking why yachts are so expensive. Kayaks were around for around 4000 years.

[swansont]

7 hours ago, Trurl said:

Well the video highlighted the mission would highlight that women and minorities lead the mission. Which is ok. I am just poking fun of the fact that it is costing a 100 billion dollars.

This mission is way behind. If we were on the moon in 1970’s why is it so hard to go back?

It’s hard to tell if this is a serious question. Partly because of your “jokes” and partly because you don’t seem to have done a lick of research on the question. Incessant whining, based on ignorance, is hard to take seriously.

The Apollo missions cost more than $300 billion in today’s dollars. (2023)

https://taxfoundation.org/blog/apollo-moon-space-race-industrial-policy-cost/

(original cost was ~$25 billion)

This shows that each mission cost less than $500 million, so even if you shave off the last 6 missions, that’s less than 1/8 of the overall cost (3 billion out of 25)

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1028322/total-cost-apollo-missions/

So the new program is a lot cheaper, because certain things don’t have to be re-discovered, even as the hardware is remade with modern technology. But it’s not simple and it’s not easy.

[Trurl]

Quote

7 hours ago, Phi for All said:

If you truly wanted to eliminate the need for DEI, your methodology is unacceptable. Your prejudices are too prevalent.

 

I’m only kidding. I am making fun of the fact DEI is extreme in the case of specifically putting a women on the moon just because it never happened before. I do see a need because I don’t believe women were as astronauts till 1983. I do not object to a woman on the moon. I just making fun of the fact it costs so much money.

Actually I am very interested in space. I wouldn’t want to be an astronaut though. It would be like being in a submarine 6 months. It isn’t like Star Trek yet. And it is extremely dangerous.

NASA is great for learning and exploring but they too have safety and expense issues. They launched the Challenger shuttle after it had 6 ft ice sickles on it.

i don’t like the focus to be the first woman on the moon. She is part of the mission and the focus should be building on the moon.

The current NASA is very diverse. And if you go to Kennedy Space Center and look at the Wall of Heroes, you will be impressed by how qualified they are.

So I see why I made fun of the price tag to go to the moon. But in my lifetime NASA has always been diverse.

 

1 hour ago, swansont said:

So the new program is a lot cheaper, because certain things don’t have to be re-discovered, even as the hardware is remade with modern technology. But it’s not simple and it’s not easy.

The fact that it is so dangerous makes it hard. The lunar lander has just landed on its top and the SpaceX rocket 🚀 exploded.

Have you ever heard of ideas for a space elevator?

Could such an elevator climb so high then fall to the other side of the sphere?

[CharonY]

4 hours ago, swansont said:

It’s hard to tell if this is a serious question. Partly because of your “jokes” and partly because you don’t seem to have done a lick of research on the question. Incessant whining, based on ignorance, is hard to take seriously.

The Apollo missions cost more than $300 billion in today’s dollars. (2023)

https://taxfoundation.org/blog/apollo-moon-space-race-industrial-policy-cost/

(original cost was ~$25 billion)

This shows that each mission cost less than $500 million, so even if you shave off the last 6 missions, that’s less than 1/8 of the overall cost (3 billion out of 25)

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1028322/total-cost-apollo-missions/

So the new program is a lot cheaper, because certain things don’t have to be re-discovered, even as the hardware is remade with modern technology. But it’s not simple and it’s not easy.

I actually thought that Apollo was lower, for some reason (maybe saw unadjusted values).. Very interesting.

[Seten]

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

I actually thought that Apollo was lower, for some reason (maybe saw unadjusted values).. Very interesting.

Wait, so they are going with Elon Musk? Isn't he still using chemical rockets unlike the Ruskies?

If you're going to go with a CEO prospect go with me. I have quantum computers and controlled fusion (tapered fusion) blueprints. That thread about a collapsing space drill to fold space isn't how it's done. I realize you can't really "fold space" but there is another effect. 

Edited Saturday at 06:20 AM by Seten

[swansont]

10 hours ago, CharonY said:

I actually thought that Apollo was lower, for some reason (maybe saw unadjusted values).. Very interesting.

Lots of it start-up costs, I imagine. Paying for the R&D paths that didn’t pan out, and a whole lot of testing. 

13 hours ago, Trurl said:

The fact that it is so dangerous makes it hard. The lunar lander has just landed on its top and the SpaceX rocket 🚀 exploded.

