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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.
Well, the Space Shuttle is one of the main reasons. It can't go to the Moon, and NASA billed it as the ultimate wonder ship, the future of space travel. So, they can't really go back to capsules. Nothing as heavy and general-purpose as the Space Shuttle can make it to the moon in a reasonable amount of time without costing an arm and a leg. Maybe if we had something like a NERVA engine, but we don't.
If I remember correctly, the first and last man on the Moon were the only ones to be civilian. All the others were from the military.
:)
I find this interesting, but perhaps I'm wrong, so please correct me.
we celebrate 40th anniversary of first dog in space.
The collapse of the Soviet Union marked the end of real NASA achievement. Even the great advancements of the late 90's were just carry-overs from the CCCP vs NASA era. Until China or the EU becomes a real "threat" in the era of space exploration, we won't see any more moon landings.
I'm not really up with the history, but wasn't your good friend and mine Richard Nixon largely responsible for cutting the program, amongst the other acts of bastardry committed in his name?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
This is only a big deal if the government has pulled the wool over your eyes and made you believe that the moon landing wasn't a bunch of barbie dolls dressed up in tinfoil, in front of a painted moon backdrop, with a guy from NASA making rocket noises into a microphone!
Now to spread the message to the rest of the world before the black hel!@#!@$()@!*$()W*DAWDWAOIFHWAOIFJWEDOIKAW
NO CARRIER
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
The last mission was a treaty mission with the martians. I know, I know, martians on the moon? Really it was the best neutral ground to perform negotiations. We simply gave up a few insignificant earthly possessions. This included but not limited to: cow and other livestock mutilations, rights to human extraction and experimentation, and artistic grants with respect to indentures in agricultural area's. With the latter in mind we had no idea it would get so out of hand.... something about an open sourced method they spoke about.
In return for all of these great gifts the aliens gave us excellent insight into the mysterious and powerful microprocessor. While it has taken all of this time just to fully understand and develop from those early examples.
However, it seems to be time to renew the contracts being as the aliens added the Moores Law clause. Damned tricky devils.
Don't worry though, with our next encounter, we are a great deal more advanced now with regards to patent and contract law.
The scorn of the universe really is the lawyer!
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
I'd like to think that the "last man on the moon" is an event that won't happen for a few more tens of thousands of years. 30th anniv. of the most recent trip to the moon, I'd accept.
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
There's a good book called Moonseed by Stephen Baxter that involves the last moon landing. It's very interesting and the basic gist (to get you interested) is that Venus explodes in recent times and strange events start happenning on Earth.
internet like monkeys'
I don't see how we (as citizens of all nations) will go to the moon again. Right now, the focus of the world is on war. Nobody wants to bring up expensive projects up: just look at the ISS, and how people are saying that it is a monstrous waste of money, for America, Russia, and everyone else who is involved. Going to the moon will not bring anything to America. As the saying goes, "been there, done that". It is no longer about a "race" with the Russians, there is nothing to prove.
The only people who might want to prove something, are nations like Japan, China, India and perhaps the ESA. They haven't been to the moon, and they want to prove to the world that they are at a sufficiently advanced technological level that they can do it. Plus they have the bright minds to think of a brilliant and probably cost effective plan.
As for America, I think that our generation (children of the boomers) is lost. We emerged from the greed-filled, "me-only" days of the late 20th century, but our attitudes have not changed. We still like our SUVs, our fast food, but at the same time we like to have our government "lean and cost-efficient". Perhaps our children will awake with a new sense of wonder and will realize the dream of returning to the moon, and perhaps of going beyond to Mars, etc.
Veni, vidi, vici.
Do we really need any more manned missions to the moon? What research can we do with live people that we can't do with cheaper, lighter remote probes? The only real purpose of sending men to the moon was an ego boost for the US during the cold war. Further manned missions to the moon would be an expensive and completely unnecessary venture, unless we finally get around to colonizing the moon. But then, what would be the point of that? Just for fun? Maybe build a huge observatory there that won't be obstructed by an atmosphere?
Repeal the DMCA!
Surprisingly, since Apollo 17 left 30 years ago there were not only no further manned missions, but also almost no further robotic missions. The Moon became a "been there done that" world, when in fact there are still a huge number of mysteries about it.
Apollo could only scratch the surface: they had to be very careful about safe landing spots which favored the relatively rare Mare regions, they couldn't dig more than a couple of meters into the surface, they didn't go anywhere near the poles or the far side, which have quite different terrain and likely mineral deposits, etc. Despite some evidence of volcanic activity only Apollo 14 landed in one of the regions of volcanic interest, and the crew there were the least geologically educated of the lot so the samples taken were not terribly useful. etc. etc.
