Earthrise, 40 years on

[kallend 2,230]

I remember seeing the images beamed from Apollo 8, Dec 24, 1968.

What an inspirational event that was!

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Amazon 7]

I do as well, and I cant believe that we as a nation got bored with it so quickly and have not been back. since Dec 14 1972. Perhaps future generations will do better starting with Orion 15.

[airdvr 210]

Also. I remember sitting around the TV listening to...OMG! The Book of Genesis! Imagine that.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[Andrewwhyte 1]

I was pretty little. I think I was more taken by the fact that they had to eat turkey sandwiches on Christmas than by the view.

[stitch 0]

I don't recall much more than a loaded diaper.

"No cookies for you"- GFD
"I don't think I like the sound of that" ~ MB65
Don't be a "Racer Hater"

[shropshire 0]

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I don't recall much more than a loaded diaper.

Don't worry - those times will come to you again

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[lurch 0]

Here. A tribute to the greatness my pitiful generation never aspired to. If this don't choke you up a bit nothing will. As near as I can tell its THE pinnacle of our civilization and although tech has become much higher and more user friendly, we're further away from being able to repeat this feat than we were in the early 60's. I always figured our civilization has been in decline since we let these things become museum pieces on the lawn. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rXtG3vfAlA
I find this kind of depressing. Once America wanted to achieve something and GO somewhere. But all I saw from my own generation was they wanted to be "gankstas" "ballas" and watch fucking american idol. My grandparents got to see their peers create the technology and go to the moon less than a decade after the president announced we were going to try to go there. My generation watched Christa Mcauliffe die live on television and as near as I can tell the space age died with her. Now whenever I hear about return to the moon the timetable is always 12,15,25 years, safely far enough away that nobody here, now, expects to see it or bothers putting much effort into promoting it. Its unpopular. We've given up as a nation and turned away.
I read somewhere they estimated these things at about 190 gigawatts output.
Professor, what do you think it would take to wake up the nation and get it to aspire to this kind of thing again and stop fucking around and go DO it? Burt Rutan is about the last hope I see, but compared to the scale needed to make orbit/space travel truly accessible, he's still building go-carts. America should give him 10, 20 billion and get the fuck out of his way and maybe my grandkids will believe enough to bring this stuff back from the dead. I'm kinda rooting for the Chinese here...maybe if we get pissed off at getting our asses kicked in space by the Chinese over the next 20 years we'll get off our asses and get moving again.
-B

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[kallend 2,230]

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Here. A tribute to the greatness my pitiful generation never aspired to. If this don't choke you up a bit nothing will. As near as I can tell its THE pinnacle of our civilization and although tech has become much higher and more user friendly, we're further away from being able to repeat this feat than we were in the early 60's. I always figured our civilization has been in decline since we let these things become museum pieces on the lawn. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rXtG3vfAlA
I find this kind of depressing. Once America wanted to achieve something and GO somewhere. But all I saw from my own generation was they wanted to be "gankstas" "ballas" and watch fucking american idol. My grandparents got to see their peers create the technology and go to the moon less than a decade after the president announced we were going to try to go there. My generation watched Christa Mcauliffe die live on television and as near as I can tell the space age died with her. Now whenever I hear about return to the moon the timetable is always 12,15,25 years, safely far enough away that nobody here, now, expects to see it or bothers putting much effort into promoting it. Its unpopular. We've given up as a nation and turned away.
I read somewhere they estimated these things at about 190 gigawatts output.
Professor, what do you think it would take to wake up the nation and get it to aspire to this kind of thing again and stop fucking around and go DO it? Burt Rutan is about the last hope I see, but compared to the scale needed to make orbit/space travel truly accessible, he's still building go-carts. America should give him 10, 20 billion and get the fuck out of his way and maybe my grandkids will believe enough to bring this stuff back from the dead. I'm kinda rooting for the Chinese here...maybe if we get pissed off at getting our asses kicked in space by the Chinese over the next 20 years we'll get off our asses and get moving again.
-B

I doubt we'll do it again in my lifetime.