It’s hard, in part, because it’s dangerous. Mitigating risk can be difficult and expensive. And has nothing to do with DEI.

13 hours ago, Trurl said:

Have you ever heard of ideas for a space elevator?

Could such an elevator climb so high then fall to the other side of the sphere?

Nothing to do with DEI.

[swansont]

12 hours ago, Seten said:

Wait, so they are going with Elon Musk? Isn't he still using chemical rockets unlike the Ruskies?

Surely you understand what a prototype is, meaning the “Ruskies” aren’t using this technology yet. They’re trying to develop it, and there are no guarantees of success.

[Sensei]

On 3/7/2025 at 5:25 PM, Trurl said:

I am just poking fun of the fact that it is costing a 100 billion dollars.

Anything that is done at someone else's expense (i.e., taxpayers with fat wallets) is done with big price bumps over the retail price. Hence the existence of DOGE.

Let me tell you an anecdote with my own participation. I saw that one government official, in fact on the salary from the university, the oldest in the country, soon to be 700 years old), uses a computer in which there is an HDD. A junk computer that cannot be upgraded, all-in-one with built-in monitor. So I suggested to him that he should go to the nearest computer store and spend the $15 on the smallest 120 GB SSD drive, which would help speed up the whole computer. Disk speed 10x faster. With a small (in fact, minimal) memory barely enough to boot the operating system, then the entire virtual memory would run 10x faster and the computer would gain a “second life”. $15 is not money. That much can be spent on one dinner in a not at all exquisite restaurant. To this he replied that he can't go out and buy anything for the computer, but has to put out a tender on the official website, and whoever gives the lowest price wins. I look at this government website, and there the prices are truly out of space, as if time had stopped 20 years earlier. Poor configurations for exorbitant prices.

A price margin of 2, 5 or 10 times the retail price is not surprising in such contracts with the government. The suckers need to be cut thick. The entire government is acting on it. Nothing people do and they want money for it. That's why this DOGE sent emails to people supposedly working for the government to see if they exist and/or alive..

Ruskies are well-known in methods of stealing state money. The whole Olympiad in Sochi was just to steal. They built everything for much more than it was worth.

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news-archive/2015/sochi-winter-olympics-cost-billions-more-than-estimated-1

Table comparing the difference in Olympic costs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_Olympic_Games

 

[CharonY]

2 hours ago, Sensei said:

Anything that is done at someone else's expense (i.e., taxpayers with fat wallets) is done with big price bumps over the retail price. Hence the existence of DOGE.

Let me tell you an anecdote with my own participation. I saw that one government official, in fact on the salary from the university, the oldest in the country, soon to be 700 years old), uses a computer in which there is an HDD. A junk computer that cannot be upgraded, all-in-one with built-in monitor. So I suggested to him that he should go to the nearest computer store and spend the $15 on the smallest 120 GB SSD drive, which would help speed up the whole computer. Disk speed 10x faster. With a small (in fact, minimal) memory barely enough to boot the operating system, then the entire virtual memory would run 10x faster and the computer would gain a “second life”. $15 is not money. That much can be spent on one dinner in a not at all exquisite restaurant. To this he replied that he can't go out and buy anything for the computer, but has to put out a tender on the official website, and whoever gives the lowest price wins. I look at this government website, and there the prices are truly out of space, as if time had stopped 20 years earlier. Poor configurations for exorbitant prices.

A price margin of 2, 5 or 10 times the retail price is not surprising in such contracts with the government. The suckers need to be cut thick. The entire government is acting on it. Nothing people do and they want money for it. That's why this DOGE sent emails to people supposedly working for the government to see if they exist and/or alive..

Ruskies are well-known in methods of stealing state money. The whole Olympiad in Sochi was just to steal. They built everything for much more than it was worth.

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news-archive/2015/sochi-winter-olympics-cost-billions-more-than-estimated-1

Table comparing the difference in Olympic costs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_Olympic_Games

 

One of the reasons for strange procurement in government is because they want tons of oversight and do not trust public servant to make judgement calls. The market understands and reacts to these constraints by basically skimming off the top. An issue with things like ghost employees (i.e. non-existent folks on payroll) is that they exist both in private and public sector. And there is the narrative that the public sector is always worse than the private, but in many cases that is not true or data is missing. But what the DOGE folks don't understand are  a) the need critical/essential services b) how governments work and c) the fact that they are too effing inept to be able to make judgement calls.