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> going to the Moon doesn't really count, and we've since lost that capability again

What we've lost is will. The capability is definitely better today, even though still not affordable enough to fit today's budgets.

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Well I think he means we couldn't just go to the moon next year, even if we wanted to. All the engineers and factories and equipment behind Apollo is scattered or lost. It would basically require starting a whole new moon program from scratch and designing and building entirely new spacecraft, etc.

Indeed, yes, that's what I meant. But Jakub isn't wrong either, we lost the will too. But I thought I addressed that, but apparently not clearly enough.

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