Unhappy 40th, Apollo 11

[AdamSmith]

Today is the 40th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11.

Countdown and liftoff:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5722827024646179220

From the gantry:

Up close with those Saturn V engines:

Some of the 40th anniversary activities upcoming:

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/200...15/1997425.aspx

All that noted, I find it beyond dispiriting to look back at the failures of both imagination and nerve that have befallen the species' spaceflight ambitions since. The enormous dead-end investments in that engineering kluge, the space shuttle, in order to build the white-elephant time- and money-waster, the International Space Station. Which, after producing just a fraction of the science once anticipated, is now rumored for de-orbit in 2015.

That waste of nearly four decades dashed the "2001"-era hopes that I (age 49) once had of seeing all kinds of post-Apollo frontiering within my own lifetime.

The Constellation program to return to the moon is some solace, though it is apparently behind schedule, and running into engineering difficulties that have led to repeated reductions in lift capacity.

One bright spot I find -- Buzz Aldrin is on a mission to convince people that settling for return-to-moon is in effect nothing, and that Mars-or-bust is the way to set new challenges equivalent to Kennedy's 1961 "because they are hard" speech.

(Irreverence within the temple -- never before struck me how Marilyn Monroe might have construed that phrase. )

On the other side of the ledger, I feel unbounded gratitude for all the professionals who dedicated their careers to the age's triumphs of unmanned exploration and discovery -- the Voyagers, Mars probes, Hubble Space Telescope, on and on. Arguably a vastly better investment, on balance, than in manned flight.

Though I tend to side with Aldrin that manned exploration is essential to fueling and satisfying our spirit of discovery. And with the utilitarian argument that eventually establishing self-sustaining colonies off-Earth is critical to giving the species a more robust likelihood of survival, long-term.

[MsGuy]

Though I tend to side with Aldrin that manned exploration is essential to fueling and satisfying our spirit of discovery. And with the utilitarian argument that eventually establishing self-sustaining colonies off-Earth is critical to giving the species a more robust likelihood of survival, long-term.

Human political constructs tend to be fairly short lived. Even the underlying civilizations tend to poop out after a couple or three thousand years. I'm not sure how an ultra high tech space based species would survive that kind of periodic instability.

[AdamSmith]

Human political constructs tend to be fairly short lived. Even the underlying civilizations tend to poop out after a couple or three thousand years. I'm not sure how an ultra high tech space based species would survive that kind of periodic instability.

Great point. One thought -- now that technology has given nation-states as well as rogue actors the power to take us all with them when they poop out, more reason than ever to spread the human seed widely. (Assuming you grant that preservation of H. sapiens and its successors is a good, not an evil.)

Another, maybe broader thought. Could it be that extraplanetary venturing is the necessary spur to the next expansion of the conceptual frame, as arguably the voyages of Magellan et al. were in their age? And that said expansion is the only hope available of at least lengthening the periodicity of the instabilities you rightly identify?

Of course another part of attacking the problem you name is to think about modifying H. sapiens itself. Evolution having made the fatal blunder of giving us intelligence, can we not use intelligence to at last rise above the plane of evolution, which after all blindly creeps with no aim but transmission of the code, despite our mythologizing that development of intelligence shows the progressive nature of evolution, when in fact it only shows evolution's desperate improvising of ever more unstable superstructures to clamp together its previous irrevocable blunders?

That is, are we not approaching the capability to break free from not only the fatal impulses of the hindbrain, but ultimately even the chains of amino acids in which all our potential has been, to this point, inevitably bound?

I realize this advocates the hubris of Dr. Frankenstein over the oft-perceived divine wisdom of blind genetic chance and evolutionary pressure. I would be willing to play that hand.

[AdamSmith]

Good article by space historian James Oberg on why we really went to the moon (cuts the legs out from some of my points) and what could get us back there:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5380736/ns/tec..._science-space/

[RA1]

The race into space and NASA's efforts have indeed had some strange twists and turns. There is not doubt in my mind that we, as earth people, have benefitted from the science. What surprises me the most is how well the various space programs and co-operation have become the new and "real" UN. Competition still exists, which seems to be a good aspect of the human spirit, but so far without the bloodshed, the accidents notwithstanding.

