Sure we still know how to build rocket engines. But we are also reverse-engineering technologies of the 1960s for incorporation into modern systems [1] presumably because the oral and/or written history has been partially lost.
I also think of JPL -- if we stopped landing robots on Mars and other planets for decades, and the veterans of such missions had retired or expired, how difficult would it be to restart this capability from scratch?
Comments
Sure we still know how to build rocket engines. But we are also reverse-engineering technologies of the 1960s for incorporation into modern systems [1] presumably because the oral and/or written history has been partially lost.
I also think of JPL -- if we stopped landing robots on Mars and other planets for decades, and the veterans of such missions had retired or expired, how difficult would it be to restart this capability from scratch?
[1] http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/f1_sls.html