14 Thoughts to “45 years ago today: One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”

  1. Cargosquid
    July 20, 2014 at 10:33 am

    I was seven years old, glued to the TV.

    This is a VERY interesting clip.
    gizmodo.com/5977205/why-the-moon-landings-could-have-never-ever-been-faked-the-definitive-proof

    Have anyone else seen the footage where John Glenn punches an insulting conspiracy theorist in the face for calling him a liar and coward?

    We don’t do this sort of thing now because we’ve become risk adverse bureaucrats and we also can’t afford to do it. We’ve decided to spend our money on other things.

  2. Jackson Bills
    July 21, 2014 at 1:32 pm

    @Cargosquid
    This was about a decade before I was born but it would have been really cool to see live. My first memory of anything space related was early on in elementary school. All of the kids were ushered into the cafeteria with several TVs placed all around for everyone to see the space shuttle Challenger lift off. As kids we didn’t really know what exactly we were watching and even when it exploded we didn’t know what was going on. They quietly turned the TVs off and we went about our day.

    Your right Cargo about why we don’t do this sort of thing but I think it’s also because of the 2010 announcement that NASA’s main mission was now going to be “Muslim outreach”. I wasn’t sure then what the hell that meant and I still don’t. Did they achieve their mission? Is the mission still going on? Who knows… but that was the start of the end. Hell, we can’t even get an American into space today on our own if we wanted to.

    We went from being pioneers in space to begging to get into space in the matter of a few decades. What a shame.

  3. Pat.Herve
    July 21, 2014 at 3:54 pm

    Yes – our space race time – when it was OK for the US Government to invest in our future. We (well, all the world) are still benefiting from the engineering and R&D that went into the space program. Bush 43 decided to end the program back in 2004 – and Congress extended the program by a year – without the ask from NASA or the President. Obama wants the private sector to step up – is that not the Republican way?? Get the private sector to do things that Government should not be involved in? Look at SpaceX – would they be viable if we kept the program afloat?

    This is why things are so confusing – one day, enforce the law as written then the next day, do not enforce the law. One day stop spending, the next day spend like drunken sailors.

    1. Moon-howler
      July 21, 2014 at 11:13 pm

      But yet when the private sector does do something, such as Joe Gibb’s faith-based Youth for Tomorrow, and if the Republicans don’t like it, they think they can intrude.

  4. Scout
    July 21, 2014 at 10:17 pm

    I was on a sailing vessel, out of sight of land, and the moon was clearly visible. We had scratchy radio reception in the cabin. Those of us on watch could hear the radio report of the moon landing while we were watching the moon from outside. I realized as I looked at the moon through the sails and rigging, that I was doing something that men had been doing for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years. Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were doing something absolutely no one had ever done before.

    1. Moon-howler
      July 21, 2014 at 11:08 pm

      What a great recollection!

  5. middleman
    July 22, 2014 at 5:52 pm

    I was glued to the TV that day, too. After the turmoil of the Vietnam War, the race riots of the summer of ’68, the killing of JFK, MLK and RFK, not to mention the Soviet Union beating us into space, the moon landing provided a shining example that we weren’t done yet, that America was still great, that we were still in the game.

    I agree heartily with Moon and Pat- the R’s should be ecstatic that the private sector is being handed the reins to the space program, but once again they’re inconsistent. The Space Program in the 60’s and 70’s was socialism, after all, by the Republican definition. Just like the National Park System and public libraries, it involved redistribution of wealth- forced payment from citizens spent for the public good. None of that was envisioned by the Founders. Horrible.

    And yes, Cargo, we’ve decided to spend our money on other things, like the military and Homeland Security, with all its duplication of services. But mostly, we’re spending it on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to cover the huge demographic bump of the Boomer generation, while refusing to raise taxes to cover those added costs. Everything else will continue to suffer. Get used to it, as long as the GOP has any say.

    1. Moon-howler
      July 22, 2014 at 10:46 pm

      The boomers are here to stay for a long time. 1946 to 1965 worth of babies. Touch that social security and we will take their jobs. Plus old people are just plain bitchy to start with. Boomers also HATE HATE HATE being thrown in with Medicaid. We have paid into a program our entire lives. Any curtailment of Medicare will probably bring about social revolution.

  6. Pat.Herve
    July 23, 2014 at 6:48 am

    The biggest problem with Medicare and SS is that the funds were invested back into treasury bonds – and then they spent the money. Now that it is nearing time to return that investment, there are some that do not want to pay for it and want to blame it on SS and Medicare. SS and Medicare have there own funding stream – and if they are not solvent that stream needs to be fixed, not cut from other areas of spending.

    1. Moon-howler
      July 23, 2014 at 7:41 am

      Agreed, Pat.

  7. Cargosquid
    July 23, 2014 at 11:21 am

    @middleman
    The GOP isn’t the party that was in power during most of the time. Why were taxes not raised on SS and entitlements then? Its not the GOP that is causing this.

    Notice, I merely answered why we weren’t doing such things anymore. I didn’t say that NASA had to do it. The one advantage that NASA HAD, but no longer, is that it has access to a lot of resources. That advantage is gone. We’ve let the big dreams die since the early 70’s. The Shuttle was supposed to be a tool, not an end result.
    If SS, Medicare, and Medicaid are the problem, its too bad that the Dems didn’t agree to reform way back in the late 70s, 80’s, and 90’s as was suggested. Now its too late.

    And you are wrong about NASA being socialism. Remember, private enterprise built everything that NASA used. Yes….it was tax money….but not all tax use is socialism. NASA is like the highway system. Public utility.

    Now we have private enterprise picking up the slack. GOOD FOR THEM!

    @Pat.Herve
    Exactly. A spending problem. Separate SS out of the budget, fund it with its own funding stream. Pay back the IOU’s and leave it alone. It should be a separate entity. Of course, if the citizens’ money had been put directly into T bills under their names, into personal accounts, we wouldn’t be having this problem. But then, the politicians would have lost opportunities for graft, corruption, and other wheeling and dealing with our money.

    1. Moon-howler
      July 23, 2014 at 3:02 pm

      I had forgotten just how perfect the GOP really was. [batting eyelashes]

  8. Pat.Herve
    July 23, 2014 at 11:42 am

    @Cargosquid
    oh, cargo – you are too funny. Tell us how you feel about Solyndra.

  9. middleman
    July 23, 2014 at 5:34 pm

    @Cargosquid
    Cargo, you have a curious understanding of socialism, which isn’t unusual for conservatives. Socialism is commonly defined as the government ownership of the means of production. NASA undoubtedly owned the means of production with the space program- they contracted SOME things out, but they set the goals, managed the enterprise, owned the infrastructure, built much of the systems and funded it all with public funds. That fits the definition of socialism much better than the ACA, for example.

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