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30 Years Since Last Man on the Moon
Honeydipper Dan writes "December 14 marks the 30th anniversary of the last man on the Moon . I haven't noticed any hoopla about this. Perhaps this event raises the subtext of why we haven't been back a little more than the first Moon landing's 30th anniversary did over 3 years ago. The Apollo 17 mission was a great success, however, and deserves to be remembered. It marked the first (and last) time a geologist was on the surface of the Moon. Meanwhile, NASA is commemorating the Wright brothers' flight of December 17, 1903, getting ready for next year's Centennial of Flight."
Apollo 17 represents one of the largest missed chances in American scientific history. What would have been the "science" missions in the Apollo series (18-20) were scrapped because the American TV public didn't want to tune in anymore.
Ugh. It burns me up every time I think about it.
That's probably also how we should explore Mars: keep a control crew in orbit and only land mobile robots, controlled via telepresence from orbit.
-ISS shutdown in progress.
-Shuttle ages, replacement is where?
-budget goes to zero as perpetual war "against terrorism" kicks off and nation becomes more "secure"
-Centinial of flight!
Welcome back National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics! The future is much where you left it.
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I've said it before here, and I'll say it again now: I think it's a disgrace that we've not been back to the Moon in 30 years.
I find it really annoying to read about these chicken-shit science experiments they conduct on the Shuttle or ISS about things like plant reproduction in zero gravity. Whoop-dee-do. If we had made a concerted effort to build and maintain a moon base over the past 30 years, I bet we'd have learned way more than we have so far.
The moon is there. It's an island in the sky. It's a natural satellite of our planet. It's begging to be populated.
I will be very excited the day I see another man step foot on the moon. I hope I live that long.
The problem is, nobody would want to pay for such a project. Do you think a presidential candidate would win if he announced that he wanted to raise taxes for a huge space program?
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
I was just reading about Shuttle in the Nov '02 Air International.
They approach STS from the angle of a hypersonic research vehicle, and in that reguard with over a hundred launches and recoveries, it's very succesful in gathering data.
It goes from Mach 24 to 200 kts and from orbit to a gliding landing with no power, that's pretty neat.
"What Shuttle has done for aerothermal design and verification is greater than the controbution it has made to the space program, which at best has been a disappointment to some and a digression for many. The legacy of countless simulated landings, more than 100 safe Shuttle touchdowns without a serious malfunction and countless data points across 21 years of Mach 25 atomospheric penetration, has provided an opportunity for safe and efficient aerospace transportation up to and including orbital velocity. That, and not its service as a cargo freighter, is the greatest gift to the future - one embedded in winged flight and not in weightless orbit." - Page 328 Air International Nov 2002
Jack Schmitt is on of the good guys. I first met him in Washinton, DC in February 1980. I stopped off to see if anything could be done about the pitiful state of military pay, I had just left the Navy. Since Jack was a rookie Senator from New Mexico, (my home state at the time) and was on the Armed services comitee. I went to his office. Bottom line, no appointment, an honest 40 min. of face time. An 11.5 % pay raise in October, and he got a campaign worker for 82. We lost, which really sucks. Jack was not only the lone scientist to walk on the moon but the only civilian. Never in the military at all. I've seen him twice in the last 20 years and he is still a friendly and interesting man. One of the good guys for sure.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
... to these kinds of short-sighted actions. He was going after NASA, trimming a 100K here and a 100K there, while other programs were blowing millions of dollars.
It also didn't help that the space program didn't directly benefit dairy farmers. (Proxmire was a senator for Wisconsin, IIRC.) Anything not directly giving money to dairy subsidies got attacked or otherwise "investigated" by Proxmire.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I was there for the launch of Apollo 17. Four of us piled into a Pinto (I remember that vividly - I was the smallest of the group, and had to sit in the middle of the back seat!) and drove down from upstate South Carolina to see it go up.
Apollo 17 was the first (and I believe only) night launch of a Saturn V - it went up just after midnight Florida time. There have been many Shuttle night launches, but that's not the same - the Shuttle has roughly the same thrust as the first stage of a Saturn V, but weighs much less, so by comparison it jumps off the pad.
When Apollo 17 fired up, it was like an instant sunrise, and it stayed that way while the rocket slowly clambered up the tower. It must have confused wildlife for fifty miles around.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.