I had the pleasure of meeting Jim Lovell a few years ago - a real gentleman.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[lurch 0]

Then I envy you, man. What I wouldn't give to meet one of those guys, the last real pioneer heroes. At least their legends will live forever. I laughed till I thought I was gonna puke when Buzz punched out that lunar-hoax asshole. Modern whacko-media mindset versus old-school "right stuff" and Buzz demonstrated hes still got the stuff. Unfortunately I think we're going to have to wait for this cycle of civilization to fall and rise again in a few hundred years before we see the likes of him again... to me it looks like we're on the downslope of the sine wave and it could be centuries before we see something like the curve we saw from about 1950-1969. If that curve hadn't plateau'd out so soon we'd have had thriving cities on the moon and mars 20 years ago and still be explosively expanding today instead of obsessed with "going green", downsizing and outsourcing everything and gazing into our media navels.
Oh well, next civilization will go further provided theres any resources left over from ours for them to do so with.
-B

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[Andrewwhyte 1]

I don't think "going green" is part of the malaise. It may well be a necessary part of the technology needed for further leaps. 1/2 ton trucks that sleep six and a body of law that sees retailers lower the temperature of hot beverages to avoid litigation on the other hand are both symptom and cause of a society that has lost their way.
The price of egalitarian empowerment is that without natural leadership the herd tends to mill about in confusion with a tendency for short abrubt stampedes in random directions. The messianic flavour of the Obama phenomenon is an example of this. Whether he will turn out to be a natural leader or a short abrupt stampede we shall soon see.
The heights of 1969 were replaced by the stagnation of the 1970s amazingly quickly. The progress of the eighties (when computer and materials science made the gains that made the last twenty years' consumption gains possible) was just as abrubt, but maybe it was just a dead cat bounce. For society to truly progress the individual members will have to be committed. So far it seems people just want Obama to "make it better" so they can get back to Oprah. Obama has lectured the black community to quit whining and get the fuck to work. Even though he is uniquely entitled to do so it still pissed a lot of people off. Now he needs to do the same for the rest of the country. We will see how that works out. For it to work they have to buy in.

[skybill 22]

Hi lurch,
Hit the nail on the head why don't ya'. The whole moon mission is kinda' like,"Been there, done that, got the T-shirt!" Sad state of affairs. I was on the flight deck of the USS Princeton LPH-5 on that May morning in the South Pacific and watched Apollo X do its metorite "burn!!!!" on re-entry!!! Ya' we went to the moon alright and now all you here is ramblings of people in tin-foil hats calling it a hoax!!! We have gotten a couple of R-2 units to Mars though, that ain't nothing to be sorry about!! Robots don't need burgers and fries. Establishing a manned mission on the MOON is definitely in our and mankind's best interest!!! Now to hear some ramblings from the tin-foil hat crowd!!

SCR-2034, SCS-680

III%,
Deli-out

[kallend 2,230]

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Hi lurch,
Hit the nail on the head why don't ya'. The whole moon mission is kinda' like,"Been there, done that, got the T-shirt!" Sad state of affairs. I was on the flight deck of the USS Princeton LPH-5 on that May morning in the South Pacific and watched Apollo X do its metorite "burn!!!!" on re-entry!!! Ya' we went to the moon alright and now all you here is ramblings of people in tin-foil hats calling it a hoax!!! We have gotten a couple of R-2 units to Mars though, that ain't nothing to be sorry about!! Robots don't need burgers and fries. Establishing a manned mission on the MOON is definitely in our and mankind's best interest!!! Now to hear some ramblings from the tin-foil hat crowd!!

The tinfoil hat "hoax" crowd is a very tiny minority. They are not the reason we aren't doing inspirational missions any more. The primary reason has been lack of inspiration by our leadership.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[airdvr 210]

I'll just chime in here and say the moon missions, while spectacular and great PR, actually set us back and took us down the wrong track.

Von Braun et al were really pushing for an orbital space station from which we could launch missions. Imagine where we could go without the limitations of having to overpower earth's gravitational field with huge rockets and massive engines.

SO, it was an amazing thing to behold but actually was the wrong thing to do, IMO.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[tbrown 26]

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I remember seeing the images beamed from Apollo 8, Dec 24, 1968.

What an inspirational event that was!

Yeah, I was in the 8th grade that year and remember it well, especially the view of earth as a distinct planet. Also that some of the whiners immediately raised a stink about reading from the Bible on the taxpers' dime. And as always, that the space program was "too expensive", never mind that it was a drop in the bucket compared with Vietnam and yielded a great many more lasting benefits.

Since then, a lot of Sci Fi "Star Trek" technology has come true, largely due to the R & D that went into the space program. But now we even have whiny scientists who wheeze and moan about unmanned probes being superior to manned space flight (THAT will be the day...). It's cheaper for sure, but the bean counters will lead us down the path to a soulless existence if we let them.

I remember reading books in grade school that confidently predicted permanent colonies on the moon by the 1990s and dreaming that I'd find a way to go there and live and work for maybe a year someday. Now there's talk of that again, as a step to prepare for going on to Mars. But the Chinese will get there first. That's what astronaut Marsha Ivans told us when she visited our company last summer (we fabricate parts for the J2X engines that will power the next manned American flights to the moon). She's a veteran of five Shuttle flights, who has spent a couple months on the ISS and operated the arm that installed a major section of the station, and a fascinating person to talk to.

