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'Space Is Hard. There Is No Excuse For Pretending It's Easy'
mardi 1 juillet 2025, 09:00 , par Slashdot
![]() Let's be blunt: 50 years ago, we did this. We sent humans to the moon, not once but repeatedly, and brought them back. With less computational power than your phone, using analog systems and slide rules, we achieved feats of incredible precision, reliability and coordination. Today's failures, even when dressed up as 'learning opportunities,' raises the obvious question: Why are we struggling to do now what we once achieved decades ago with far more complexity and far less technology? Until very recently, the failure rate of private lunar exploration efforts underscored this reality. Over the past two decades, not a single private mission had fully succeeded -- until last March when Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander touched down on the moon. It marked the first fully successful soft landing by a private company. That mission deserves real credit. But that credit comes with important context: It took two decades of false starts, crashes and incomplete landings -- from Space IL's Beresheet to iSpace's Hakuto-R and Astrobotic's Peregrine -- before even one private firm delivered on the promise of lunar access. The prevailing industry answer -- 'we need to innovate for lower cost' -- rings hollow. What's happening now isn't innovation; it's aspiration masquerading as disruption... 'This is not a call for a retreat to Cold War models or Apollo-era budgets,' writes Eberhart, in closing. 'It's a call for seriousness. If we're truly entering a new space age, then it needs to be built on sound engineering, transparent economics and meaningful technical leadership -- not PR strategy. Let's stop pretending that burning money in orbit is a business model.' 'The dream of a sustainable, entrepreneurial space ecosystem is still alive. But it won't happen unless we stop celebrating hype and start demanding results. Until then, the real innovation we need is not in spacecraft -- it's in accountability.' Robert N. Eberhart, PhD, is an associate professor of management and the faculty director of the Ahlers Center for International Business at the Knauss School of Business of University of San Diego. He is the author of several academic publications and books. He is also part of Oxford University's Smart Space Initiative and contributed to Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory. Before his academic career, Prof. Eberhart founded and ran a successful company in Japan. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/2249225/space-is-hard-there-is-no-excuse-for-pretending-...
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Date Actuelle
mar. 1 juil. - 14:37 CEST
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