We are also going to have to face facts. We are alone in this universe and we have to keep this rock we're living on healthy so we can go on living.
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.
if we were to use the technology set forth by Freeman Dyson in the 60’s, we could have a ship in a couple of years capable of humans traveling in style to mars in a voyage that would take a couple of weeks...no matter what the configuration of Mars is to the Earth...
we are however, afraid of nukes...so we remain earthbound....
Of course, there are tons of business and psychology majors.
I can’t claim credit for the comment (which I’m recalling from memory, so it may not be exactly right), but I still can’t get it out of my mind:
Imagine the reaction if you had told someone in 1920, “Within 50 years, Americans will have walked on the moon.”
Now imagine the reaction if you followed it with, “but within another decade or so, America will abandon the project for lack of interest.”
Those in power know the colonies would eventually gain power and Independence, they would rather we lived in our own filth than give up power over one individual.
Yeesh, why bother to keep reading after this display of concentrated stupidity and ignorance?
On the first point -- what's he supposed to do when the nearest assistance is a half billion miles away? On the second, there is nothing at all absurd about surviving brief exposure to vacuum -- the author appears to have mistaken bad sci-fi flicks for documentaries.
“The Apollo lunar voyages coincided almost precisely with my law school career.”
It also coincides almost precisely with partying activity of certain Kennedy clan.
This guy's quoting you.
“Leno said, “Good. What’s his first name?” She replied: “Louis!”
Leno looked directly into the camera and said, “I can’t do this anymore.” “
If it were a black guy it would be in the text books. But white guys can’t jump and don’t make history no more. Or better yet, are erased from history by publishers.
Only disagreement I have is that the astronauts.... the whole team of engineers,scientists, and technicians that put men on the moon are NOT heroes. They had a job to do. They always looked at it like it was a job and that it should be done well. You want heroes? The guys who were at Normandy, the POWs, anyone who fought in Viet Nam, fire fighters, policemen. Those are real heroes. The astronauts are fine folks but they are not heroes ( and for the record I loved the moon program. We haven’t really had a space program in decades-— what we have had is a cost containment program)
What is on the moon that we need to go back? Just stand there and go, “See, we did it”?
Since we are in the worst financial crisis this country has seen and it could even destroy this nation, I don’t think billions upon billions more being spent on putting another footprint on the moon is a wise idea.
In 1989 an explosion on the battleship USS Iowa occured, taking out a main gun turret with three 16” guns and snuffing out 47 lives in the process.
The USS Iowa was launched in 1942 and the original guns were manufactured in the late 1930’s to the early 1940’s. But 50 years later, when the navy got around to making a decision on repairing the damage from the explosion, it was found that the US no longer had the capability to manufacture 16” guns to replace those destroyed in the explosion.
The 16” guns could fire a 2,700-pound shell over 24 miles. (record set @ 24.6 miles in January 1989)
This is misleading.
The Space Shuttle’s casualties did not occur in space either. They occurred in the atmosphere. Perhaps not on the launch pad as did Apollo 1 which claimed 3 lives. But never the less not in space.
The Challenger’s external fuel tank exploded during launch destroying the Challenger in the process. The Columbia broke up when it reentered Earth’s atmosphere. Neither accident occurred in space.
Yes the Shuttle program has claimed 14 lives, but the program has had far more launches than the Apollo program. Apollo lasted about a decade. The Shuttle program has lasted 28 years.
I think how ever you would want to figure it the Shuttle program has been safer.
“The technology (manned landing on moon)is no longer available, and even if it were, it would be primitive and obsolete. The first high-tech layoffs began at Cape Canaveral at about the time of the Apollo 11 launch in 1969. NASA knew what was coming. As a nation we were about to become the dog that chased the car and finally caught it, and then didn’t know what to do with it.”
I had a dog like that once; he chased every car that came by only to straggle back home a half hour later panting like a dog — one day he leapt off the porch with a mighty thrust and had that old, smoking clunker right within his reach as they turned the corner out of sight.
Imagine my surprise and delight when came trotting back, head held high and from his grinning, slobbery jaws there dangled a mangled stub of an exhaust pipe.
He never chased another car after that, just sat there on the porch with the smugest look on his face you ever saw.
He’s out back now, resting under his favorite shade tree, the old pipe stub forced tight against his still chest from the weight of the cool earth above him.
Now, if your going up to install a lunar missile base to give first strike capabilities.
Then, lets get-r-done.
Otherwise, just to go just say we did.....nah, waste of money.
It IS a sad commentary that the electric excitement Kennedy ignited with his challenge to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade (which we achieved), is now relegated to the dustbin of old people’s memories (and I’m one of them!).
It is worse that, in order to reinvigorate the space program to return to the moon (IF we ever do, and I’m not convinced that we will), we have to reinvent the technology to get there.
Finally, how much maoney have the American taxpayers pored into this program?? We paid to develop the technology once, THEN we paid to develop a space-going truck that has never succeeded in going beyond earth orbit, and NOW we have to pay to RE-develop the technology to return to the moon!!! Why??
I’m all for space exploration, what I oppose is politicians who keep changing the priorities AFTER the money has been spent!! How much money has our Congress pored down a rat hole with the on again, off again, Star Wars missile defense program, for example??
This is one practice in Congress that needs to stop. When the Congress appropriates funding for a project, REGARDLESS of which political party is in control (yes, I KNOW that’s potentially VERY dangerous, thank you in advance for telling me!), the project should be continued through to completion unless/until, WE the PEOPLE who OWN the government put forth an initiative to kill it!!! We just keep throwing more money down the same rat holes and getting NOTHING in return!! IOW there’s NO fiscal responsibility from one Congress or one administration to the next. And, WE keep getting stuck with the bill!