In the '60's it amazed me that we could and would attempt to go to the moon and I was even more amazed when we succeeded. (Sometime I must tell my own story of the night of the one and only Apollo night launch.) Now, I feel we have lapsed back into the same lethargy we had before and, with the current economic situation, I have little hope we will progress with any vigor at all.

Another thing that bothers me quite a bit is my apprehension that mankind is not biologically (presently) to adapt to living in space. Being in orbit for extended periods of time extols a tremendous price on the body. There are articles written about this but it strikes me that the casual public is fairly unaware of how really physically unfit returning inhabitants of the space station really are and how long it takes them to recover when back on the surface of the earth. I think we somehow need to solve this problem better than we have so far.

Thanks for an interesting thread.

Best regards,

RA1

[MsGuy]

After the first moon landings, the Charlotte Observer (N.C.) surveyed it's readers and found that about 1/3 believed the whole thing had been faked up by the government. I guess it's progress if the numbers have been reduced to 6%.

Moon landings a propoganda fake

[AdamSmith]

After the first moon landings, the Charlotte Observer (N.C.) surveyed it's readers and found that about 1/3 believed the whole thing had been faked up by the government. I guess it's progress if the numbers have been reduced to 6%.

Moon landings a propoganda fake

When one begins to despair at the depths of one's own stupidity, this proves one could be even worse off.

My favorite part of that article:

Mr. Sibrel, who sells his films online, has hounded Apollo astronauts with a Bible, insisting that they swear on camera they had walked on the Moon. He so annoyed Buzz Aldrin in 2002 — ambushing him with his Bible and calling him “a coward, and a liar, and a thief†— that Mr. Aldrin punched Mr. Sibrel in the face. Law enforcement officials refused to file charges against Mr. Aldrin, the second man on the Moon.

[MsGuy]

LOL! That part caught my attention too. Aldrin was born in 1930 so he would have been about 72 when he punched Sibrel. Nice to know that he's kept himself in good shape.

[Guest StuCotts]

If humankind ever goes into space beyond the moon it won't be because anybody can see a realistic possibility of establishing even momentary colonies in environments so hostile that any unmediated exposure would guarantee immediate literal annihilation to the colonizers. It will be for the reason that motivated the original race to the moon: that in this day and age one of the most important signs of an earthly superpower is the ability to break its earthly bounds as a technique for keeping upstart superpowers in their place. Any superpower you can be we can be superer, and we can be it in some really faraway places.

Beyond that, Aldrin is right that splishy-splashing around in the same wading pool for 40 years is lame for people who tirelessly pound their chests and roar about their supremacy in space science.

Also, good for him and his impatience with unbalanced moralizers. I wish similar justice on the inbred knuckle-draggers who wave God Hates Fags signs.

[TampaYankee]

After the first moon landings, the Charlotte Observer (N.C.) surveyed it's readers and found that about 1/3 believed the whole thing had been faked up by the government.

This from the state that gave us Jese Helms, present Senator Richard Burr, and Congresswoman Virginia Foxx among many. (I leave out Liddy Dole only because of her past service with the Red Cross.) What a disconnect!!

[AdamSmith]

environments so hostile that any unmediated exposure would guarantee immediate literal annihilation to the colonizers.

...quoth the fish to their first offspring fool enough to wonder about life on dry land?

Less flip, the engineering possibilities of 'terraforming' other worlds are coming more and more into view. (Especially given the sharp boost those technologies could get in the next half-century here at home. A small but serious movement is taking shape to think about actively intervening in the climate mess, out of fear that the thing has already passed a tipping point, and that just decelerating carbon emissions going forward will be far too little, too late.)

It will be for the reason that motivated the original race to the moon

For good or ill, you're right. As Oberg's article above reminded, puncturing my highflown naivete.

[AdamSmith]

This from the state that gave us Jese Helms, present Senator Richard Burr, and Congresswoman Virginia Foxx among many. (I leave out Liddy Dole only because of her past service with the Red Cross.) What a disconnect!!

TY! This Tar Heel takes exception. Remember Sam Ervin.

Actually, here is a demographic analysis, or at least excuse. Helms got elected in 1972, the first election cycle to show the effects of the migration of substantial numbers of Northeast Corridor Republicans into the Research Triangle and other parts, courtesy of new plant openings by IBM, Monsanto, Burroughs Wellcome, etc. Those votes, added to the native bubbas, tipped it. Trend has continued since, with such as the state's emergence as a national banking center.

