US Moon Lander fails as Japan succeeds

Team Comedy (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Noor Al-Sibai (Futurism); Dick Speed (The Register)

NASA’s new moon lander is turning into a disaster (Futurism/msn.com)

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Stars suddenly visible? That pale blue dot is BS.

Once upon a time a group of American scientists went to an international tech conference in Tokyo, bragging about how great capitalism is for scientific advances.

• While we were raised to believe that an odyssey is a "journey," it is actually an Ancient Greek word for "agony," according to Homeric translator and author Emily Wilson.
• NASA's big reveal: Odysseus lunar lander captured in alleged orbit photo and images before it dies

CGI or artist's rendition of Japan's SLIM

But then they saw what the Japanese had built with government support to land on the moon and rove around. They were abashed, so they bragged about future plans for their next project after conquering the Moon.

"What's that?" the Japanese scientists asked the Americans, curious about getting to the next celestial body. "Mars, Venus?"

 "The Sun!" the Americans boasted.

The Japanese were dumbfounded at America's great boldness.

"But how," one Japanese engineer inquired, "will you overcome the heat?"

The American team scoffed, "Ha, that's easy! We'll be landing at night."

The Japanese team giggled behind the American team's back, "We'll concentrate on the Moon."

"Whatever," the U.S. team dismissed the other science teams, "we've already conquered the Moon! We can do it again easy. We have Elon Musk!"

"Oh thoughtless mortals! ever blind to fate,

Too soon dejected, and too soon elate!

Sudden, these honours shall be snatch'd away,

And curs'd for ever this victorious day.

For lo! the board with cups and spoons is crown'd,

The [walkies] crackle, and the mill turns round.

On shining altars of JAPAN they raise

The silver lamp; the [SLIM lander doth] blaze."

-Alexander Pope, "The Rape of the Lock"

• Japan’s moon lander SLIM survives 2-week lunar night after landing, wakes up. responds to commands, sends photos (The Guardian)
• JAXA: Moon lander SLIM comes back to life and resumes mission as USA lays limp upon the dusty surface, helpless and embarrassed (BBC)

Look, you can even see the curvature of our moon

The private capitalist company Intuitive Machines -- backed by NASA technology, boosted by Elon Musk's private SpaceX Corporation launcher -- has failed miserably in its propaganda campaign of pretending to land on the moon a second time 52 years after putting the USSR to shame with fake footage of a first landing. What can we do? I know! Let's throw more money at the problem. That fixes everything. Who cares that everyone is trying to claim the lunar surface or that the Earth's satellite is hollow, watery, and full of enslaved beings! We're cleared to take the surface, if we can get to it. And Eric Dubay says we can't, even if it's actually very close and smaller than we've been told.

• LANDER BLUES: NASA's new Moon lander may have touched down in one piece, but the story keeps getting more embarrassing and underwhelming for the space agency. Intuitive Machines, the company that built the Odysseus lander, said in a series of updates posted on its website and on X (Twitter) that although the craft is online and beaming images back to Earth, its operators believe it won't be able to keep up communications for much longer [as the battery dies and fails to get charged by solar panels].
• Machine breaks through digging HS2’s longest tunnel
• American Odysseus probe moonwalking on the edge of battery life after [tipping over] (Dick Speed, The Register, 2/27/24) Controllers estimate 10-20 hours remain for Intuitive Machines lander. Intuitive Machines' Odysseus Lunar Lander is facing another countdown. This time the question is how much longer it can continue to operate until it exhausts what remains of the battery life.… On Monday, flight controllers reckoned they had until Tuesday morning before communication with the lander [died and] ceased [until Japan's SLIM can come by and give it a nudge, lift, or something]. At the time of writing, controllers hoped there might be as much as 10-20 hours of battery life remaining. While the landing has been called a success, surviving a few days on the lunar surface is far from the original plan of seven days or more before the lunar night arrived and Odysseus ceased operations. The question now is exactly how much work the stricken lander can actually do on the Moon, considering it is on its side -- or "on the wonk," as one space agency insider memorably told us to put it more nicely -- with its battery life fast depleting. According to Intuitive Machines, the lander has "efficiently sent payload science data and imagery in furtherance of the Company's mission objectives." More