ELI5 Why are most Americans news outlets keep saying we are flying to the moon? When in all actuality we are flying around it?

67 points · 56 comments · view on lemmy.world

56 Comments

Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe · 63 pts · 142d (11 replies)

Because we're flying to the moon.

Plus from a news standpoint it sells better than to say "around".

Don't get hungup on this, it's just part of the process of eventually landing.

Would you say Voyager didn't go to Jupiter because it didn't land?

Patnou@lemmy.world · -10 pts · 142d

No I would say Voyager is doing a Flyby....sorry kind of nerd came out.

wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world · -18 pts · 142d (9 replies)

I mean, technically speaking, if you didn't go to the place, you didn't visit the place.

That would be like a 6th grade boy saying that he totally got laid because he sat together with Jessica at McDonald's for dinner. Like, just because you got closer than anyone else doesn't mean you went all the way.

GameOverFlow@lemmy.zip · 33 pts · 142d (6 replies)

I was at the grand canyon. I was at the edge of it and looked down into it. Was I at the grand canyon or not?

derg@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 142d

You were

wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world · -22 pts · 142d (4 replies)

I'd say you looked into it, but not visited it.

"I saw the grand canyon"

snooggums@piefed.world · 14 pts · 142d (1 reply)

Mow much of the canyon do you need to explore before it counts?

wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 142d

Anything below the edge, really. Like a 3D map where the level of detail increases since you are inside the area.

ieGod@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 141d (1 reply)

How far up your friend's ass do you have to be to say you visited them?

The official mw entry lists seeing. You may want to recalibrate your interpretation.

wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 141d

I'm fwb with most of my friends, so the answer to your questions will not be the answer you want :P

And uh, your second sentence agrees with me...?

DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 141d (1 reply)

I went to South Korea...

In the airport waiting for a transfer flight xD, never went through customs...

But technically I was stepping on South Korean Soil... am I not?

wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 141d

I'd say yeah. I've been to a couple of states that way.

daychilde@lemmy.world · 41 pts · 142d (4 replies)

It's how language works.

We are flying to the moon, not to land on it, but to orbit it. That's still to the moon. We're not flying to the sun, or flying to mars. We're flying to the moon.

starlinguk@lemmy.world · -11 pts · 141d (3 replies)

5000 miles away from the moon isn't "to the moon" the same way as me living in Paris isn't living in Minnesota.

zoloftt@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 141d

Do you understand how far orbits are in general? We have satellites in orbit around earth at varying distances based on what service those satellites provide. Some of those orbits are 22,000 mi above earth, which is a super popular orbit distance.

I would still consider these things as part of earth because it's a physical feature of earth. Same with the moon. In astronomical terms, getting within several thousand miles of a thing, is entering the physical space of that thing.

I'd compare it more to going to the 820 loop around Fort Worth. You're not in Fort Worth, but if you lived in New Mexico and we're going to a small town outside Fort Worth, you might still tell people that you're headed to Fort Worth.

daychilde@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 141d

I really need to stop replying to ignorant people.

__Lost__@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 141d

But if you live on the moon, both of those are "flying to earth"

Kolanaki@pawb.social · 33 pts · 142d

Cuz they are going to the moon, they just aren't going to go on the moon.

j4k3@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 142d (8 replies)

Am I visiting (going to) Yosemite, or driving around it?

Did you visit the grand canyon if you did not go to the bottom but only stood on the rim?

CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 142d (6 replies)

Did you visit the grand canyon if you did not go to the bottom but only stood on the rim?

Yes. Did you visit it if you flew over it on a commercial flight?

PumaStoleMyBluff@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 142d (5 replies)

Much more similar to a chartered helicopter flight, which are quite popular at the Grand Canyon.

CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works · -3 pts · 142d (4 replies)

Maybe if that helicopter were flying 18x higher than the International Space Station.

wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 142d (1 reply)

Well now I can't see the canyon, thanks a lot

realizes we all have no oxygen

fucking dies

CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 142d

Well the brochure did state the the helicopter tours and views were "out of this world" so no refunds.

Dave@lemmy.nz · 1 pts · 142d (1 reply)

I guess that depends on how much bigger the moon is than the Grand Canyon.

CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 142d

Well great now my brain is going to waste the next 30 minutes unsuccessfully trying to conceive a joke about mooning, the size of the Grand Canyon, and the size of Uranus.

CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 142d

Am I visiting (going to) Yosemite, or driving around it?

Well that depends, did you visit it or drive around it? These are fundamentally different things. Did you go there, enter the park, stay inside the park for a time and leave? Then you went there. Did you never enter the park and literally drove around its perimeter and went back to your starting location? Because that’s driving around it.

We are not going to the moon with Artemis II, we just aren’t.

mech@feddit.org · 22 pts · 142d (4 replies)

When I say I'm going to a football game, I'll sit at some distance and watch it, not walk on the pitch.
Same thing here.

starlinguk@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 141d

Being 5000 miles away you won't see much.

bookmeat@fedinsfw.app · -11 pts · 142d (2 replies)

Doing a flyby is like going to the cinema, sitting outside then going home.

grue@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 142d (1 reply)

like going to the cinema

You just used "to" in the same way the media did in the process of trying to argue against it.

bookmeat@fedinsfw.app · 1 pts · 139d

Yes, that was intentional to show how stupid it is.

captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 18 pts · 142d

Because some people in this world are mentally normal and use language in mentally normal ways.

ilinamorato@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 141d (2 replies)

If you went through a Taco Bell drive through, you'd still be "driving to Taco Bell" even though you just drove around the building and never went inside.

