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Comment by ipnon | Hacker News Reader

13 centuries passed between the construction of the Roman Pantheon and the Florence Cathedral. The technique to construct an unreinforced concrete dome was lost in Italy until the diligent research of Filippo Brunelleschi. We forget the engineering capabilities of our forebears to our own peril. To those who may say I am picking on this incident unfairly, that I am making a mountain of a molehill, I would only ask you to share whether you feel more comfortable riding a Boeing airplane built this year or built a decade ago.

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> The technique to construct an unreinforced concrete dome was lost in Italy until the diligent research of Filippo Brunelleschi

So... I was curious what technique that was, and according to Wikipedia, Florence Cathedral is a brick dome. I would not have expected anyone to use the phrase "unreinforced concrete dome" based on what I've seen on there, and indeed the word "concrete" doesn't appear there once in the article.

I would argue that we havent forgotten how to do spacecraft or even landers. We have the documentation and plenty of engineers in the workforce that have had success in landings, its just that its really hard to do these things.

And on top of that we are doing this in a totally new way with the rise of the 'New Space' approach.

"It's important to remember that this was the first launch of ULA's new rocket, the first launch BO's new engine, and the first launch of anything for Astrobotic. This was a very experimental launch with a payload only slightly more serious than when SpaceX launched a car on Falcon Heavy's inaugural launch. They will all learn a lot and try again."

- eagerpace

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38927338

Falsely attributed quote - the poster is eagerpace not edgarpace :)

Fake news everywhere!!! Thanks :)

Eh, NASA has been losing interplanetary landers for as long as its been launching them. The original Surveyor program, the pre-Apollo effort to land robotic probes on the moon, lost 2 out of 7.

I don't think there's any evidence here for decreasing ability to engineer space probes.

We can't figure out how the Egyptians (or Aztecs or Maya) built their pyramids. Stonehenge is an engineering mystery. The heads on Easter Island are likewise a riddle to moderns.

Indeed, it's well-documented that we have no idea how to reproduce a Saturn V booster at this point -- too much documentation, expertise, and manpower have been lost in the intervening years.

I'd reckon that there's more knowledge and skills that are lost, intergenerationally, than we gain through R&D.

We can't figure out how the Egyptians built the pyramids (although there are theories), but we definitely know how to build pyramids. It's fairly easy if anyone wants to pay for one.

We can't what now?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43V9RTpnxbk

Airplanes are not places where I ever expect to find comfort.

I take the bus and don't really need domes for anything.

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