America, and the world, is in your eternal debt.
My fond memories from this time would not be complete without the mention of another person.
Thanks Walter, to you too, wherever you are.
America, and the world, is in your eternal debt.
My fond memories from this time would not be complete without the mention of another person.
Thanks Walter, to you too, wherever you are.
Just a few days shy of my 21st birthday, I watched the landing on the black and white TV in the main lecture theatre of the Australian National University in Canberra. I’d like to live to see the Mars landings.
Ciao
tallbloke (16:14:31) :
Roger Sowell (13:16:28) :
given a recent breakthrough in energy storage via high-speed flywheels. The device is under construction, and it is a bit premature to celebrate, but we should know by December or January if this works as advertised.
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/grid-scale-energy-storage-flywheel.html
“Round and round went the bloody great wheel
In and out went the prick of steel”
Sounds fun. What are they going to construct these from?
tallbloke:
Depleted Uranium, what else?
“Alan the Brit (09:49:01) :
Mark Hugoson;-)
It rather reminds me of Band Aid in 1985. The rest of the world was angry & upset at this Biblical tragedy in Ethiopia, yet its marxist socialist regime was ordering lots of expensive goodies (including loads of pricey single malt whisky) in readiness to celebrate the governments anniversary! It cared not one jot for its people. 30 years on & nothing has changed except the Sudan has taken Ethiopia’s place, at least for the time being, & the UN did very little.”
Well, everything else in your post was very well put however, I am afraid the rest of it about Ethiopia is not entirely accurate. Yes, while many starved (And to be honest many actually didn’t – you saw only what the media wanted you to see) and the corrupt govn’t did plunder, and still is, the money donated however, lots of money did get through to where it was needed and is still workng there.
However, what I see happening there now is large multinationals, with Govn’t approval (Bribes) of course, are raping the land of it’s natural resources and in returrn building token infrastructure projects for example, in one are of the city there is a road which literally goes nowhere, about 3-4 kms long, built by the Chinese in return for some mining rights.
Fortunatly for their president, he’s in exile. Unfortunately for most people, he’s still in power, stopped people sending text messages (Yes, a country of contrasts. Mud huts, with power meters, right next to bright new shining cellphone transmitter masts), killed oposittion leaders in 2005 and has most of the police and army in his back pocket.
PS. No disrespect, I have been to and lived in Ethiopia serveral times over the years, my wife is Ethiopian and we married there too. If ever you want a reality checkspend a few weeks there (Or anywhere in Africa/India really).
“The Apollo 11 moon landing is not the only significant space anniversary that falls this week. It is also 15 years since fragments of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet smashed into Jupiter, in July 1994, giving astronomers a first-hand look at the devastation that follows such cosmic collisions.
With uncanny timing, a similar impact event seems to have happened again. On Sunday, an amateur astronomer named Anthony Wesley observed a strange black blob on the surface of Jupiter. When he alerted Nasa professionals, they confirmed that it indeed appears to have been caused by another impact event.”
Jupiter’s cosmic smash: what does it mean for Earth?
http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2009/07/jupiters-cosmic-smash-what-does-it-mean-for-earth.html
Will a Killer Asteroid Hit the Earth?
“When it comes to asteroids’ wreaking disaster on Earth, the real question is not if, but when.
If you want to get contemporary on a geological scale, of course it was only 49,000 years ago that an iron asteroid blasted out Arizona’s 34-mile-wide Meteor Crater, almost certainly killing any living creatures for hundreds of miles around. And as recently as 1908, a small, rocky asteroid or chunk of a comet exploded five miles above the Tunguska region of Siberia, felling trees, starting fires and killing wildlife over an area of more than 1,000 sq. mi. Had the blast, now estimated at tens of megatons, occurred over New York City or London, hundreds of thousands would have died.