We have more high-resolution pictures of Mars than we do of the Moon - the only really high-res shots (1 meter or better) were from the Apollo command modules as they circled, and those cover just narrow strips of the Moon's surface.
Missions since Apollo amounted to a handful of Russian Luna missions through 1974, then a long gap, a Japanese experimental flight (HITEN) in the 1980's, and Clementine and Lunar Prospector in the 1990's. Clementine was run by the Dept. of Defense, not NASA, and Lunar Prospector was Alan Binder's baby at Lockheed Martin, done on the cheap for $60 million. That's basically the total NASA spending on the Moon since Apollo - less than 2% of the cost of the Mars missions that have failed!
NASA's negelect of the Moon seems to be continuing, but scheduled for next year we have at least 1 government (ESA's SMART-1) and 1 private (TransOrbital's TrailBlazer
) mission on track. The Japanese space agency also plans a Lunar-A mission that may launch next year. So things are starting to look up!
And for those interested in a exploration and development of the Moon, why not join the Moon Society!
Energy: time to change the picture.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Last as in:
"3. Just past; most recent: last year; the last time I checked."
Not:
"1. Being, coming, or placed after all others; final: the last game of the season."
dictionary.com
Remember people space still is a race, just not as hotly contested as before.
=If life was easy, i would be out of a job=
The only civilian to walk on the moon was Harrison Schmidt, geologist on Apollo 17, but not the last to step off the surface.
Later elected to the Senate
This space available.
that was some good LSD.
But we can't spend that same $200 BILLION to open up space. You want to distract folks from the shitty assed economy? Spend that money on a space program. "We'll colonise the Moon!"
Pumping that much green into a space program and supporting programs (like EDUCATION) can fuel a renaissance in science and buck up the economy, realise orbital microwave power stations, and will spawn countless spin-off technologies.
Isn't that something to get patriotic about? Something to unify the country about? Something that will make our neighbors look upon us as friends rather than some dillhole bully that's going to whack them and steal their stuff?
We haven't been back and that's just fine because we have problems at home to fix.
On the other hand, I don't believe that's entirely right thinking. It might do us good to expand on other fronts a little and do some multitasking.
Start Running Better Polls
There is no forseeable need to go back to the moon in the immediate future.
The point of the original "space race" was a competition between the USA and Russia for "control of space". In that, to say, in a war between the superpower the moon would have been a dangerous site if one side were able to place milliles on it. For that reason, it was essential we demonstrate our ability to reach the moon whenever we want to. Now, if anybody attempts to "take over" the moon, we are confident we have the ability to send up people to shut down that operation if need be.
In its modern form, the reason why the US Government funds NASA is because in solving the problems faced by space missions, solutions are developed that have practical earth-bound operations. NASA's doesn't just do research for research's sake, they're doing research to hopefully discover things that improve the American way of life. Experiments that require microgravity can be done in earth orbit, why do we need to go back to the moon?
While going to the moon is a cool idea, the idea turning the moon into a Disney-like tourist trap for the common man is something many earthlings find repulsive. Let's leave the moon alone and not mess with it when we don't need to.
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.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"...that's no moon"
- Meanwhile, NASA is commemorating the Wright brothers' flight of December 17, 1903, getting ready for next year's Centennial of Flight."
Ha! Do you really believe in this stuff? If you look at the photos of the Wright Brothers' flight, you can see that they've obviously been faked with Adobe Photoshop. The shadows point in the wrong direction, and there are numerous other inconsistencies.Find free books.
Interferometers.
Discover water for fuel and life.
Geology.
And the thrill. Why?
Why not?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
There are a lot of scientific reasons to go back to the Moon - first a lot of questions about the Moon itself, and the early history of the solar system that can be learned from lunar cratering. Of most interest in this is the South Pole - Aitken basin, which is mostly on the far side; the south polar regions of this very deep basin have craters that may hold water ice and other cometary debris. But the basin material is itself of some geological interest, and a sample-return mission to this area was listed as one of the highest priorities in planetary science in the recent NRC decadal survey.
:-) Retirement to the Moon's low gravity might become a major draw as well.
Second, for science, is the potential of the Moon as a platform for observation of the rest of the universe. A lunar telescope has the same lack-of-atmosphere advantages of Hubble, but could be constructed much larger than is possible for a free-space telescope (with current technology) with use of in-situ materials. This is particularly important for infrared and ultraviolet/x-ray astronomy, for which much of the spectrum is almost completely attenuated in the Earth's atmosphere and space is the only real option. It makes a lot of sense to base the next generation of space telescopes on the Moon, though I have not seen much movement in this direction, other than some early-stage proposals.
