Apollo 11 Moon Landing Turns 45 211
An anonymous reader writes On July 20, 1969, U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon. Neil Armstrong would say later he thought the crew had a 90% chance of getting home from the moon, and only a 50% chance of landing safely. The scope of NASA's Apollo program seems staggering today. President Kennedy announced his moon goal just four years into the Space Age, but the United States had not even launched a human into orbit yet. Amazingly, just eight years later, Armstrong and Aldrin were walking on the moon.
no doubter here, I watched the launch (Score:5, Insightful)
our family drove down to Florida, hauling our new 17' trailer, partly to see the launch and partly to visit Grandmother. up at 4 am to drive down Cocoa and park on the side of the road. when that Saturn came up over the rise, the noise was monstrous, quiet as a churchmouse until that first lick of yellow-orange showed.
a stunning achievement. from that effort came chips, medical telemetry, Lord only knows what.
our driver of innovation today? cat pictures and dashcam video of accidents.
And today (Score:5, Insightful)
The United States has abandoned its manned space exploration capabilities, relying on another semi-derelict cold-war era launch setup, provided by a country it's on the brink of war with (Russia), preferring to funnel almost unlimited funds to anti-terrorism and Orwellian surveillance programs instead...
I'm was born during the cold war. Tensions between the US and the USSR weren't ideal by any means, but at least when I was a kid, we looked forward to a bright future of scientific achievements and space exploration. Now all I look forward to is reaching retirement age with some money on the side that's still worth something despite the inflation, hoping that WW3 and the religious crazies don't overwhelm the world before I kick the bucket.
Sad, sad world...
It's not a miracle (Score:5, Insightful)
As Jim Lovell put it:
There seems to be this perception that space travel is this incredible thing. It is awesome for sure, but it is fully within our grasp to do with as we please. One of my favourite arguments against the conspiracy theorists goes: if NASA were willing to fake the Moon landing, they would have done something else by now.
Let's reach for the stars again!
Great example (Score:5, Insightful)
And less than four years later... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Generations before us (Score:5, Insightful)
Great generation defeated Nazis, landed on the moon; Baby Boomer generation built Internet and tackled racial and gender issues. What are we doing other that building surveillance state and wealth inequality?
We're trying to deal with the surveillance state and the wealth inequality that was produced by the system the "Greatest" generation created. Likely several generations will be required to dig out from under it.