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Comment by age_bronze | Hacker News Reader

No organization ever managed to land on the moon so far on the first try. My guess is that this won't be any different.

No organization had ever put an orbiter around Mars in their first try. Until Mars Orbiter Mission of ISRO in 2014. I wouldn't rule them out. ;)

https://www.isro.gov.in/mars-orbiter-mission-completes-1000-...

NASA provided deep space navigation and tracking support services to this mission during the non-visible period of the Indian Deep Space Network.

Yes, I'm aware. I actually work close to the Network Integrations Center in NASA. Most space work is collaborative. :)

Maybe they have the benefit of learning from the failures of other countries? Not sure how much space agencies share information with each other.

Interestingly, India is the first country to successfully send a Mars probe on the first attempt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor_1

The US series of surveyor probes landed on the moon on the first try. I think it's reasonable to argue that these were the first US attempts to land on the moon - while the Ranger probes had seismometer capsules with retrorockets, they were meant to crash into the moon at 150 miles per hour and survive.

Hmm this is a really morbid thought but I wonder when we'll see the first person die on the moon. Will it be an astronaut or a civilian? What would be different today if the Apollo 11 crew never came back?

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