Before 1972, old-time Democrats had, for better or worse, a lock on state politics since just after Reconstruction. One has to go back to Andrew Johnson to find anything quite as bad as the recent crop.

[MsGuy]

Actually, here is a demographic analysis, or at least excuse. Helms got elected in 1972, the first election cycle to show the effects of the migration of substantial numbers of Northeast Corridor Republicans into the Research Triangle and other parts, courtesy of new plant openings by IBM, Monsanto, Burroughs Wellcome, etc. Those votes, added to the native bubbas, tipped it.

Funny how our memory plays tricks on us. I would have sworn Nick Galifianakas, congressman from Raliegh/Durham & a New South democrat, ran a dismissive, complacent campaign while failing to make much effort to heal divisions in the Democratic party accentuated by a hotly contested primary. Durned if I don't recall poor naive Nick walzing his way into a buzzsaw of hot button attack ads portraying him as a half foreign, minority loving, commie McGovern clone. Did I forget to mention that Nixon carried N.C. that year by an overwhelming margin? That Helms' out of state fund raising machine enabled him to saturate the media during the last month of the campaign?

So it was mostly the fault of all those Yankee Republican transplants? If I didn't know your memory to be better than mine, I'd have said TY had the better of this one.

I love (& respect) my homeboys too, so I can sympathise with your impulse to excuse goofiness in the land of your birth. Better though to just sit back and enjoy the show. My own home state once elected a one armed drunk as governor solely on the basis of his being stripped of his senority and congressional committee assignments by his fellow democrats.

P.S. Gov. Colmer was first elected to Congress as a wounded war hero. Few of his constituents knew that he lost his arm by walking into the spinning prop of a parked plane while drunk on duty. His only noteworthy activity as govenor was wandering around the mansion grounds in his underwear drunk out of his gourd. Used to be quite amusing watching the capitol police trying to herd him back inside.

[AdamSmith]

Funny how our memory plays tricks on us. I would have sworn Nick Galifianakas, congressman from Raliegh/Durham & a New South democrat, ran a dismissive, complacent campaign while failing to make much effort to heal divisions in the Democratic party accentuated by a hotly contested primary. Durned if I don't recall poor naive Nick walzing his way into a buzzsaw of hot button attack ads portraying him as a half foreign, minority loving, commie McGovern clone. Did I forget to mention that Nixon carried N.C. that year by an overwhelming margin? That Helms' out of state fund raising machine enabled him to saturate the media during the last month of the campaign?

So it was mostly the fault of all those Yankee Republican transplants? If I didn't know your memory to be better than mine, I'd have said TY had the better of this one.

All right, Galifianakis ran a hapless, inept campaign. While Helms, his campaign manager Tom Ellis & crew were inventing the demonically effective tactics of wide-scale fundraising, voter microtargeting, and personal-divisive-destructive messaging later honed by Atwater and carried to perfection by Rove. You'll recall one of Helms's most oft-used slogans against the Greek: "Jesse Helms -- he's one of us."

I ought to know I can't sneak anything by you.

P.S. Your Colmer sounds vaguely reminiscent of our tippling Andrew Johnson.

[MsGuy]

Oops, the drunken Rep./Gov. was John Bell Williams. My brain's stuck in first gear tonight. And my memory really is shot to hell when the oxygen levels tail off. Funny how I would remember a name like Nick Galliafanakas and forget ole John Bell's.

[Guest StuCotts]

Less flip, the engineering possibilities of 'terraforming' other worlds are coming more and more into view. (Especially given the sharp boost those technologies could get in the next half-century here at home. A small but serious movement is taking shape to think about actively intervening in the climate mess, out of fear that the thing has already passed a tipping point, and that just decelerating carbon emissions going forward will be far too little, too late.)

For whatever it might teach the scientists that they could apply elsewhere, I suppose the terraforming studies are worthwhile. But short of a threat on the order of the one faced by Krypton, I'm all for taking what you have and making it work, rather than establishing Earths-away-from-Earth. I think I'm too earthbound for this discussion.

Apart from that, I never tire of reading the comments of my Southern brethren on your local politics. I can't tell if the humor is in the deeds or in the recounting. I suspect both. What matters is that it's pervasively there, and that it offers me the bonus of a great relief from thinking about NYS politics, an ever-deepening ghastly disgrace brought to previously unplumbed lows this past spring.

