Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Man on the Moon
Forty years ago today, mankind stormed the moon.
We have not done enough since.
DAMN: As many commenters have pointed out, I blew the date. Only an aneurysm could account for an error that massive, so if you never hear from me again you know why. On the bright side, it is a great video! And thank you for being so courteous about it.
18 Comments:
By 
, at
Tue Jul 14, 09:25:00 AM:
Over my long life I have been told by many people that we should scrap the space program and spend the money down here.
By , at
Tue Jul 14, 11:19:00 AM:
I believe that the Apollo 11 mission departed on the 16th and landed on the 20th of July. A friend on mine turned 11 on the 20th and we were joking that his parents were going to arrange a trip to the moon for his birthday (he was considered the local "rich" kid, at least in comparison to the rest of us).
-Tom-
By , at
Tue Jul 14, 11:26:00 AM:
We need to put manned space flight on long term hold, and concentrate NASA's resources on unmanned missions, and a lunar telescope.
By 
Anthony, at
Tue Jul 14, 12:32:00 PM:
I thought the launch was on the 16th. (?)
By Sotosoroto, at
Tue Jul 14, 12:41:00 PM:
My calendar quite clearly has "Apollo 11 Day" on July 20, when they landed. . . You'll have to post this again next week.
Oh and. . . Let's terraform Mars! One planet is not enough. (Send the Marines!)
By , at
Tue Jul 14, 01:53:00 PM:
Over my long life I have been told by many people that we should scrap the space program and spend the money down here.
The money spent on the space program is spent down here.
By , at
Tue Jul 14, 03:04:00 PM:
Anon - You know that, and I know that, but a frightening number of voters do not know that.
By Christopher Chambers, at
Tue Jul 14, 03:49:00 PM:
Perhaps it's because of parochial yo-yo's like Jeff Sessions. The latest comedy routine:
From CNN's Jeff Toobin:"Another thing about Jeff Sessions, the line of questioning was that being a white male, that's normal. Everybody else has biases and prejudices, but the white men, they don't have any ethnicity, they don't have any gender. They're just like the 'normal' folks. And I thought that was a little jarring."
Ouch!
TH, can't your wingnut pals tell Jefferson Davis...oops...Jeff sessions that this is no way to treat a Pyne Prize winner. Perhaps he'll back a stimulus program for a space colony. Perhaps that's only place where righteous, real American white males will be safe? ;-)
By , at
Tue Jul 14, 05:02:00 PM:
Chris, so we can read what the brainless clown on CNN had to say, but what did Sessions say that Toobin 'spun' as all white guys think the same, and we have no gender? Clearly that's an absurd thing to say, but that's why I don't waste time on CNN.
By John, at
Tue Jul 14, 06:03:00 PM:
We have not done enough since.
Upside: we've saved a lot of money.
By , at
Tue Jul 14, 06:23:00 PM:
TH - I believe you have your dates off on this one. Actually per the NY Times this morning it was on this date in 1965 where The Mariner4 sent back the first pictures of Mars.
By Georg Felis, at
Tue Jul 14, 09:38:00 PM:
One of my early memories of school is when they dragged the ancient black and white TV out into the lunch room, and we got to watch the fuzzy images of men walking the face of a different planet. Hopefully my children will see the sight themselves in person someday.
By , at
Tue Jul 14, 10:50:00 PM:
Upside: we've saved a lot of money.
That would explain the success of all the balanced budgets in the last 40 years, and the tremendous growth in the technologies of our manufacturing industries.
Oh wait.....
Seriously, you can't expect government sponsored research and technology development that were spurred by Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs to solve R & D for private industry, but that was a tremendous spur to the growth of a whole host of industries that grew up (and have since migrated to parts of Asia).
Technologically, we have been turning our backs on the future for some time.
Nuclear power, breeder reactors, space based solar power....or windmills? Which one represents a forward looking technologically confident society?
Windmills, and Youtube and Twitter, the technolgical successes of 2009. Think about it.
-David
By Gary Rosen, at
Wed Jul 15, 04:06:00 AM:
Since Chrissy is going off-topic with his neurotically compulsive rant of "RAAAACIST" at Republicans, I will take this opportunity to remind everybody which of the parties is significantly more antisemitic:
http://tinyurl.com/ce9bf2
That's why Chrissy is such an enthusiastic Democrat.
By John, at
Wed Jul 15, 04:23:00 PM:
David wrote:
That would explain the success of all the balanced budgets in the last 40 years, and the tremendous growth in the technologies of our manufacturing industries.
Are you seriously drawing a causal link between not spending money on an ambitious space program and expanding deficits?
Seriously, you can't expect government sponsored research and technology development that were spurred by Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs to solve R & D for private industry, but that was a tremendous spur to the growth of a whole host of industries that grew up (and have since migrated to parts of Asia).
Technologically, we have been turning our backs on the future for some time.
Nuclear power, breeder reactors, space based solar power....or windmills? Which one represents a forward looking technologically confident society?
Windmills, and Youtube and Twitter, the technolgical successes of 2009. Think about it.
It's government activity that's preventing the development of nuclear power, not the absence of it.
Sure, the space program gave us disposable diapers and Tang. But were they really worth the cost?
By , at
Thu Jul 16, 08:01:00 PM:
NPR had a segment on morning edition today about restoring the video from the first steps on the moon. Here's the link:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106637066
Apollo was inspiring achievement, but it's idiotic that NASA would later overwrite the historic original video tapes because they didn't have enough budget to buy new tapes for later programs.
By , at
Fri Jul 17, 01:31:00 AM:
John, if you really believe that the space program brought us only disposable diapers and tang, you have a lot of homework to do. Go to Yahoo or Google and type in "WD-40 space program".
Personally, I kind of like heart monitors and photoelectric cells.
By , at
Fri Jul 17, 09:04:00 PM:
I was watching the landing on TV, and what amazes me is how many people think that the very first words spoken were the "One small step" etc., when those of us listening heard quite distinctly the words, said in wonderment, "It's soft!" which were then followed by the "one small step" words.
--Rex
