To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, Steam has a sale on

One of my first memories is sitting in a pleasantly dim living room watching a little black and white TV set showing men in spacesuits walking and jumping on the moon for the first time.
Odd to realize that we couldn't do it today. Well, we could, but we'd have to first spend years and billions of dollars to develop and build new Saturn V equivalents. There is a capacity we had in 1969 that doesn't currently exist because we let it lapse.
(Edited to add: That's an odd "we", now that I think about it. I'm Canadian, and we never had the capacity, only the Americans did; while if I go worldwide, I don't know if the Russians might still have some rockets hanging around they could strap together and send to the moon--they never actually did that, but I wouldn't be surprised if an Energia booster could have done it. But perhaps the main spacefaring country had the capacity and lost it)


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 18 July 2019 at 7:49 pm UTC

Everspace has 75% of discount but I doubt that any Linux gamer that wants to call himself that way doesn't have it yet :P

Quoting: Purple Library GuyOne of my first memories is sitting in a pleasantly dim living room watching a little black and white TV set showing men in spacesuits walking and jumping on the moon for the first time.
Odd to realize that we couldn't do it today. Well, we could, but we'd have to first spend years and billions of dollars to develop and build new Saturn V equivalents. There is a capacity we had in 1969 that doesn't currently exist because we let it lapse.
(Edited to add: That's an odd "we", now that I think about it. I'm Canadian, and we never had the capacity, only the Americans did; while if I go worldwide, I don't know if the Russians might still have some rockets hanging around they could strap together and send to the moon--they never actually did that, but I wouldn't be surprised if an Energia booster could have done it. But perhaps the main spacefaring country had the capacity and lost it)

The Russians landed a rocket (Luna 2) on the Moon in 1959. China landed on the far side of the Moon in January this very year and had previously landed a rover on the Moon in 2013.

I think you are a bit American-centric there ;)

edit: and SpaceX launced a Israeli funded lunar lander in February 2019 so the Falcon 9 have the capacity to at least send unmanned space crafts to the Moon.

Long list of landings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing


Last edited by F.Ultra on 18 July 2019 at 11:18 pm UTC

The Europen Space Agency also did some very interesting stuff. They made it happen to LAND a probe on a COMET. It started in 2004 and landed in 2016, after a series of flybys of a number of planets to gain enough speed to accomplish this. It is mind boggling if you think of the planning that has gone into this. I wonder if there was any coverage of that in the US or other regions.


Rosetta on Wikipedia
Flight Path of Rosetta


Last edited by Doc Angelo on 18 July 2019 at 11:42 pm UTC

Quoting: F.UltraThe Russians landed a rocket (Luna 2) on the Moon in 1959.

With people in it?

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: F.UltraThe Russians landed a rocket (Luna 2) on the Moon in 1959.

With people in it?

You might think that Apollo 11 would not have been the first manned Moon landing if that where the case ;). I was referring to your "I don't know if the Russians might still have some rockets hanging around they could strap together and send to the moon--they never actually did that" since the Russians actually did send a rocket to the Moon (and did so several times).

Soon SpaceX will build the Falcon Super Heavy which will have capacity to send crews to both the Moon and Mars so there are still interesting times ahead!

Quoting: chancho_zombie

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: F.UltraThe Russians landed a rocket (Luna 2) on the Moon in 1959.

With people in it?

the Russians got it all wrong we are not going to conquer the universe sending dogs and space monkeys.:D

Don't tell the French :-)

QuoteAnimals had been used in aeronautic exploration since 1783 when the Montgolfier brothers sent a sheep, a duck, and a rooster aloft in a hot air balloon to see if ground-dwelling animals can survive

Quoting: chancho_zombieThe most interesting stuff for us technology enthusiasts is that the Apollo 11 set the basis for the first computers by today standards it's more like a calculator, but nevertheless it was one of the first microchips.

I wonder if it is possible to run Linux on it.:D

the RAM memory is not even bits it's 2048 words.^_^ I don't know it's even slim for damn small linux.

And the ROM was Core Rope Memory, aka they had old ladies knitting 1:s and 0:s with magnetic rope which NASA jokingly called LOL (Little Old Lady) Memory :)

https://authors.library.caltech.edu/5456/1/hrst.mit.edu/hrs/apollo/public/visual3.htm

And here is the source code, it was all written and edited on paper:



Last edited by F.Ultra on 19 July 2019 at 12:34 am UTC

Quoting: chancho_zombieOn the other hand it looks like the Russians didn't have much success with their computers their Argon System weighted 92 kg (202 lb) (the Apollo weigthed 30 kg, or 70 lb) and it was developed on 1969 http://www.computer-museum.ru/english/argon1.htm
The RAM capacity was 512 words. The soviets were always playing catch up.

Considering Russia had always been considered a really backward country by everyone in Europe, they didn't do that bad. And they stayed serious about space far longer than the Americans did; even when their economy imploded in the 90s they still did their best to limp along (which is why the US ended up having to hitch rides with them for years until Spacex got off the ground). I think the Russians still have a place in their heart for old fashioned manned space exploration that runs a lot deeper than the North American equivalent.
Meanwhile I suspect the Chinese don't really care--they're just doing it so they can say "We're a leading country now, we've got space capabilities like the big boys, so there!"

Quoting: Purple Library GuyMeanwhile I suspect the Chinese don't really care--they're just doing it so they can say "We're a leading country now, we've got space capabilities like the big boys, so there!"

That's also the story behind the current push to the moon by India. It's not so very different than the political motivations behind the original US/Soviet push to the moon either. Personally I couldn't care less about the national motivations to fund space exploration, well as long as unlike a significant segment of the US they don't include massive defunding efforts, provided the people doing the actual work are motivated by the science and/or the steady march of human progress more than by the jingoistic competitive BS that moves national policy most places that try.