The Dark Side of the Moon, eh? Anyone told Gilmour et al, yet?
Hope they wear their longjohns.
Pre-emptive strike on the NASA is a waste of money, robots are the only solution, private industry is the only, etc, crowd.........
Astronauts bring back the visions of space, they bring back what its like to see our earth as an outsider. They bring back what its like to be a child of earth. To see our world as it truly is, an oasis in a vast black expanse.
They take human presence beyond our world. No machine can do this.
They teach us that the sky is not the limit, that there ARE no limits.
They keep an AMERICAN presense in space. If we dont. Someone else will certainly take the lead. China is seeking the high ground now.
There are reasons why this nation is where it is today.
Reasons why any of us are here at all. Brave people took the risks and went beyond the horizon. They did so on ships they knew may not return and on imperfect wings.
Astronaut Story Musgrave.....
"We have been a frontier culture. We were born out of exploration, we were born out of adventure. We were born out of the plains and the mountains. We've been a very physical kind of culture. And so, if you look at adventure, if you look at exploration, if you look at immersion in nature, a physical culture, and all those things, you can see directly how space flight relates to the way America has been born and how it evolved."
"You have to keep pushing the frontier not
just because it's there, but because that's how we find things that end up changing humanity," -Paul Hill, Mission Control
Why Space, Why Explore?
Astronaut Story Musgrave...........
We have no choice, Sir. It is the Nature of Humanity, it is the Nature of Life
The Globe was created and Life Evolved, and you look at every single cubic millimeter on this Earth, You can go 30,000 feet down below the Earth surface, You can go 40,000 feet up in the air and Life is There. When you look at the globe down there, you see Teeming Life Everywhere
It is the Power of Life, And maybe I am not just a Human up here, you know. Now Life is Leaping off the Planet. It is heading to other parts of the Solar System, other parts of the Universe
There are those kinds of Pressures. It isn't simply politics, it is not simply technology, it is really not just the essence of humanity, but it is sort of also, you could look at it as maybe the Essence of Life. I think Teilhard de Chardin, in Phenomenon of Man, I believe he put that incredibly well. So those kind of Forces are at Work. It is the nature of humans to be exploratory and to Push On
Yes, it costs resources and it does cost a lot, and there is a risk, there is a penalty, there is a down side, but Exploration and Pioneering, I think those are the critical things, it is the Essence of what Human Beings are, and that is to try to understand their Universe and to try to participate in the entire Universe and not just their little Neighborhood -Story Musgrave
One of my most convincing arguments for space exploration is the
analogy that Earth itself is a spacecraft. Everything we learn about
how to function and live in space applies directly to our spacehip
Earth. How to recycle air, water, how to generate and use power
efficiently, how to grow food in closed ecosystems. All of it is
important. All of this can benefit mankind in a world with a fast
growing population. Understanding other worlds is
how we understand OUR world better, to understand
how it formed and where it is going. Its our only home for now.
"We must not cease from exploration, and at the end of all our
exploring will be to arrive where we began, and to know it for the
first time."
T.S. Eliot
President Bush at the Columbia memorial at JSC................
"The cause of exploration and discovery is not an option we choose, It
is a desire written in the human heart."
And at the announcement of new American space policy...........
"Mankind is drawn to the heavens for the same reason we were once
drawn into unknown lands and across the open sea. We choose to explore
space because doing so improves our lives, and lifts our national
spirit."
Gallup survey.....
"More than three-fourths (77%) of the American public say they support a newplan for space exploration that would include a stepping-stone approach to returnthe space shuttle to flight, complete assembly of the space station, build areplacement for the shuttle, go back to the Moon and then on to Mars and beyond"
"You have to keep pushing the frontier not
just because it's there, but because that's how we find things that end up
changing humanity," -Paul Hill, Mission Control
Excerpted from Silver Linings : Triumph of the Challenger 7. by June Scobee
A note in a Challenger astronauts briefcase found after the loss.....
"We have whole planets to explore, we have new worlds to build. We have a solar system to roam in. And if only a tiny fraction of the human race reaches out toward space, the work they do there will totally change the lives of all the billions of humans who remain on earth, just as the strivings of a handful of colonists in the new world totally changed the lives of everyone in Europe, Asia & Africa."
Had Dick left the note in his briefcase for us to find if something happened? Did he write it on scratch paper to use to quote in a speech? All we'll ever know is that when we most needed a message, it was there. He left for us his dream for the world, his vision for space exploration.
NASA: It's dark. Is there any more that you need to know?
Can we choose the guy they send over there? I've got a few ideas.
Can't they put them all there?
Sorry...old joke. (running for cover!)
The question is, which man will NASA put on the far side of the mooon? I nominate Ted Kennedy.
Not quite accurate. Apollo 14 in 1971 had a landing site at the Fra Mauro highlands. Apollo 15 set down on the Caley plain but it was near the Appennine front and Hadley rille. Apollo 16 was a mission to the lunar highland in the Descarte region. Apollo 17 had perhaps the most picturesque site of all, the Taurus-Littrow valley (the Taurus Mountains and Littrow crater). Only Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 had landing sites in the mare regions, mainly for safety and equatorial landing sites.
Where is that Kerry / Bill Nelson space suit photo ?
The moon sits above the track as the field goes through turn three in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series' John Deere 200 auto race at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Ga., Friday, March 17, 2006. (AP Photo/Phil Manson)
I thought the aliens gave us specific orders not to set foot on that moon again.
Ping
Cameras will photograph the surface, backed by a laser altimeter to create a three-dimensional relief map from which Nasa can identify landing sites.
We already did this a few years ago with Clementine. Why do we need to do the whole thing over again?
Dear God, please let it be Ted Kennedy!!
Anybody who spells program as programme is mired in the glorious past of the pre-eminence of science. The space program is to preserve America's pre-eminence in space.
The moon program can land the four astronauts on the moon for up to a year at a time. However, their search for water might be better carried out by a series of drillbots in separate launches.
The aliens aren't going to like this!
I am so glad they cleared that up for me.
Yep because we need to maintain national security on the other side of the moon. To prevent attacks from Jupiter, Saturn, and definitely Mars. Those Martians are probably getting upset at us sending probes to their planet.
Sheesh, has the national government truly run out of ways to waste money that they're going to do this?!?
Manuel Grande, head of the planetary science group at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, dismissed such fears. “Finding out more about the moon will help us understand where the Earth and moon came from,” he said. “There do not have to be good scientific reasons . . . It’s like going up Everest; we want to go to places like the moon and Mars just because they are there.”
Hey Manuel, last time I checked, governments don't pay for trips to Everest. You want to do it, waste your own money. I'd soon just as see my taxes lowered than pay for a joyride for someone with nothing better to do