Patnou@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 140d (1 reply)

People keep mentioning this but isn't it more of a definition of to and towards?

ilinamorato@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 140d

It's more about intention. You went there, you did some stuff, and you came home. It's not like they're going somewhere else and just happened to end up by the moon, the point of the trip is a lunar flyby and they made it. Hence, moon mission.

Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 142d

The moon is far away. Like really far away. They ISS is hard to get to, and the moon is 1000x farther away. So, just getting far enough to swoop around and come back is an achievement in its own right.

Also, it is part of a series of missions that will culminate in humans walking on the surface of the moon once again.

theneverfox@pawb.social · 7 pts · 142d (4 replies)

We are going to the moon. Artemis II is going to bring humans further from earth than any human has ever been, and doing a drive by like this is part of the process of landing on the moon

wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 142d

doing a drive by

GTA 6: Moon DLC confirmed?!

CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 142d (2 replies)

Further how? I've admittedly not looked anything up but the Apollo missions orbited the moon as well.

mech@feddit.org · 5 pts · 142d

Artemis II won't fully orbit it, it slingshots around it.
Which means it will fly higher over the lunar service, and while it's on the far side will be further away from earth than previous missions.

theneverfox@pawb.social · 2 pts · 141d

They're going higher around the far side of the moon than previous missions, so further from earth

Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 142d

It's not actually flying per se, more like a very complicated falling with style.

9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 142d

Why would they say we are flying around it when this is a flyby mission?

BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 141d

It's Apollo 8, but with 60 more years of experience, more computer power than the entire world had at the time, and 10,000x the budget.

They are only going back to what they should have been doing in the 70s. I'm happy they are finally doing it, but I never understood why they abandoned it in the first place.

paraphrand@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 142d

If martians flew around the earth they would be flying to earth.

BananaOnionJuice@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 142d

When you do a free return trajectory around the moon, you first "fly" towards the moon, and then you "fly" away from the moon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-return_trajectory

kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 141d

It's a shuttle run. More literally than usual.

CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 142d

Because it sounds better, more historic, more impressive. I’ve seen several outlets say “travel further from earth than any other humans” and I think that’s the angle that should be taken here since we aren’t actually going to the moon, we are actually going around it, going as far away as we ever have which is incredible in and of itself then returning. Considering what country NASA is located in I doubt the symbolically inflated language is an accident

ohulancutash@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 138d

If Ryanair can claim they fly to Paris, there are no limits.

ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 142d

Cause when dad went to the store to get smokes......

el_twitto@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 142d

Propoganda

betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 142d

It's the cover story in case Grok got distracted by white genocide in South Africa while doing burn calculations. Now it can be a successful impact.

Paragone@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 141d (1 reply)

Like Operation Epstein Fubar, it's all distraction-theatre.

"See how GREAT we are??" "accomplishment", while gutting the government & bombing hospitals & universities, for sake of getting the Epstein files off of the criminals named in them.

( & getting the heat off of the "DOJ" which admitted to shredding some of them, holding-back 47k of them, etc )

( & getting the heat off the ICE quota-based-deportations regime )

etc.

Artemis is an immense waste of money.

Worse, it's got a fundamental design-flaw which means if any of its 4 main-engines "anomaly" during takeoff, then the mission's at-least destroyed, possibly killed.

Notice that with SpaceX's rockets, you can have an engine-anomaly & it'll just make the launch more-difficult?

There are sooo many engines, that each-engine's % of the work is small-enough, that the rest can carry it, if 1 fails.

With Artemis?

ANY engine which fails, & the mission's DEAD.

They engineered it to be incapable of dealing-with such statistically-inevitable failures.

That's irresponsible, in my eyes.

Falcon9 & Starship both have loads of engines, & can deal with 1-failure, properly.

Why go against sane engineering-principles?

Because the point of the thing is institutional validation, not optimal use-of-resources.

As Feynman grated against, last century, it's simply the wrong culture that's running the show.

Business-culture instead of engineering-culture, was what killed people in the shuttlecraft..

Artemis is produced by institutionality-instead-of-right-engineering, from what I can see.. & NASA's having about 1/4 of its budget gutted immediately, so .. Artemis gets funded, but NASA's real missions get discarded?

Theatre, not NASA work.

< shrug >

_ /\ _

AA5B@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 141d

Plus there’s the issue that they’ve been struggling to launch more frequently than every two years. If something happens, everyone is stranded where they are, and it’s not like anyone on the moon could survive there an extra two years.

While I see the reasoning for Artemis in the beginning, it’s been clear for years that it’s a poor choice

atropa@piefed.social · -9 pts · 142d (1 reply)
[ removed ]
wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 142d

Straight through, at full speed. Bonus points for tires leaving the ground, multiplier for full-on air time.

We totally have this down.