Barack Obama’s Absurd NASA Policy

Sometimes it’s helpful to take a step back and get some perspective in order to be able to evaluate something that is right in front of you today. Sometimes that perspective goes back 40 years sometimes it goes back 40,000 years.

When Neal Armstrong stepped on the surface of the Moon in July of 1969 it was the culmination of one of the swiftest periods of advancement in the history of mankind. Since the dawn of human history, man had been watching with great fascination and jealously as birds soared above them. From giant eagles capable of carrying off an oblivious lamb to hummingbirds that floated on air, birds seemed to somehow have the favor of the Gods.

Although man often fantasized about flight, few it was a real possibility. One of the first to seriously suggest man could break away from terra firma was Leonardo da Vinci. We’ve all seen his 15th century helicopter sketches with their rotors that look more like a corkscrew than a modern rotor. Nonetheless, da Vinci was one of the first to actually believed mankind could break the bounds of earthliness and posit how it might be done.

Jump ahead to the court of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette at Versailles, France in 1783 where brothers, Joseph-Michel & Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier were putting their names in the history books by inventing the hot air balloon. Although they were certain their invention was capable of supporting humans, they decided to hedge their bets by choosing as the first passengers a sheep, a rooster, and a duck. A month later the first men would take flight in a Montgolfière balloon, although the brothers themselves demurred.

When Neal Armstrong stepped on the surface of the Moon in July of 1969 it was the culmination of one of the swiftest periods of advancement in the history of mankind.

Or, alternatively, it was just whitey showin' off at the expense of poor blacks.

2 posted on 07/13/2010 9:43:29 AM PDT by gundog (Why is it that useful idiots remain idiots long after they've exhausted their usefulness?)

3 posted on 07/13/2010 10:24:48 AM PDT by FrankR ( If we don't stand up to tyranny, the tyrants win, and we're enslaved.)

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