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NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

(www.cnn.com)
404 points voxleone | 6 comments | 21 Oct 25 12:58 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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bahmboo ◴[21 Oct 25 19:15 UTC] No.45660320[source]▶
"The president and I want to get to the moon in this president's term" - Sean Duffy NASA administrator.

A scary way to set a schedule on a complex project with lives at stake. They don't care though.

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WalterBright ◴[21 Oct 25 19:23 UTC] No.45660416[source]▶
Having a deadline is how things get done. With no deadline, nothing gets accomplished.
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bahmboo ◴[21 Oct 25 19:26 UTC] No.45660462[source]▶
This is a political deadline with no grounding in reality.
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oceanplexian ◴[21 Oct 25 19:37 UTC] No.45660629[source]▶
JFK proposed we go to the Moon in 1962. We did it in 1969, 7 years later.
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mikkupikku ◴[21 Oct 25 20:02 UTC] No.45660956[source]▶
They also killed three astronauts in the process and had to stop the program and reevaluate their whole approach to safety.

The risk of people dying is sometimes an acceptable risk. We accept it every time a firefighter goes into a burning building. Is a national vanity project like Moon missions worth the risk? Maybe then, when it was novel and inspirational, but now, when it's a retro throwback and the only reason we're doing it is to avoid losing face to the communist Chinese?

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1. kace91 ◴[21 Oct 25 20:49 UTC] No.45661515[source]▶
>and the only reason we're doing it is to avoid losing face to the communist

Totally unlike the first time.

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2. mikkupikku ◴[21 Oct 25 20:52 UTC] No.45661542[source]▶
Unlike the first time, it isn't new and isn't a technological flex. The payoff from the first time was marginal, measured mainly in the children it inspired to pursue STEM. This time, does anybody even care?
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3. kace91 ◴[21 Oct 25 21:39 UTC] No.45662056[source]▶
I know, not disagreeing! You just left the ball bouncing and I couldn’t help writing the comment.
4. busssard ◴[22 Oct 25 08:30 UTC] No.45666279[source]▶
i mean maintinaing a Base on the moon is definitely a technological flex. getting there not as much. Still challenging. Is it worth the risk and money? not sure, depends what our plan with this is. As a way to launch moon manufactured space probes? maybe.
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5. mikkupikku ◴[22 Oct 25 09:49 UTC] No.45666826{3}[source]▶
Maintaining a base in the Moon absolutely isn't going to happen. SLS is such a pig NASA can't even afford another test with Orion.
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6. busssard ◴[22 Oct 25 14:49 UTC] No.45669983{4}[source]▶
i mean it surely will not happen with SLS, but maintinaing a moonbase WOULD be the technological feat