“If you can get your ship into orbit, you’re halfway to anywhere.” - Robert Heinlein

This generalizes.

1.

Spaceflight is hard.

Putting a rocket on the moon is one of the most impressive feats humans have ever achieved. The International Space Station, an inhabited living space and research facility in Low Earth Orbit, has been continuously inhabited for over two decades now, and that's awesome. It is a testament to the hard work and brilliance of a lot of people over a lot of time that this is possible.

Look ma, no selfie stick

And we’re not done yet. There are footprints on the moon today, but there are also robots leaving tracks on Mars and satellites have taken photos of the rings of Saturn and the craters of Pluto. Voyager has stood waaay back and taken a family picture of the solar system. Give us a rocket and a place to send it, and we’ll go anywhere we’re curious about.

There's a funny property of space flight though, which is that half the work happens very close to home and is surprisingly similar no matter where you’re going.

When you boil spaceflight down into the very abstract basics, it [...]

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First published:
November 6th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mB4o2LnLrZHesNRC2/halfway-to-anywhere

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

Nobody ever treats my muddy boot prints as historic artifacts.

I'm a sailor peg, and I've lost my leg,Climbing up the launch pad, I lost my leg!I'm shipping up to Luna, whoa,I'm shipping up to Luna, whoa

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“Halfway to Anywhere” by Screwtape

LessWrong (30+ Karma)