Re:Starship will attempt a launch this weekend
by bell-cot on Tuesday November 14, 2023 @05:40AM
(#38261587)
Kinda like WWII battleships didn't really exist - it was all faked - because the U.S. no longer has the industrial capacity to actually build battleships?
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Re:Starship will attempt a launch this weekend
by wheelerof4te on Tuesday November 14, 2023 @07:12AM
(#38262325)
There are now destroyers, frigates and aircraft carries that do the same job more efficiently.
I can't really say how we now have a better rocket that can send people to the Moon.
Re:Starship will attempt a launch this weekend
by DocTomoe on Tuesday November 14, 2023 @07:34AM
(#38262530)
Neither destroyers, frigates or aircraft carriers do what a battleship did - delivering projectiles the size of a human some 15 kilometres away in a ballistic arch with some precision.
We do have rocketry that is a lot more advanced than the Saturn V ever was - but it simply cannot, and does not do what the Saturn V did.
Re:Starship will attempt a launch this weekend
by bell-cot on Tuesday November 14, 2023 @08:35AM
(#38263104)
> ...that do the same job more efficiently.
I could argue details - but notice that, after battleships were no longer so important, it remained a critical priority for the U.S. Navy to be the "Reigning Superpower" on the world's oceans:
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading...
Vs. how interested was the U.S. Gov't in retaining "can go to the moon" capabilities after Apollo 17 (in Dec'72)? Can you name any post-Apollo, pre-2000 manned-moon-mission NASA programs which received serious funding?