A recent NASA animation for the new Artemis program, which aims to land on the moon by 2024

Wernher von Braun explains how we’ll land on the moon in 1955

I see a lot of parallels in these videos, and it’s kind of funny to compare the second one to the moon landing actually happened!

It reminds me of what I’ve seen in a lot of product development efforts. In the beginning there is this grand vision with all sorts of features: a space station, robotic space pods, and a really roomy space ship.

But in the end under the constraints of time and money, you cut the space station from scope… and the robotic space pods. And that big spaceship with all its elbow room ends up being a tiny cramped sardine can by comparison. But, by God, if we didn’t put a man on the moon!