I think people tend to romanticize old technology because it did so much with so little. My dad always makes fun of these people by saying "They don't build 'em like they used to: They build 'em better."
I don't entirely agree with his sentiment but it's still for the most part true. I have no doubt that, given a proper budget and mandate, NASA could once again build a heavy lift vehicle like the Saturn V. However, I think we've lost a certain elegance that was present in that age. Sure, our technology is much more capable now, but it's definitely not as 'charming', for lack of a better word.
I think the point that I'm trying to get at is this: I used to commute on NJTransit, and every day I would get into crappy "modern" brushed aluminum railcars with a freight locomotive pulling them. And one day, while I was waiting, a refurbished Pennsylvania Railroad train rolled through with its beautiful shiny brown paintjob, elegant railcars, and even people in period garb. I have no idea what it was for - it didn't stop at our station - but it was much more pretty than anything we see today. My dad was there too, and for once he actually said without irony, "They don't build 'em like they used to."
But who knows, maybe fifty years from now people will see us the same way we see them.
The New York subway occasionally runs historic trains. They're kind of obnoxiously loud and rattly. I assume they were slightly better when they were younger, but I'll take air conditioning over ceiling fans whenever I can.
Agreed. I think one of the key things to recognize about this sort of thing is that while, yes, we could do it "better" with today's tech than we could have with the Saturn V, that's unlikely to mean "cheaper". A new heavy-lift system that performs better than Saturn V will, in the absence of a total revolution in technology, cost more even after adjusting for inflation. Because to squeeze that extra 40% performance out of the same amount of weight and fuel, we'll be putting in 80% more work by 50% more people who are paid 30% more using 120% more expensive materials. The reason being that these programs don't operate on mass production. Each of these launch vehicles is very labor intensive to produce. The only real way around those numbers is to go for massive economies of scale, but then you're talking trillions of dollars spent on tens or hundreds of thousands of launch vehicles, but that's the only way to get to true cost savings.
"I think we've lost a certain elegance that was present in that age."
Or a certain cold-war inspired desire for robust rocket technology. Yes, the engineers were working for the sake of a moon mission and what not, but the domestic political motivations were never exploration for its own sake.
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I think people tend to romanticize old technology because it did so much with so little. My dad always makes fun of these people by saying "They don't build 'em like they used to: They build 'em better."
I don't entirely agree with his sentiment but it's still for the most part true. I have no doubt that, given a proper budget and mandate, NASA could once again build a heavy lift vehicle like the Saturn V. However, I think we've lost a certain elegance that was present in that age. Sure, our technology is much more capable now, but it's definitely not as 'charming', for lack of a better word.
I think the point that I'm trying to get at is this: I used to commute on NJTransit, and every day I would get into crappy "modern" brushed aluminum railcars with a freight locomotive pulling them. And one day, while I was waiting, a refurbished Pennsylvania Railroad train rolled through with its beautiful shiny brown paintjob, elegant railcars, and even people in period garb. I have no idea what it was for - it didn't stop at our station - but it was much more pretty than anything we see today. My dad was there too, and for once he actually said without irony, "They don't build 'em like they used to."
But who knows, maybe fifty years from now people will see us the same way we see them.
The New York subway occasionally runs historic trains. They're kind of obnoxiously loud and rattly. I assume they were slightly better when they were younger, but I'll take air conditioning over ceiling fans whenever I can.
That said, there's something to be said for the inhumanity of stark modern designs: http://instagram.com/p/egILDiQAS2/
compared to the older ones: http://instagram.com/p/gbwdmTwAZM/
I'll take working ceiling fans over non-working air conditioning any day.
I'll take the legibility of inhuman, stark designs any day.
But... Helvetica!!
Plz n00b, http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/fdi/wayfinding-sans-pro/
;)
Agreed. I think one of the key things to recognize about this sort of thing is that while, yes, we could do it "better" with today's tech than we could have with the Saturn V, that's unlikely to mean "cheaper". A new heavy-lift system that performs better than Saturn V will, in the absence of a total revolution in technology, cost more even after adjusting for inflation. Because to squeeze that extra 40% performance out of the same amount of weight and fuel, we'll be putting in 80% more work by 50% more people who are paid 30% more using 120% more expensive materials. The reason being that these programs don't operate on mass production. Each of these launch vehicles is very labor intensive to produce. The only real way around those numbers is to go for massive economies of scale, but then you're talking trillions of dollars spent on tens or hundreds of thousands of launch vehicles, but that's the only way to get to true cost savings.
We should really pour that money into a space elevator...
The problem, as far as I last knew, is that we do not know of any materials strong enough!
Nanotubes are strong enough, but we haven't gotten them to sufficient lengths (we need ~1-2 meter nanotubes iirc)
Or then have each vehicle doing multiple flights...
You might want to check out what SpaceX is doing.
"I think we've lost a certain elegance that was present in that age."
Or a certain cold-war inspired desire for robust rocket technology. Yes, the engineers were working for the sake of a moon mission and what not, but the domestic political motivations were never exploration for its own sake.
They build software far worse than they used to, even if it does take longer to build. Maybe that is why this story got upvoted so much?