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After half-century absence, U.S. returns to moon as lunar lander Odysseus touches down:
America has returned to the moon after a 52-year absence. The unmanned Odysseus spacecraft touched down on the lunar surface shortly before 6:30 p.m. EST Thursday.
"We can confirm without a doubt that our equipment is on the surface and we are on the moon. Odysseus has found a new home," said Dr. Tim Crain, mission director of the IM-1, the first American private venture to send a module to the moon.
It's the first time the United States has had a new presence on the lunar surface since NASA's Apollo 11 in July 1969.
The Intuitive Machines Odysseus lunar lander, nicknamed "Odie" or "IM-1," settled on the moon's surface after a day's long trek but immediately began experiencing communication problems, preventing the transmission of data.
The general tone of this story here and elsewhere seems to be that this heralds a new era of a commercial space industry, but until one can show that there is any commercial value to being on the Moon besides directly supporting NASA/ESA/etc., is this a watershed moment, or is this just slightly expanding the potential NASA/ESA/etc. contractor pool? --hubie
Previously: Private US Moon Lander Successfully Launches 24 Hours After Flight Was Delayed
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday February 23 2024, @01:04PM (5 children)
Apollo was deeply reliant on contractors for the LEM and other vehicles... I don't see this as any different, until the commercial entities start specifying, and funding, mission objectives. Until then, they are still contractors.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday February 23 2024, @01:15PM
Same line, different angle
The watershed moment was late 50-ies early-60-ies. Which, you know? is more like water-under-the-bridge today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Friday February 23 2024, @05:17PM (3 children)
It's hard to know yet. The represents private organizational ability, which we're seeing become more widespread. Looking back, this could be a footnote or an early baby step as things fundamentally change. Falcon re-use has already made multi-thousand sat constellations viable. I'd bet starship changes things again once it's in regular operation, especially once ULA or someone else steps up with a real competitor.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday February 23 2024, @05:42PM (2 children)
> represents private organizational ability
NASA has been a collection of private contractors largely independently delivering their own components of the overall mission system since forever. I believe the Apollo LEM was just about entirely provided by Lockheed Martin...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Friday February 23 2024, @09:46PM (1 child)
Nope, it was built by Grumman. https://www.nasa.gov/history/50-years-ago-the-apollo-lunar-module/ [nasa.gov]
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday February 23 2024, @09:53PM
Cool, and not only was it produced by Grumman, but it was designed by a Grumman engineer (and I suspect more than a few supporting engineers at Grumman as well):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Kelly_(aerospace_engineer) [wikipedia.org]
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by khallow on Friday February 23 2024, @01:46PM (5 children)
Right now, not much is going on. My take though is that the Moon could have a significant early industry once there's fueling of vehicles in Earth orbit. While the prices have gone down considerably, it's still somewhere around $1-2k per kg to put anything in LEO. Moon could beat that. Second, space tourism. I know a lot of people aren't impressed by billionaire tourists in space, but their money could kickstart that as well. Someone has to demonstrate the technology to support lunar tourism before it'll be funded.
A third thing is that the Moon is near unique in that one can work on the Moon without actually being on the Moon via teleoperation. It's a bit over two seconds of round trip communication delay consistently (that is, you send a signal, such as a command to move something and then it takes two seconds for returning signals to show you the results of that command). No other large body in the Solar System is anywhere near that close. Aside from some asteroids, Venus is the next closest large body. At closest approach (42 million km), it's a bit under 5 minutes of round trip communication delay. Mars at 56 million km closest approach is next with a round trip delay of over six minutes. Of course, when these planets aren't right next to the Earth, the round trip delays can be much greater, two hours for Mars (ignoring the challenging problem of routing signals around the Sun).
So the Moon can tap in a useful way the huge labor pool of Earth in a way that almost nothing else can in the Solar System.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday February 23 2024, @03:55PM (1 child)
And when the lunar residents get mad at the financial exploitation the Earthlings are imposing on them, what are they going to do, throw rocks at us [wikipedia.org]?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday February 23 2024, @04:28PM
So the trick is to get them to throw the right kind of rocks, you know, the rocks that we want. And then the robots just have to go round and pick them up. I've got a business idea.....