Space solar power is considered by many to be the only long-term solution to Earth's energy needs that meets both global energy and environmental requirements over the next 50 years. Making use of lunar materials, possibly even generating the power on the Moon, is the only realistic option for building these things on the scale needed. If this globe could ever manage to get its act together and move beyond carbon-based fuels to invest in the future, the Moon has a major role to play.
Finally, space tourism has been in the news, and private companies are starting to look at orbiting hotels and lunar excursions - for those who can pay of course. With the right price, demand can be expected to be huge
So the Moon has a bright future - if we could just pay it a bit of attention with all the other distractions the world has to offer these days!
Energy: time to change the picture.
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.
We're not safe. We'll never be "safe".
You cannot prevent another 9/11 type attack. You cannot make America "safe" no matter how many jackbooted thugs you put on the street, no matter how many unconstitutional patriotic-sounding acts you pass, no matter how many citizens you spy on, and no matter how many informants you recruit.
9/11 is a direct result of American foreign policy. The United States funded, armed, and trained the asswipes that planned that attack.
The best way to ensure that something like 9/11 never happens again is to (drum-roll) turn American foreign policy on its ear. Stop invading other countries, stop overthrowing other countries governments, stop murdering their leaders, stop stealing their natural resources.
I'm all for rooting out the ones responsible for 9/11 and seeing them receive a fair trial and just punishment, whether they lurk in a cushy Washington D.C. office or in a dank Afghani cave.
It is clear to me that moon exploration was abandoned not for political or scientific reasons, but because the critical resource sought--cheese--was found only in very small and unfonduable nuggets.
The 1953 development of Cheez-Whiz sparked an explosion in industrial demand for malleable cheese. Due to the perceived economic cheesemine in orbit, the space program was accelerated, principally by the ironically un-cheesy JFK.
By 1973, malleable cheese was reaching its zenith. Fondue pots outsold crockpots for the first--and last--time in US history.
Unfortunately, even with a trained geologist aboard and a specially-designed slightly cheesy vehicle at their disposal, the Apollo 17 mission was unable to find any sufficiently malleable cheese to justify future missions.
In a moderately successful effort to recoup their immense investment in cheese research, NASA leaked a derivative food-preparation technology to the market, leading to that year's introduction of the Cuisinart.
Subsequent experiments in using the Cuisinart to process traditional cheese have proven relatively disappointing.
Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. -A. Turing
In the immortal words of George Mallory: "because it's there"
Well, what would be the answer to the question "why do you want to climb a mountain again"? Because it's still there?
The simple fact is that the Moon isn't all that interesting a place. We can do all the science we need with satellites and robotic probes. The idea of a 'moonbase' is preposterous if you think about it a bit. Why spend the enormous amounts of energy to escape the Earth's gravity well only to drop your payload into another one? Earth orbit is a much better place for a 'base' to stage missions to other parts of the solar system.
Which really only leaves one reason to go to the moon: to prove that you can. Well, we did that already.
Now Mars, thats a different story. There is good science to do there that we can't realistically do with today's robotic probes. While implausible, the idea of a permanent human settlement is at least a lot more likely than one on the Moon. And perhaps the best reason to go to Mars: because we've never been.
Trouble is, we probably don't quite have the technology yet. But now would be a damn good time to start developing it.
NASA has the mission summary here.
I noticed this anniversary was comming up because I just wrote a report about human based exploration. From what I found on the web, it seems radiation is what is stopping us from going to Mars. Near Earth we are protected by a magnetic feild, however the Moon, and Mars don't produce this field, so we need to take shielding with us. [A new movie is based on the molten metal core of Earth; I noticed it in the theater today before ST X] Polyethyelene is a very good radiation shield, because it has so much Hydrogen in it.
I expect the next missions to the moon to be robotic. However we will go back and set up a lab there. It makes much more sense, than shooting for a 2 year mission to Mars with untested technology and ground crews.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
The landings on the moon was a technological aberration that only occured at great expense in money, manpower and time. For example, if Queen victoria had thrown enough resources at Charles Babbage, they might have created a computer as powerful as the first electric computer. this would have been a technological achievement at the time as landing a man on the moon. Even if babbage and whatever people were on his team had succeeded, the technological underpinnings for a practical computer were not in place yet. Eniac may have been built in the 30s or late 20's instead due to the leaps from the project, but it wouldnt have started the revolution itself. The same can be said for the apollo program. Many technologies were advanced due to the program, fuel cells, computers, powder based drink mixes, but the ability to travel to other planets wasnt one of them. Also keep in mind that these things take time. The Americas werent colonized in 1493, or 1494 or 1524. The first real colonies came in the late 1500's and colonization began in earnest in the early 1600s, over 100 years after it was proven that america could be accessed reliably from europe by sea. Space is at least as hostile an environment to us now as the sea was to sailors in the 15th century. We will get into space, but i t will take time, and we will go there for the same reason europeans came to america: to get rich. Just as soon as they figure out how.
so there's no materials there to build things out of (like radiation shielding, for which the more mass, the better, basically...)