And what about near misses? As recently as 1996, an asteroid about a third of a mile wide passed within 280,000 miles of Earth < a hairbreadth by astronomical standards. It was the largest object ever observed to pass that close, and had it hit, would have caused an explosion in the 5,000-to-12,000-megaton range. What was particularly unnerving about this flyby is that the asteroid was discovered ONLY FOUR DAYS before it hurtled past Earth. All the more reason for a detection system that will discover asteroids early, plot their paths and predict, many years in advance, whether they will eventually threaten Earth. "
"The Apollo asteroid 2007 TU24 approached Earth on January 29, 2008 with a distance of 1.4 LD (lunar distance), or 450,000 km, with an estimated size between 300-600 meters. It may be the closest asteroid to pass Earth until 2027."
"So far, 1,008 NEOs larger than 140 meters have been found that come within 4.5 million miles of the Earth's orbit and are thus classified as potentially hazardous objects because they may be perturbed into impacting trajectories in the future."
http://impact.arc.nasa.gov/news_detail.cfm?ID=39
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-Earth_object
NASA Near Earth Object Program http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/
Ron de Haan, tallbloke,
Actually, I heard somewhere that they are being crafted from di-lithium crystal.
One only hopes they can stand the strain!
George E. Smith (09:48:17) :
“”” Ron de Haan (06:26:35) :
The biggest and most remarkable and impressing event of the past century. “””
Well there was that little dust up called WW-II that I believe would upstage the moon landing.
That’s the problem; today we have the whole world being run by nonentities like Saul Alinski radical Obama; who have not a clue about what happened on this planet from 1939 to 1945.
Those people were the greatest generation; not the hippies of the 60s who ushered in the space age, and now propagandize the nation’s children.
I will say one thing for the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo program; it did give us an amazing array of technologies that we normally only develop in wars; and, it didn’t cost us a dime.
Armstrong beat Kennedy’s timetable to the moon by nearly two years, and the program came in under budget. In the following eight years after Apollo, the US economy saved more than the $38B that the program cost, just in reduced crop losses, in the South Eastern United States; that resulted from improved weather forecasting . That improvement of course was a result of the global weather and communication satellite network that was put up ONLY because we had a MANNED space rogram, and NASA wanted complete and continuous round the world weather and communication coverage.
With an unmanned robot program, which the “space” scientists wanted; there was no need for either the weather or communications satellites. The development of all of that technology ended up being a total freebie.
So just how much reward, are we going to reap from the machinations of today’s science and engineering community; my bet is it won’t hold a candle to Mercury/Gemini/Apollo.
George
George,
You are 100% correct but I don’t regard the second World War as an “inspiring technological uplifting party” although I realize that the US Space Program that resulted in a manned moon landing never would have taken place if Von Braun had not build rockets for the NAZI’s and there would not have been a Cold War triggering a Space Race.
I regard the Second World War, despite the gigantic boost in technological development, as a major setback.
So I rather cherish the memories of the epic venture of the Apollo 11 flight that inspired so many people.
The main reason of it’s impact was that it coincided with a mass medium called television.
My admiration goes out to all the pioneers, Americans as well as Russians or any other nationality, who went out and risked their necks to cross borders human kind did not pass before.
The Apollo 11 flight gave the world an incredible power boost and confidence in the future. We were going for the stars and nothing was impossible.
Today we live in a time where a person with an idea is treated like an idiot and humanity has become a threat for the planet.
I would like to see the return of the “We can do anything and everything will be all right” spirit (not Obama’s “Yes we can” BS).
All those who witnessed the Moon Landing know what I am talking about.
Many people today are poisoned and blinded by all the bad news and negativism or severely misinformed.
Today I draw inspiration a.o from the X-Prize initiatives where you can still find the same spirit that propelled the Space Program, this great blog and my private activities with aircraft and engines.
The spirit is still there, but sometimes you have to look long and good to find it.
Purakanui (02:13:29) :
I was a new lecturer at London University at the time. I’ll never forget the ’60s in London. I was a new student in London at the time of the Cuban missile crisis. As Kennedy’s deadline approached the sound of warplanes climbing up from airbases around he city seemed to be everywhere. My girlfriend at the time cried because she thought we were going to die in a nuclear war…
Smokey,
Thanks for the story.
Screw the communists and the “New Russia”.
Screw our retarded politicians.
You are right.
