Neil Armstrong Speaks

Neil Armstrong is the keynote speaker at the suborbital conference, which has just started in Palo Alto. I’ll be live blogging his speech. Alan Stern is introing him, describing him as a pioneer in suborbital spaceflight with the X-15.

Thanks for the warm welcome, and appreciate the opportunity to describe suborbital flight generations back. As a boy was an admirer of great aircraft designers, and in recent decades, Burt Rutan has earned a place on that list. Burt occasionally ribs the government for spending hundred of millions to attain same altitude as he did with SS1. Back in his day the hot aerodynamics field was transonic flight. Transonic wind tunnels were unreliable with shock waves bouncing off the walls giving poor results. Interest grew in a special aircraft for investigating transonics, a purely research airplane. Research aircraft weren’t new — the Wrights’ first plane was one, but the government did do it until the forties, when they started the X series with the X-1 (first to break the sound barrier in level flight) in 1947. Other aircraft were tailless, swept-wing, delta wing, etc. These led to the Century-series fighters.

The main thing I'm ruminating over is how sad is the current state of America's aerospace and air defense programs. As a kid, my brother and I lived and breathed the heroic stories of our early aviation pioneers. Now look at us.

NASA's transport capabilities are in disarray. Vital programs like the F-22 and F-35 are being scaled back and cut to unserviceable minimums. And for what? To pay off union cronies and legions of urban-bred orcs so that they don't burn their own cities down.

Truly a pitiful state of affairs.

No question about it. Couldn't agree more.

Having Armstrong speak underscores the sad, tragic state of affairs we find ourselves in.

What is, was the reason we lost interest in continuing the growth we had ratcheted up during the Cold War, stopped us from expanding upon the science and innovation? The fact is there wasn't much left to conquer in creating the hardware to spur growth, innovation. The space station-space shuttle merry-go-round proved highly pointless, the lack of vision, worthwhile projects to undertake is where the problem ultimately originates from,that has been the undoing of our space programs more than anything else.

My question is, if indeed, we have ourselves to blame, that is, if we've become complacent in a field that would have otherwise shown much greater accomplishment, why haven't we've seen advancement by other countries in programs that might have spurred innovation and expansion we've all imagined would have been developed by now, moon bases, the means to get there and back, namely the Russian federation? Has it all only been a matter of money?

Money, politics, inspired leadership/heroes.

The US was at its greatest when we were a nation of pioneers and explorers. Once we became a nation of settlers, we retreated back to earth orbit. Interesting how our society has declined at the same time and probably caused a decline in our exploration and pioneering efforts.

It's the same with other countries - England was at its greatest when it was exploring and colonizing and conquering all over the world, Spain, Italy/Rome.

There is one other thing that can push nations to achieve so much - adversity that forces them to rise to the occasion or perish. World War II did it for the Soviets and for the UK and US. The Cold War pushed the US and the Soviets to do some amazing things.

These days, and it applies to many other countries as well, we have become settlers and couch potatoes.

And many young parents have dropped the ball, and they let their kids grow up with videogames and movies and TV shows. They also spoil the hell out of their kids and many don't push them to achieve.

Plenty of kids can tell you who won the American Dancing Idols show, but couldn't name the first two men on the moon or the first few men who went into space.

Next time you're in the grocery store and you see a kid throwing a temper tantrum and the parents caving in and buying them whatever they want to get them to shut up, you are witnessing a kid whose parents will never push him to achieve anything. He's the one who is doing the pushing, pushing his parents around.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.