With our short hair, white dress shirts, narrow ties, pocket protectors and the ever present slide rule we went to the moon.
I don’t know about the technology, but I don’t think we have the intelligence to do it safely nor do we have the drive to be explorers anymore. We’re too busy moving resources to the lazy, and that will be our downfall.
Too bad we can't put them on a one way trip to the Moon.
No, we don't have it. No current launch vehicles are suitable.
Yes, we do have it. We haven't forgotten anything about building rockets, and the engineering has improved.
but I don’t think we have the intelligence to do it safely
I think you're completely wrong, and grossly unjust to today's science and engineering community.
nor do we have the drive to be explorers anymore.
Who's "we", Kemosabe? Our political class certainly lacks such drive ... and our welfare class lacks any drive.
Then, there's the rest of us ...
-Bustard, the engineer.
“nor do we have the drive to be explorers anymore....”
I think you nailed it with this. We no longer dream big dreams, nor do we execute grand plans. We are becoming completely averse to any sort of risk or challenge. We are becoming a nation of metro-sexuals who discuss the latest trends over latte. We are raising a nation of wussies, and it will be to our great sorrow.-—JM
“I don’t know about the technology, but I don’t think we have the intelligence to do it safely nor do we have the drive to be explorers anymore. We’re too busy moving resources to the lazy, and that will be our downfall.”
We are a much different people now than the Americans of the 1960s. Instant gratification is a requirement. The public won’t stand for funding a program that would take years, and in cases, decades to yeild a result.
Young people aren’t willing to invest their time and effort for a result that isn’t guaranteed. Study, work hard, join the space program and maybe get a positive result? No way!
As we export our design and manufacturing jobs, we have fewer and fewer hard science and engineering students. Why would a youth study to be an electrical engineer when most of the design jobs are in Japan, India, and China?
Sure, we could import some engineers. Do you honestly think that someone who grew up in another country would feel the same dedication that the Americans in the 1960s space program felt? Nationalism.
We’ve lost our way. We couldn’t safely send someone to the moon and bring them back. And as America is currently constituted, it won’t be possible in the near future.
Watch as China or India steps into that role. The risk taker, the innovator, the prime mover with the drive and desire to get things done. The willingness to risk lives to expand the frontiers.
Sad, but that’s the reality I see.
I know we do have people with that level of intelligence but many of them never made it into the best schools because there wasn't room for them after the race quotas were met. So these people are out in the private sector making their fortunes with the same ability, wit and drive that men like them once brought to bear on the Apollo moon shot program.
But most men of that caliber would never make it into the Space program today in spite of their inteeligence and qualifications. There wouldn't be room enough after NASA met all the hiring requirements for Affirmative Action hirelings. And they would be reporting to bureaucrats and people promoted for all the wrong reasons.
The Apollo program was primarily staffed by the same demographic that made the USA the greatest nation in the world. As society was forced by the government to make hiring decisions on the basis of skin color and sexual plumbing instead of ability and competency the entire US has been slowly crumbling.
Today, even with the aid of cutting edge technology, you can rarely get anything done correctly the first time from a large organization. In 1969 we put men on the moon with electro-mechanical technology only a little more advanced than a 1970 Corvette.
Celebrate diversity if you like - but don't bet your life on it.
With our short hair, white dress shirts, narrow ties, pocket protectors and the ever present slide rule we went to the moon.
Last night my wife and I watched The Right Stuff. With that and the allusion to the pol party we need, the USA could do this but we are broke due to Obama and the Dems. So, at age 70, I will probably not see us go to Mars.
We can't land a man on the moon today because we don't have the dedication. Technology would be a minor inconvenience, quickly solved, if we but had the leadership now we had then.