If we come to a climate agreement we will open the door for the enemy to march through the front door on a voluntary basis.
We have to kill the entire AGW hoax before it kills us.
Dave (11:14:32) :
Actually, all of NASA, including Neil, Buzz and Mike, owes thanks to the American taxpayer.
Not true Dave, the US Space Program made money, a lot of money.
It did not cost the US taxpayer a single dime.
Read Smokey (07:37:48)
Dave (11:14:32) :
Actually, all of NASA, including Neil, Buzz and Mike, owes thanks to the American taxpayer.
Not true Dave, the US Space Program made money, a lot of money.
It did not cost the US taxpayer a single dime.
Sorry, it was George E. Smith (09:48:17) :
No-one has mentioned Werhner von Braun yet, or is that too sensitive a subject still?
Re: Inventions by NASA.
Someone above expressed an interest in seeing a list of inventions from the Apollo/Gemini/Mercury programs. I could not easily find such a list, but I did find this.
Below is a link to the U.S. Patents since 1976 issued to (assigned to) NASA. There are 742 items on the list as of July 21, 2009. The USPTO database is not as easily searched before 1976.
Also, many private companies and individuals invented wonderful things in those days and may not have been required to assign their inventions to NASA. Those are not on the list.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-adv.htm&r=0&f=S&l=50&d=PTXT&OS=AN/“National+Aeronautics+and+Space+Administration”&RS=AN/”National+Aeronautics+and+Space+Administration”&Query=AN/”National+Aeronautics+and+Space+Administration”&TD=742&Srch1=(“National+Aeronautics+and+Space+Administration”.ASNM.)&NextList15=Final+42+Hits
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-adv.htm&r=0&p=1&f=S&l=50&Query=AN/“National+Aeronautics+and+Space+Administration”&d=PTXT
I hope this one works.
Moderators, any help?
Reply: WordPress does not like that link. Use tinyurl.com if you have further problems. Click here for the link.~ ctm
Ok, I made it into a tiny url:
http://tinyurl.com/rba5w4
for the list of NASA patents since 1976.
Reply: Very prescient of you you ~ ctm
Patrick Davis (19:23:55) :
“No-one has mentioned Werhner von Braun yet, or is that too sensitive a subject still?”
Patrick Davis, read: Ron de Haan (18:55:32) :
I have mentioned Von Braun in relation to the German V-Program.
Without the genius of Von Braun and his rocket technology there would not have been a V-weapon program in Germany and no successful US Space Program.
He was lucky to survive the war, lucky he was not prosecuted in Neurenburg,
lucky to continue his rocket development in the USA and lucky the Cold War triggered a Space Race.
We were all lucky he was not deported to the USSR.
I am sure a lot of people who experienced the effects of his V1 and later his V2 have a different opinion. The same goes for the prisoners who worked under extreme conditions on his program.
But it was war and we are lucky that he was on the side that lost the war.
So in short: Briliant and successful rocket scientist who was very, very, very lucky.
His big disappointment came in the end when the Space Program was terminated and budgets were reduced. He had great plans for a permanent Moon Base and all the plans ready for a flight to Mars.
Worlds grow old and suns grow cold
And death we never can doubt.
Time’s cold wind, wailing down the past,
Reminds us that all flesh is grass
And history’s lamps blow out.
But the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won’t drive us down to dust again.
Cycles turn while the far stars burn,
And people and planets age.
Life’s crown passes to younger lands,
Time brushes dust of hope from his hands
And turns another page.
But the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won’t drive us down to dust again.
But we who feel the weight of the wheel
When winter falls over our world
Can hope for tomorrow and raise our eyes
To a silver moon in the opened skies
And a single flag unfurled.
But the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won’t drive us down to dust again.
We know well what Life can tell:
If you would not perish, then grow.
And today our fragile flesh and steel
Have laid our hands on a vaster wheel
With all of the stars to know
That the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won’t drive us down to dust again.
From all who tried out of history’s tide,
Salute for the team that won.
And the old Earth smiles at her children’s reach,
The wave that carried us up the beach
To reach for the shining sun.
For the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won’t drive us down to dust again.
