Can blind people build a spaceship and land on the Moon?

This question is inspired by Could a species develop the tech necessary to land on their own moon without comprehending light?

Consider following scenario: a civilization of alien tricksters abducts 10,000 people from Earth and put them on an Earth-like planet that has a moon, very similar to ours. Those people are tasked with making a successful expedition to that moon. For extra stimulus, let's say there is a portal there that leads back to Earth, and people are told where exactly this portal is located. The catch is that all of those 10,000 people are blind. Not suddenly blinded, but been blind at least for while and adapted to it.

Also, alien tricksters use some advanced technology (indistinguishable form magic) that ensures that people's descendants also stay blind (at least until they are teleported back to the Earth).

10,000 abductees have a good head start. They have:

• houses, infrastructure, supply of food and basic necessities sufficient for 10 years;
• well-stocked equivalents of Wal-Mart (hypermarket), Home Depot (home building/repair supply) and Best Buy (large computers and electronics store);
• a library that contains all modern scientific and engineering textbooks (Braille and text-to-speech versions) and periodicals, plus a full copy of Wikipedia;
• the continent they reside on contains all minerals that modern human civilization consumes;
• in addition, they are provided with seeds and live domesticated animals (cows, sheep, chickens, dogs, cats) that can breed;

Also:

• every abductee has a college degree or possesses a skilled trade (all random);
• all people know a common language to speak;
• all people start as healthy in childbearing age;

But:

• the colony does not have any industrial or scientific equipment - only the items available in general stores.

Would this colony of blind people be able to build a spacefaring civilization, or moon will forever be out of their reach?

P.S. There is no timeline for the colony for achieving this goal, but there's assumption that descendants who would finally do this must still be genetically humans.

posted over 6 years ago

Alexander‭

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