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>It’s just as absurd today as it was in the 60s.

Nah. You can argue that the goal "land on the moon" is artificial, but it being artificial doesn't make it fake or abstract. If you're the first to achieve it then you're the first, and that's it. What does it prove if you're able to repeat it fifty years later? You didn't have to invent anything new (obviously), and you're certainly not learning anything new.

Now, if you're not able to repeat it at all, that does say something. But if it takes you a few years longer, well, so what? It's not a race anymore, because it's already been won, by the US of fifty years ago.

The winner of the race to Mars is still undecided, though.

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It feels arbitrary to decide we can’t have a Space Race 2 (Space Harder) but we have Olympics every two years and Super Bowls and World Series and all that every year.

I’ve got to assume I’m misunderstanding the objection because it feels ridiculous to overstir the oxygen over semantics. Do we just need to call it Space Race 2?

A space race isn't a sport, it's a technological and scientific challenge. You can't invent the same technology twice, unless the idea is completely forgotten.

Also unlike sports, space races are massively expensive and it's untenable to forever go from one to the next.

Well, you could try to raise the challenge. Eg do it on a limited budget, or establish a permanent base, etc.

However I agree that manned space flight is a giant money pit with not much to show for. It should come out of our entertainment budget, not eat into our science budget.

If you want to do science in space, go unmanned.

The space race was not just about inventing, though. It was about doing.

You can do the same thing twice, and you can also lose the ability to do something.

The ability to do the thing is what is really being maintained and demonstrated.

Every country has the technology to go to the moon - it's well established now. But who can actually make it happen? That's a huge organizational, human, financial, industrial challenge. And people do notice when only one country can do it.

Yeah, I already covered that when I said that if you're not able to do it at all it does say something.

>But who can actually make it happen? That's a huge organizational, human, financial, industrial challenge. And people do notice when only one country can do it.

On the other side of the coin, it's such a huge expense just for bragging rights, that for any country it's not worth undertaking. It's much more preferable to just give the appearance that you could totally do it if you wanted to, but you just don't feel like it. I'd argue that the US is currently failing at this, but until anyone else flies a manned mission to the moon, it doesn't say anything.

You have to invent the same thing twice because the original tools and materials aren’t used anymore.

And most of the people who actually did it aren't alive anymore. A corollary from some other recent tech news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45649178

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."

> What does it prove if you're able to repeat it fifty years later? You didn't have to invent anything new (obviously), and you're certainly not learning anything new.

Despite you throwing the word "obviously" at it, that is an extremely untrue claim. Even if we hadn't forgotten a lot of the details, we're solving new engineering challenges with modern material science and manufacturing, and learning a lot of new things about spacecraft design. There is a ton of invention in doing another landing after so long.

What I said was that you didn't have to invent anything new. And yeah, that is obvious. If you've already figured out how to build a Saturn V, to build a second one you just do the same steps you did for the first one. You don't have to use new techniques just because new ones exist.

We have lost a bunch of old techniques.

But even as stated, I don't think your argument holds up. "What does it prove if you're able to repeat it fifty years later? You didn't have to invent anything new (obviously), and you're certainly not learning anything new."

Even if it was technically possible to not invent anything new, that path is not going to be taken. It would be even more expensive and worse in every way. Nobody is going to launch a rocket with just 60s/70s technology ever again. A new moon launch will have lots of invention and learning, and claiming we can still do it does need proof.

>We have lost a bunch of old techniques.

Like I said, you didn't have to invent anything new. In this case you put yourself in the awkward situation of having to reinvent the wheel by your own incompetence. So if you actually do do it, what have you proven?

>It would be even more expensive and worse in every way.

Worse and more expensive than what? The only rocket that has flown men to the moon is Saturn V. What exactly are you comparing it to?

Let me make this point very clear with no distractions:

The "you're certainly not learning anything new" argument only works if we do reuse old techniques. "You don't have to invent anything new" is not sufficient to support the argument.

> Worse and more expensive than what?

Trying to reinvent old techniques and rebuild a bunch of machines and factories that used those techniques would be worse than inventing new things. You'd have to deliberately choose to not learn anything and to waste extra money in pursuit of that choice.

> The only rocket that has flown men to the moon is Saturn V. What exactly are you comparing it to?

We don't have a time machine, so the contenders are "2020s rocket with techniques invented before 1970" or "2020s rocket with techniques invented before 2030".

> So if you actually do do it, what have you proven?

If you actually do it, in a reasonable way, then in addition to the inventions and learning and any proof to do with that, you prove you can go to the moon, because saying "oh of course we can, we could use the old method" is not a particularly strong claim as industries change and workers retire over the course of more than half a century.

>to build a second one you just do the same steps you did for the first one.

Are you in manufacturing? Because when following perfectly mature process, defect still happens.

Then, how do you even "do the same steps for the first one"? After 50y, lots have lost.

> You didn't have to invent anything new

Yes, you do.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2015/12/11/how-we-lost-th...

It doesn't make it new just because you've forgotten how to make it.

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