Let me start by joining in to exclaim admiration and awe of the crew of Apollo 11, and all the rest of folks involved in putting together all of the space missions that led to men on the moon – the culmination of the development of human civilization.
Now, if the “environmentalists” would kick the agwers to the curb (that would have to be the next greatest achievement) and – ok, that would be enough.
Wow, now I take pause. I must strongly object to Anthony’s co-starring WC with Michael, Buzz and Neal. I therefore strongly object to Lichanos, also. WC proved himself worthy of being ostrasized by not expressing any remorse, for whatever reason, for declaring the Vietnam War lost after TET. Not being military I herein apologize to those who have been and are for falling for WC’s, at best, incompetence and lack of sympathy for our military when I was 16 and for years following. I have been regretting my gullibility for over ten years.
As for Lichanos, some subjectives will never allow themselves to expand their understanding of some matters. Vietnam was lost for several reasons, but absolutely the media (including WC) played a major part in forging opinion against U.S. Military (ie: to the point of people defacing recruiting stations, assaulting, harming and demeaning soldiers and veterans, bombing sites, threatening civilians, etc.).
What Giap said, exactly, is not important (although what Lichanos’ link quoted reinforced Smokey’s point) – the development and history of the war, the war’s reporting, domestic interpretations and reactions to the reporting and the documented consequences.
Astronauts volunteer for their life threatening service and are justifiably glorified. Servicemen (non- astronauts military) similarly risk and inconvenience their lives for the country and are just as deserving of our respect. WC, to his dishonor, did not equate the two and I can not honor WC.
I do, of course, regret the loss of the tens of thousands of U.S. personnel, the million plus S. Vietnamese, those manipulated N. Vietnamese, etc. in that debacle largely worsened by the S. Viet politicians and leaders as well as those of the north.
Back to Space: how can we think of pursuing any space exploration when so many believe ‘we have to spend our way out of bankruptcy’ Joe Biden and ‘don’t let them read the bills’ Barack Obama, as well as so many “believing” the religion of AGW being globally threatening while those AGWers in fact DO threaten human existence on Earth.
While having been a biophysics research scientist/engineer I believe we, just as importantly, must immediately emphasize also educating citizens and children in economics and finance while we refine exploration plans and means. Space elevators, private space travel, etc. should speed things along greatly.
Thank you for your indulgence.
I don’t know about the rest of you but when they landed on the moon, we held our breath. It was a feeling inside of,fear, happy, wonder, pride all mixed together. We as a nation had pulled together and accomplished what no man had done before. Its like being a caver or explorer… wanting to be the first footprint in a place. I watched the Mars rover land and while cool, it lacked that feeling that I had when Man set foot on the moon.
We hear all of the time, Planet Earth is getting too crowded. We have a choice here folks. We can stay sequestered in our little corner of the universe or we can go out and explore, make outposts, and let humanity keep growing. The alternative is population control, decreasing resources and eventual stagnation. Yes we should go into space. Not today, but soon. Yes we should go explore, because it is one of the things man does the best. we over come problems and make things work, just like they did when we landed on the moon. It wasn’t perfect, but we aren’t perfect. But we have the curiosity and the stamina to do it, and survive. I would love to go, I had hoped someday I would. I am sad we fell into complacency rather then letting our exploration spirit thrive.
My future wife and I lay in bed in a cottage behind White Waltham[UK] aerodrome in the early hours and watched on TV the first step of Man on the Moon and out of our open window we could see the Moon for real rising above the airfield. Still seems like only yesterday, the memory is so clear.
What a bunch of real men!
With the new NASA LRO Apollo landing site pics available maybe the conspiracy theorists will finally shut the **** up!
By the way, in my pontificating post I forgot to say what I most wanted to say:
I was 5. I clearly remember watching it. Unlike other 5 year olds, I was interested. My sister and I watched it on my parents’ B&W tv in their room, unfortunately my brother was in the hospital for some unknown infection on his head (I understand he’s in some medical publications).
Back then, you couldn’t help but be immersed in Space Fever. There were rocket tie-ins to almost everything, or at least my memory says so. Toothbrushes, cereal, etc… many ads showed rockets launching.