[AdamSmith]

short of a threat on the order of the one faced by Krypton, I'm all for taking what you have and making it work, rather than establishing Earths-away-from-Earth.

On a matter this dire, I am all with Mr. Stevens about it being "not a choice between, but of." If the string runs out on one line of inquiry, as it usually does, I do not want to learn, too late in the day, that we ought to have pursued all likely possibilities in parallel.

Apart from that, I never tire of reading the comments of my Southern brethren on your local politics. I can't tell if the humor is in the deeds or in the recounting. I suspect both. What matters is that it's pervasively there

As with our consideration of our politics, so with life at large. We have always been such great tragedians that our only salvation lay in being even greater comedians. I know of no more hilarious book than As I Lay Dying, for example. Not to mention, stepping down a bit, the entire oeuvre of Flannery O'Connor.

Or, back to an earlier point, Sen. Ervin's use of wit and ridicule as the tools of righteous anger during Watergate.

[Guest StuCotts]

As I Lay Dying,[/i] for example. Not to mention, stepping down a bit, the entire oeuvre of Flannery O'Connor.

Now you've put me in mind of Oscar Wilde's observation that, I paraphrase, you need to have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing. Not bad company to be in.

[MsGuy]

Apart from that, I never tire of reading the comments of my Southern brethren on your local politics. I can't tell if the humor is in the deeds or in the recounting. I suspect both. What matters is that it's pervasively there, and that it offers me the bonus of a great relief from thinking about NYS politics, an ever-deepening ghastly disgrace brought to previously unplumbed lows this past spring.

Come on StuCotts, that NYS senate of yours is a hoot and a half. If you tell me you can't see the humor in their bravura comedic performance this month, I'm going to have to look up that alias/airport security thread and publicly apologise to Lucky! You've got a front row seat to the finest political farce since Clinton spilled come on his intern's dress!

[AdamSmith]

Come on StuCotts, that NYS senate of yours is a hoot and a half. If you tell me you can't see the humor in their bravura comedic performance this month, I'm going to have to look up that alias/airport security thread and publicly apologise to Lucky! You've got a front row seat to the finest political farce since Clinton spilled come on his intern's dress!

I think what Stu is actually doing is bemoaning Northerners' tendency to be embarrassed by the human condition, and admiring the Southern bent toward rueful delight in same.

Or maybe I am projecting again.

[AdamSmith]

Now you've put me in mind of Oscar Wilde's observation that, I paraphrase, you need to have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing. Not bad company to be in.

Now changing into a dry pair of drawers.

[Guest StuCotts]

Come on StuCotts, I'm going to have to look up that alias/airport security thread and publicly apologise to Lucky!

If you're so inclined.

Actually, I meant my remark to be funny. But now that you've brought it up, the difference between the former situation and the present one is that if my intended humor lays an egg with the reader, I figure that the fault is mine, not the reader's.

So, shoot if you must this old grey head.

[MsGuy]

I think what Stu is actually doing is bemoaning Northerners' tendency to be embarrassed by the human condition, and admiring the Southern bent toward rueful delight in same.

Or maybe I am projecting again.

Not projecting, just romanticizing away the raw face of necessity, which is, of course, another deeply ingrained trait of Southerners. In a different context, I once told TY that OZ's gracious sense of humor probably derived from exigencies of life in the deep South. If we didn't search out the humor in each others antics, likely we would wind up in the sights of each others rifles.

[MsGuy]

If you're so inclined.

Actually, I meant my remark to be funny. But now that you've brought it up, the difference between the former situation and the present one is that if my intended humor lays an egg with the reader, I figure that the fault is mine, not the reader's.

So, shoot if you must this old grey head.

Well, since I'm not so inclined, we will just have to work this out between us. I suspect the principal problem I have with your humor is that I am cursed with the most literal minded brain imaginable. Understated deadpan tends to sail right past me unnoticed. For instance, I had to read over your last post 4 times before I realized it could be read as a sly jab at Lucky. Intended? Not intended? ARRG! Way too subtle. For a clod like me an occasional smilie would go a long way to cueing a recognition of the humor.

As to putting a bullet through your head, see my last post to AdamSmith. Years ago I gave away my last pistol (.357 four shot derringer style), to avoid just such choices.

[MsGuy]

Meanwhile back at the space ranch, factions savage each other over NASA's shrunken budget.

Reality Reeks