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by agr on Friday February 23 2024, @04:05PM (1 child)
Absolutely correct. I can’t think of anything that humans can do on the Moon that couldn’t be done more cheaply by robots, perhaps by a factor of 100. They can survive in vacuum, work continuously, and don’t need to be brought back to earth. The humans controlling them can work in shifts and go home after work, with zero personal risk. Macros can be developed (“pick up that rock”) and tested on Earth before uploading. Robots could be designed to be repaired by other robots. Only the electronics needs protection from radiation and even if a severe Solar storm wiped out all the electronics, a few fresh robots with a supply of spares could get everything running again.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 23 2024, @04:37PM
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Friday February 23 2024, @04:34PM
We'll have folks on the Moon for PR, and to develop tech for resource exploitation further out. It won't make private financial sense until advancing tech produces a new niche where it's cheaper/better to do it. (other than a handful of folks for the unanticipated once there is significant automated presence).
I'm betting there will be something that drives settlement eventually. It may just be because the prices fall and it's cheap because we build multiple space elevators and orbital mass launchers. At that point - vacation destination and resort staff would be enough...
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday February 23 2024, @02:39PM (8 children)
This must be a bit of a headache for all those fake moon-landing people. Or is this one fake to? Also are all the things where we left the last time around or have the ancient aliens been there and moved things around?
(Score: 3, Funny) by GlennC on Friday February 23 2024, @02:56PM
LOL...you're one of those people who believes in the Moon!....LOL
/sarc
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Friday February 23 2024, @03:33PM (4 children)
<no-sarcasm>
I've come to accept that we now live in a world where some people simply cannot distinguish reality from outlandish fantasy or outright lies. I just don't engage with them, except to make fun of them.
</no-sarcasm>
I would point out the impossibility of landing something on the moon. Some people mistakenly believe that the phases of the moon are caused by the Earth's shadow falling on the moon. That is impossible because the moon's gravity is only 1/6 of Earth's gravity and therefore the moon is unable to pull Earth's shadow to the lunar surface. If the moon cannot pull the Earth's shadow to the lunar surface, how could it possibly exert any force upon a spacecraft.
Q. Why do we have phases of the moon?
A. Because when the moon is full and bright, it shines all its light out until it is empty. Then the moon must sit on the charger for a while until it charges back up to a full moon again. During this cycle, the light within the moon has plenty of time to ferment properly. (so don't look at the moon for too long!)
Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday February 23 2024, @03:38PM (3 children)
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday February 23 2024, @04:16PM
I started to reply here, but then thought better of it.
I decided it might be more important to spread the word in this journal article. [soylentnews.org]
Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday February 23 2024, @04:19PM (1 child)
I change out my sigs very regularly.
I only worry that if SN were to disappear I have so many future sigs that would never see the light of day.
Thank goodness new keyboards are only about $4 at Micro Center in an aisle end cap basket.
Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 23 2024, @04:51PM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 23 2024, @04:47PM
(Score: 3, Touché) by DadaDoofy on Sunday February 25 2024, @06:53PM
Have you cooked up a new conspiracy theory in which all the unmanned missions to the moon were faked? The only conspiracy theories I've ever heard or seen about faked moon landings involve NASA's Apollo program, which consisted entirely of manned missions.
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Friday February 23 2024, @06:32PM (1 child)
"The spacecraft was launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9"
<pops open Dom Perignon/>
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2024, @09:46PM
That is a very interesting takeaway from this story.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday February 23 2024, @09:26PM
The "general tone" that commercial interests can exploit situations better and more efficiently than any other kind of organization is getting kind of tired, don't you think? The transcontinental railroads may be the closest match to the current situation and dreams. The railroads were building into territory inhabited only very lightly by natives, with the expectation that by making settlement easier, they would attract settlers who would then need the services of the railroad. It mostly worked. But that's not all that close a match. Settling the western US was far easier than settling the Moon will be. So severe are the difficulties of colonizing the Moon that it may never be done. May never be profitable.
What does that leave? Mining? Do all the smelting and processing on the Moon, and send only the most valuable materials to Earth? Yeah, if we had a space elevator. Without that, the expense of transport is too high to make that worthwhile. Do they suppose they can drive down the transport costs to the point it is worthwhile?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2024, @01:21AM
Latest news [apnews.com] is reporting the lander is toppled onto its side. Still alive though.