For me it is a tie between the two great tragedies of my youth: the cancellation of Apollo, and the breakup of The Beatles… but I remember both (and I was 17 days old when JFK was shot… my birth certificate was issued on that day).
Looking back, it is clear to me that my lifelong fascination with science and things scientific came directly from watching and following the Space Race, even at such an early age. I will always have the utmost respect for all of the astronauts from that era, and quite frankly am shocked that they were younger than I am now. From my perspective, they were OLD GUYS. Then again, so were all the Star Trek characters.
Wow, I just blogged about this too.
http://www.todddeeken.com/2009/07/one-giant-leap/
Glad to see it inspire so many to reflect on where we are… and where we aren’t. Hopefully these men don’t die as societies last bold adventurers.
evanmjones (21:02:09)
Thanks Evan. I’ve been playing that every July 20th(21st here in Australia) for years now. My copy of “Minus Ten and Counting” is almost worn out.
Those who are interested can go to Youtube and search for “Hope Eyrie” and hear one of several versions of the song written by Leslie Fish. Popular at science fiction conventions I’m told. Some folks like to stand to attention when it is sung.
>>>@Ralph ellis, tosh, and tosh? How about waiting to see if
>>>these guys can produce, before bashing them a prioi?
Because you (and they?) have no idea what 30GW looks like. For instance, I have 30GW in my torch battery, is that impressive?? (30GW picoseconds). If you cannot use the right units, you cannot be taken seriously.
On their website, the deceit becomes even more obvious. This is a power smoothing system, not an electrical backup ‘battery’. Wind is notoriously variable to grids, and needs a storage-smoothing system to match grid voltage and frequency. This is what this system does.
What this technology does not do is store enough energy to cover a day, a week or a month with zero wind power. There is no system in the world that can do that (short of a decent nuclear power station) which is why wind power is an expensive and pathetic diversion from our electrical power supply problems.
>>>No-one has mentioned Werhner von Braun yet, or is that
>>>too sensitive a subject still?
Ah, yes, that old America-ribbing joke.
Q. I say, I say, I say. Why did America beat Russia to the Moon?
A. Because the American Germans were better than the Russian Germans.
Da da da da daaaa….. (rounds of applause) … 😉
.
Roger Sowell;-)
Thanks for that link, I could only find about a dozen or so on the site I found, I knew it had to be squillions more than that!
Patrick Davis:-)
No one disputes that many did not die, nor that only one region of the country was so severely affected, nor that the media love a good story & the camera always shows what the media want the public to see, (polar bears etc)in this case, the BBC actually did something rather wonderful to touch the hearts & souls of millions of better off people. They just forgot to tell the story, the whole story, & nothing but the whole story! We in the UK know the “donations” got through to those who needed it as we are regularly reminded by Comic Relief every couple of years or so. Personally, I never had the time to take out or finances to visit such places, something the youth of the last 20-25 years seems to have found in abundance, thanks to science, technology, free-enterprise, low-cost flights, & modern relaxed attitudes to life, & I would have probably been thrown into clink (or worse) the minute I opened my mouth to object to the way whatever “State” behaved towards its peoples!
Slightly OT, but I understand that “stars” from stage & screen love a cause to submerge themselves into, they break down & weep at the appropriate moment on camera at the pity of a weak & feeble child held in their arms, likely to not live out the next few days, simply because it is human nature to do so. (This is NOT cynicism) This is a tragedy of humanity. However, I object to people who have abundant wealth through using the “system”, (one only needs a certain amount of wealth to be extremely comfortable, above which all else is mere extravagance), only for them to return from whatever “disaster” they have visited, & lecture the rest of us on our apparently “extravagant” lifestyles destroying the planet/people/flora & forna, from their pseudo-intellectual privillaged position! One Albert Gore springs to mind. Frankly, most of us are merely trying to reach a fraction of what they have!:-) Moderator, snip at will.
parvis imbutus tentabis grandia tutus!
Responsiva: Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscripti catapultas habebunt ~ charles tutela parcus