It's still a matter of will, seeing the benefits, and sharing the excitement of human exploration. As skydivers, I don't think sharing the excitement should be a problem. But we have to do it, because the rest of the human race is more pre-occupied with Paris Hilton and "wasteful" government spending. The technology for the return is shaping up, but the funding is always in question. Especially now, with the economy in the shitter. It's going to take some noise and determined pressure on Congress to get us back to the moon.

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

[shropshire 0]

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The tinfoil hat "hoax" crowd is a very tiny minority. They are not the reason we aren't doing inspirational missions any more. The primary reason has been lack of inspiration by our leadership.

.... and money?

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[kallend 2,230]

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The tinfoil hat "hoax" crowd is a very tiny minority. They are not the reason we aren't doing inspirational missions any more. The primary reason has been lack of inspiration by our leadership.

.... and money?

We have wasted a whole lot more on the wars on drugs and Iraq.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[skybill 22]

Hi sh,
YUP!!! As Gus G. said in "The Right Stuff," "You know what makes those rockets fly, 'FUNDING!!' No Bucks, No Buck Rogers!!!!!" Exact wording, well,,,close! F-U-N-D-I-N-G!!!!!! Brother can you spare a dime!!

SCR-2034, SCS-680

III%,
Deli-out

[lurch 0]

I'm not going to argue with any of that. I guess the point I was trying to illustrate was the psychological laziness and inanity that lets the public buy a car that 2mpg better than the last one, thereby participating in the latest empty catch phrases and thinking now that they've "gone green" their car is good for the planet. Its a token gesture and in and of itself is a good thing to do but its the kind of shallow fashion oriented thinking that bugs me. Wanna "go green"? Fund nuclear fusion till we crack the riddle and can power the nation with it on an industrial scale for fucks sake cause we can "go green" all we want, even convert all America's auto fleet to high tech electrics and it don't mean diddlysquat until we work out a better root energy supply for this civilization. The one advertisement I've seen in the last 5 years that made any sense is the one that says "there is no such thing as clean coal."
I think the end fate of humans in space will be that as oil gets more scarce and it gets more and more expensive to develop and launch each "next step" eventually those steps will simply stop happening. I think we might already be right about at that point. If I remember right the moon landing cost about 2 billion at the time. Now we don't even blink when the DOD spends two billion on a single plane that does nothing to forward the growth of the species but Nasa has to beg to fund a bunch of fucking robots. Granted the robots are an incredible achievement... last I heard, years after the public stopped paying attention, the damn things were both still running in the most outstanding example of space hardware outlasting its warranty in history. Just another example of the kind of tech we could be using on a mass scale if people didn't care more about the antics of useless celebrities than they do engineering and progress.
-B

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[lurch 0]

Nother question Doc, how far do you think heavy lift and space industries could have gone if we as a nation had spent the couple trillion wasted on the W.O.D and in Iraq on space exploration? I think the Liftport group could have built us a space elevator and gained access to effectively unlimited resources with that kind of cash. We whine about funding a few hundred million to Nasa and nobody seriously considers the hundred-trillion dollar economy that'd result from airline-style consumer access to space. Unfortunately I don't see it happening without somebody spending 500 million just on the ad campaign to try to get the public to back that kind of thing.
-B

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[SkyChimp 0]

Too young to remember her early years but I hate to see a good part of our entertainment history pass away. RIP Eartha

Does anyone else find it funny that we made a SPORT out of an EMERGENCY PROCEDURE?!?!

[billvon 3,173]

>What I wouldn't give to meet one of those guys, the last real pioneer heroes.

While I've never met any of the original Apollo, Gemini or Mercury astronauts, I have jumped with Mary Ellen, who is a pretty cool woman (and a good skydiver to boot!)

>If that curve hadn't plateau'd out so soon we'd have had thriving cities on the
> moon and mars 20 years ago and still be explosively expanding today instead
>of obsessed with "going green", downsizing and outsourcing everything and
>gazing into our media navels.

>Oh well, next civilization will go further provided theres any resources left over
>from ours for them to do so with.

Those two statements together are somewhat ironic.

[shropshire 0]

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While I've never met any of the original Apollo, Gemini or Mercury astronauts, I have jumped with Mary Ellen, who is a pretty cool woman (and a good skydiver to boot!)

Wow ..... you've jumped with one of the Waltons - how cools is that? Good night Von Boy

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome