A day late…but July 20, 1969 was the Lunar Landing, the day man first landed on the surface of the moon in a little space capsule named Apollo 11. It is hard to imagine how little we knew back then and how rudimentary our tools were. Much of the landing was done with computers but not the computers you and I know today. It all seems so long ago and looking back, so very impossible. I can remember our hearts being in our throats the entire time. Would they make it back alive?
How terribly sad that our Manned space program is all but ending. Ironic that the last space shuttle is almost ready to return to earth, never to slip into the wild blue yonder again. Wallops Island is no Kennedy Space Center. That is a downgrade I don’t even want to consider.
Have we become so complacent or so full of our own knowledge that we can just quit? I think America deserves better. We are better than this.
I remember being glued to the television, scared for them and entranced.
When we visited the Space Center last summer, I found out something that was not publicized during the landing. Armstrong had to fly the lander manually to find another site, landing with only seconds of fuel left. He was FLYING A FREAKING SPACECRAFT ON MANUAL TO AN UNKNOWN SITE ON FUMES!! That is just amazing! Nerves of steel.
Hopefully our private space programs will “take off.” They seem very promising. Our next step should be introducing industry into space. We can make materials in microgravity that cannot be done here.
I would prefer to go back to the NASA space program. It represents America.
Has everyone seen October Sky? What a great film!
I wouldn’t mind going back to NASA if it was the NASA of the 50’s and 60’s. The current NASA doesn’t have the courage or the vision of the past one. NASA without a goal like mining the moon or the asteroids, or building real habitats in space, etc…is just another pork laden bureaucracy.
Considering NASA didn’t exist before October of 1958, there wasn’t much to it in the 50’s. But I am nit-picking. Just what is wrong with NASA now that throwing some money at it won’t fix? They have always been under threat of defunding. The courage? How can an agency have courage, or did you mean the people who take the risks? I would say they are very courageous. Actually there is a plan to visit asteroids. The space station isn’t ambitious?
Another pork laden bureaucracy? Oh dear God. You just seem to want to piss on everything that is American. NASA needs funds to set its goals and ambitions. Space exploration is not free.
I’m repeating some things that some NASA enthusiasts said about NASA. It has turned into a CYA organization that was more interested in job retention. When I talk about courage, I’m talking about the willingness to take risks. However, to do that, we need to have vision and a goal. NASA doesn’t need funds to set goals and ambitions. It needs to do that FIRST, and then, find the funds.
I don’t have a problem with funding NASA, as long as that is one of the priorities that we decide we need in an overall budget cut.
Congress needs to put on the collective big boy pants and start to wheel and deal and prioritize. They need to realize that, while free ice cream buy votes, too much free ice cream will kill us.
Fund it to cut it? That’s the problem. They live with the knife hanging over their heads. How can you plan if Congress is schinzophrenic?
When we say ‘Congress’ we have to understand that it changes players every 2 years and that is the nature of a Congress that has to always work to get re-elected. There is never any real governance time for a Congressman.
It doesn’t sound like you have been talking to NASA ENTHUSIASTS if they are saying it is pork laden, lacks vision and courage. Who needs enemies if that is what the enthusiasts are saying.
Perhaps we have come to rely on our accomplishments too much and that the space program is taken for granted. that seems more like our problem than theirs.
And yes, they have a great deal of accountability. Remember after both the Challenger and the Columbia disasters? Who got the blame?
@Moon-howler
I think that I’m just not saying it right.
These NASA supporters wanted a return to the attitude of the early days, as they saw it. With drive, courage, and a willingness to dare.
They stated that NASA had turned into a typical bureaucracy. Too many managers.