42 years ago today Neil Armstrong took a small step for a man, and a giant leap for mankind.
Tomorrow morning when the shuttle Atlantis’ wheels stop on the runway at the KSC it will be the end of an era.
Are our best days behind us?
I remember the day well, it was a big deal in our house. It really amazes me that there are still boneheads out there who actually don’t believe it ever really happened.
My late dad was part of the team that worked on the Saturn V rocket that propelled the Apollo missions into space. I remember watching the live transmission from the moon and how transfixed the world was.
Funny though…by the time the last Apollo mission wrapped up, it became almost passe…so much so that over the years the original telemetry tapes of the landing video were lost and remain so (tapes that contained the data that provided a practically high definition video of those first steps that Neil Armstrong took).
In any case, yes…the Apollo missions were a shining moment.
The modern day American culture (an oxymoron if there ever was one) could care less for the most part, it seems.
As an American I have a lot of personal pride in our accomplishments in space over the past 42 years, with the exception of the few disasters of course. Apollo 13 was definitely a disaster avoided. Although a failure, it was probably the finest showing of pure American ingenuity IMO. Being the end of an era sort of leaves a void doesn’t it. Cheers!!!
Idiots always shout the loudest. It doesn’t make them a majority.
Also, there’s no reason we can’t send people back into space one we get the economy back in order.
Or we can just hitch a ride with the Russians…
I wasn’t born yet when they touched down on the moon, but I remember being in school and them televising the first shuttle launch. One of my teachers bought the 33 recording and played it in class when we couldn’t go outside due to weather.
Anyone who was within 20 miles of a Saturn V lifting off knows it was for real. Probaby twice as thunderous as the space shuttle. Absolutely amazing!
I recall all of my family crowded around the B&W TV watching it “live”.
Thought we’d be on Mars or Venus by now.
One of the truly noble, if a bit Quixotic, ventures of our country. Amazing that the electronics of the day were able to do this!
I hope, someday, if we ever get to the point where our government is frugal with its other expenditures and can afford to add in things like further space exploration, we’ll restart it…imagine with the strides in technology that have come to pass!!
It’s amazing and rather sad…
I think our govt is giving up on the space race. There’s still rockets to pop stuff like military satellites up into orbit and they are quite a bit cheaper than maintaining a shuttle program. That being said I think not pushing forward with a similar program is a mistake.
Also, we should focus on long-term survival and ease of mobility in space. Even the shortest possible manned trip to Mars is useless if it is a suicide mission. We need actual workable space-craft more than rockets with payloads in order to push forward and survive in space.
Once we have this ability to move freely about the solar system then the possibilities like Mars colonization open up.
allegedly! 
We’ll go back when the time is right.
It is sad to see it end though…for now.
That was interesting carl.
The interesting thing is to see how the private sector is attacking this issue. SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, etc etc - there are some really cool things going on. They’re for the uber-rich for now, of course, but it was the same way with air travel a century ago. Military first, then the rich, then everybody.
China starting to put a stranglehold on rare earth elements will be a big boost to our attempts at space mining.
Here is the NASA Administrator, Charles Bolden, explaining to Al Jazeera that our current President sees NASA’s prime mission as an outreach program to muslim nations.
It’s a double-whammy for me. I’ve been an engineer at Kennedy Space Center since 1993…July 29th is my last day (lay-off).
That double sonic boom still startles the hell out of me, but after this morning’s, no more.
Don’t get the thread locked and keep your political views to yourself, please. This is the only warning.