India Acknowledges Lunar Lander Crashed
npr.org
npr.org
Landing on the moon without a human at the controls is even harder.
You should read Peter theil's book zero to one then. In the book, he highlights how the culture have changed from taking deterministic risks to placing non-deterministic bets all over the place to minimize risks. This pessimism according to him came due to the numerous bubbles like dot-com bubble, the real estate crisis, and the clean energy bubble that have gone bust due to over optimism.
If you had the chance to go to the moon but knew you had about a 10% chance of success (the odds improved substantially with later missions), would you do it? And keep in mind, you literally watched your colleagues - the original crew that was supposed to be the first on the moon - burn to death.
For all intents and purposes, going to the Moon was a military campaign. We had to do it, even if we killed people in the process (the Russians killed way more people than we did in their attempts). Americans (I cannot speak for other countries and cultures) just don't have that mindset anymore, for better and for worse.
That doesn't seem very plausible, given that six missions brought astronauts to the moon (plus one that famously failed but returning all the crew to earth alive).
If the initial odds were under 1/6, what brought them so much higher in the following missions that you had seven in a row without loss of human life?
Since I never actually mentioned it, my source is a documentary on Netflix (I don't remember which one, and it very well may no longer be there). Buzz Aldrin was describing how they were testing components, and one part in particular was tested 6 times and failed 3 times. There were some other parts he mentioned, and when you multiplied the cascading failures it came out to a 1/6 chance of success (he didn't calculate that number, and he mentioned there were other parts as well where he didn't list the failure rates - my 10% number is a fuzzy guess).
I admit memories are fuzzy, but I distinctly remember him saying there was a single component with a 50% failure rate. I assume they upgraded this part (as well as others) for future missions.
Also let me be clear, the moon landing conspiracy theories have been debunked pretty thoroughly, and the landing has been documented in painstaking detail, but we should be mindful that such an incredible accomplishment will inspire incredulity. Like how some people think the great pyramids were made by aliens because how could such an ancient civilization build them. Our reaction to conspiracy theorists should be to debunk them and educate them, not to call them crazy. In this case, they aren’t crazy, because if someone tells you they went to the moon and returned, you are right to ask questions. (I’m not talking about bad-faith people who will deny all the evidence)
I doesn't seem that support for that can be found in Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_ac...
"not included are alleged unreported Soviet space accidents, which are considered fringe theories by a majority of historians."
Maybe you refer to the overall conditions of all those involved in the projects (construction workers etc)?
Otherwise, I agree with your premise of a military campaign, the moon landing just wouldn't have happened without all the earlier development of nuclear missiles. Everything about the rockets, their propulsion and their navigation was first developed to successfully bomb the planned targets with the nuclear and thermonuclear warheads.
This is what I meant, but I worded it very poorly. I appreciate the correction :)
The rise of the environmental movement made people feel like they are harmful just by existing, so people should "duck their head" as it were.
i.e if you want to do something better make sure it has no impact on anything.
Not having a human to support or return massively simplifies the process.
Are you saying that the first lunar landings where made without humans or any sort of computer? I think the first landings without computers or humans were mostly impacts, not actual landings where the vessel is still intact afterwards.
The thing is, sending things to the moon is part of that fight too. Pouring every last cent into say, food, isn't the best approach. To build an economy to greater heights, there has to be demand and motivation for great things. Think of all of the industries and support that is stoaked as part of an effort like that. There's downward effects that ripple outwards for many, many degrees. New problems to be solved from just "how do we build a better flange?" to "how do we feed a staff located at a remote site?". I'm not talking trickle down economics here, but real impacts on a nation's economy. And a government can do this very effectivally (provided it does so with integrity).
The other part to this of course, is that there has to be something to take pride in, something to point to as an accomplishment, something visible and concrete. Something your kids can aim for and strive to become. As important as tackling say, poverty, or homelessness is, those are long term struggles that are hard to point to and say "see, that!" except over long periods of time.
So, really, I wouldn't feel bad they tried. They should. Yes, India has many problems to solve. And there's direct ways they can and should tackle those. But pursuing endeavors like this is important to, and has an impact on those immediate problems as well.
I genuinely hope they keep trying and we (the rest of the world citizenry interested in pushing mankind's exploration starward) hope they succeed next time. Space travel is hard. Really hard. But they'll get there, and the planet will be better for it.
(P.S. Read the link to that letter above again.)