55 years ago yesterday, July 16, 1969, the world watched in great wonder as the massive, dragon-fire-spitting Saturn V rocket lifted off launchpad 39A at Kennedy Space Center.
Of course, we know the rest of this grand and magnificent history and we still marvel at the extraordinary feat that was finally achieved on July 21st when both Armstrong and Aldrin embossed human footprints in the lunar dust. That astounding achievement may have happened over a half-century ago but its imprint on culture, on scientific exploration, on human understanding, on America and indeed, on the world, is still strong and deep. A few additional perspectives on the legacy of Apollo are worth considering.
This is a relatively short and relentlessly optimistic piece about the early days of the Space Program, not just Apollo but also Gemini and Mercury. It's authored by Grant Anderson, the President and CEO of Paragon Space Development Corporation. He holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and an M.S. in Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering from Stanford University.
On a very broad and basic level, when I think of Apollo 11, I’m reminded of what Americans are capable of, particularly when we’re unified and focused on important shared goals. Americans make up a nation of great vision with citizens who are often willing to take a few calculated gambles in order to see that vision become reality. Despite periodic episodes where we hesitate to commit to grand endeavors, we excel when we are compelled to act, often demonstrating a capacity for greatness in a way that other nations and societies have a hard time matching. Apollo 11 — and indeed the entire early space program including projects Mercury and Gemini prior to Apollo — exemplify both the American spirit for boldness and the magic that can occur when our forces of industry, innovation and free thought are synched together for a noble purpose. The goal was ambitious and the timeline was tight, but the drive to demonstrate to the world that we could put a human on the moon allowed America to perform at her best.
In a very real sense, we've never equaled our accomplishments of the Apollo era. The silly "we never went to the moon" arguments are another symptom of that. It's singularly illogical to think because we haven't duplicated a prior mission that the prior mission didn't happen, but here we are.
Apollo 11 Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin’s bootprint. Image Credit: NASA
A short article worth your time to read.
And now there's yet another movie about faking NASA accomplishments.
ReplyDeleteLe Sigh.
Buzz Aldrin still has the best response to these jackalopes.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=buzz+aldrin+punches+guy&view=detail&mid=29C30B8DD806455DE70229C30B8DD806455DE702&FORM=VIRE&PC=HCTS
Most people forget. We didn't go to the moon once. We went six times. But idiots are immune to facts.
ReplyDeleteAnd we've been there via probes and such many many times.
DeleteNASA and The Great Unwashed Masses just don't have the moxie any more, too many politicians (most of 'em as ignorant as lichen) in the mix and too many squirrel types gritching about how the money is best spent elsewhere. And SLS is just adding to the general problem. Poor decisions upon poor decisions, leading to the joke that NASA is now!
ReplyDeleteAnd then along comes Musk...
Pretty sure it was July 20 when we walked on the moon.
ReplyDeleteWho's celebrating Moon Day this Saturday?
ReplyDeleteWe usually do it as "Peak of Western Civilization Day". I guess there have been a couple over the 14 years of the blog that haven't celebrated it, but not many.
DeleteWas 9, it felt a great honor back then, particularly being a BoyScout, it was the pinnacle of being a boy back when all happening thinking about how fortunate every launch from mercury to Appolo 11 was on live TV. Alan Shepard was from a town about 30 miles south of our house in NH. My aunt and uncle worked at a factory where they produced many parts of the lunar lander, and lunar rovers, they fabricated machined and welded mostly parts from titanium, they where so proud and dead nuts serious about doing things right, beat working in the paper mill by all accounts, my Aunt mentioned there was a kind of motto in the industry, that went like this, "It ain't gonna fail because of me" and they meant it. They talked about how the panels covering over the structure of the lander where spec'd at only .004"-.005" thick because of the gross vehicle weight limit they had to meet. In a contrast to that, a cousin older than us was a combat medic, couple times he was home on leave, he loved to play all day with us little kids, from hearing the adults talk, he was pretty emotionally effected by the war experience in Vietnam, few times we would be sitting with him, he was rather kind of quiet when we where not running around having fun, he would sit not saying much, be peeling layers of super glue and blood off his hands and fingers, which was used from large squeeze bottles for quickly gluing guys with bad wounds together so they would make it a field hospital alive. We all would sit close by him and give him hugs when he would start crying. It was such a complex dynamic time to grow up thru I can say that with all honestly, and the contrasts between the space race and war in Vietnam was not lost on us smaller kids. But watching those rockets lift off and zoom into space was incomparable, I'm pretty certain I got to watch every lift off, because if they weren't planning on having us watch at school my grandparents made sure I stayed home to see it. There was nothing like it, before and since. After all these years and having a tiny bot of life's wisdoms, in no uncertain terms, somebody wanted it all to stop and they did so, whatever their motives, they began the destruction of that America, it still is happening, but I do believe, that is nearing an end, whomever it was, whatever it is, their/it's time is at hand. A very good thing. You know, we are a nation of values no matter what is said, that really means something, it truly counts above a great many other great and good and beautiful things about America, and good folks, we can get pretty mean when our values are ruthlessly violated by ruthless people. And that don't necessarily mean grabbing our Rifles and going after such ruthless actors, in our way we do not need our Rifles, oh its really good we got them, but 100 million pissed off armed to the teeth American's, well, lets say we get to vote too. Here is to our God Blessed country, that we live up to Apollo 11, everything it stands for and then some, cause no matter what-all lies we been fed and told to believe all these years, we are still here, a lot of good folks still hold a lot of great values that really count for something. And maybe we all just have to go thru what all been done to us, and we come out better and stand for things much larger than our-selves. Thats what I believe in and because I was grown up thru such a grand time in history.
ReplyDeleteWe went to the neighbor's house to watch the launches because the neighbors had a color tv. We watched the landings at home on our BW tv because no color transmission.
ReplyDeleteDad was big in the range tracking and instrumentation ships and ground stations. Really big, but behind the scenes big. Knew most of the astronauts from Mercury to Apollo. Got some hansom plaques and a set of those medals that flew and that were handed out to some of the workers and contributors.
America did something no other nation on the planet has matched: we went to the moon and landed astronauts there.
ReplyDeleteDuring a nation-rending war, and amid a blistering civil rights struggle.
And then we did it five more times, even taking a custom dune buggy there.
That feat alone is why every other nation on the planet sucks it when we're in the same room, and always will.
And what's happened since is testimony to how NASA has done nothing but fall and fail, since those incredible days, killing astronauts and wasting money as if both grew on trees.