I guess you do have to be prepared for any eventuality. It is history now, but it has been forgotten that the whole Space Program back there had a total computer power of a smart phone of today (and think how many people get screwed just following the wrong map inside their own city) on spaceships made of the thinnest material possible filled with chemicals that recreated the worst fires of Hell on Earth and to do something just 9 years before was said it could not be done.
No wonder this preparation was a necessity.
HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON JULY 1969, A.D. WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND
The last great day in American history.
Its morbidly interesting that the article, or letter, obituary, whatever you want to call it, is written as though the men were alive but unrecoverable. It was written by someone who knew beyond a doubt that once those men left the earth their path was set. If anything went wrong, there would be nothing to do but talk to them over the radio until they were gone, a conversation with men already dead. The astronauts knew it, as well. They went anyway.
I think this document shows how NASA and the Astronauts of the Apollo program were greater than the NASA of today.
They knew the risks and went anyway. They sat, willingly, atop 5.6 MILLION pounds of kerosine, liquid oxygen, and liquid hydrogen, to be blasted off this planet into the harsh vacuum of space. They put the mission first and made some of the greatest advancements in science, engineering, and exploration.
Today, we boondoggle over safety and contracts and global warming and muslim outreach. We landed on the moon in 1969, 45 years later we have to beg the Russians for a ride into low earth orbit.
It broke my heart when when we became hitchhikers, and you can imagine what it has been like explaining this to my children who just can’t understand what I’m telling them, because they have not lived long enough to have any frame of reference for what the problem is!
The problem is simple.
Americans, our scientists, our industrialists, our medical experts, our economy, our citizens, we, as a nation, were once as gods in the global community.
We are now mortal. And instead of apologizing for it, we should be working tirelessly and desperately to regain our godhood.
I can understand that, and I was born only at the very end of Ronald Regan’s presidency.
I am asked why I am not a fan of Science Fiction and the answer is rather simple: The Apollo Program. My generation lived one of the most fantastic times where the idea of travel out to space was not wishing words on paper but a reality we got to see build up and launched.
I went to the cape on a tour while the program was still ticking and My memories of the assembly building and the sheer size of a Saturn V are still fresh. It was the Parthenon and the Pyramids and the Colossus of Rhodes and all the marvels of the world in one swift technical advance.
And I disagree with the gods comparison, we were humans who dared to traipse were god lived.
Damn..what a rush it was!
Compare and contrast to the petty, muddling, venal and self-important politicians and political staff that we have today.
Can you imagine anything this reverential and eloquent from Boehner, Pelosi, Reid, McConnell, Biden, or Obama? Their sole goal would be to blame the other side in partisan bickering, and to use the families as pawns and stage props.
My generation are pygmies gnawing at the ankles of men.
The late William Safire did have a way with words, didn’t he?
One of the most disturbing, and yet beautiful things I have ever read.