:-)
The reason for dropping in on the Moon is because the Moon has an enormous mass of material that is in a much shallower gravity well than Earth's (and twice as shallow as Mars' as well). The only reason for using lunar resources is to provide the materials needed for long-term habitation of deep space. That means mining, and industrial activity, on the Moon. It'll happen, count on it!
And join the Moon Society if you want to be a part of it
Energy: time to change the picture.
Why are you posting to slashdot when you could sell your computer and donate to a single mother? Clearly, you need to stop spending money on computers period and start spending it on HUMANS.
Get a clue. Not one person is poorer because the US went to the moon. Certainly not one person is dumber because the US went to the moon. Those who would argue that we should "solve problems here first" would have us live in a slate-grey, dead-eyed worker's paradise where nobody ever did anything inspiring or monumental for fear of wasting money. Nothing in the world galvanizes or inspires people like space flight. The Apollo program stands today and will stand for centuries alongside the greatest accomplishments of humanity, to inspire us and remind us that we can do amazing things if we put our minds to it. For however much was spent, that's a bargain.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Being a baffled Foreigner to American Humor and Customs, I won't presume to know for absolutely certain if the previous poster was very serious or not when suggesting that the gubmink dun pulled a fast one on the world for 30 years with the old Art Bell chestnut, THE MOON HOAX.
o rg/
If you listen to these people, Human Space Travel is impossible on account of astronauts getting microwaved in the Very Deadly Van Allen Belts.
Further, the lunar laser ranging reflectors placed on the lunar surface by astronauts on the six manned landings are fictious (albeit used every day by astronomers (no doubt "in on it") gauging the Earth-Moon distance), and the returned moon rocks from the same missions, studied in universities and research institutions all over the world (Including former adversaries China and the Soviet Union and East Bloc countries during the cold war) - are fake.
You getting the picture? According to the Art Bell people with tinfoil hats, all those research institutions, observatories and science labs worldwide are "In On It", and have for thirty years been faithfully colluding with the United States gubmink, to flawlessly stage and engineer this grand deception. Not to mention that the hundreds of thousands of people who built the Apollo project and the giant moon vehicles in the 1960s are all no doubt gubermink stooges.
Please visit this site for a solid debunking of all such speculation:
http://www.clavius.org/
More good stuff to unclutter minds:
http://www.badastronomy.com/
http://www.randi.
http://www.nasastooge.fsnet.co.uk/
Regds.
Regards,
John, once again lamenting the human condition
Falling You -- exploring the beauty of voice and sound
Falling You - beautiful
The reason we can't go back to the moon is simple. Our technology has advanced so much that the very equipment that was used to fake the moon landing is now so outdated that it would look absurd! If they tried it using new technologies, people would easily see the difference.
It's like the Star Wars remakes. Technology has advanced so much that watching the two side-by-side the new ones, though cooler looking are still more unbelievable.
Flame bait? Sure, but with on ounce of truth included.
Its all just smoke and mirrors.
You got it wrong!
Not only have the Americans bee nto the moon, but they also made us believe that the Apollo program was cancelled to make us feel it was worthless to go there. That way they can continue the construction of their military space station* on the dark side of the moon.
*Why did you think NASA cuts budget for ISS? They don't want to spend too much money to help a toy project that may compete with their military space base but they couldn't refuse to participate, so they went in and tried to sabotage the project from inside, making it look like the incompetence that they have been faking since the 70's**. They even bribed the Russian space agency, now that they also are capitalist pigs, so that people wouldn't put all the blame on them.
**Why do you think that so many Mars missions failed in the last few decades? It's because they wanted to get ultra secret gear there and if people believe that what they sent there was destroyed it won't be suspicious like if they had sent something without a cover story and every astronomer would have asked what it was.
Note: It's supposed to be funny but it's 5.20 AM, I didn't sleep yet and I'm French, so if it isn't funny I got some excuses, so give me a break, okay?
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Seastead this.
and the American Geophysical Union! Eugene Schumaker, comet finder extraordinaire and major player in the Apollo missions, spent his life with USGS.
:-)
Journal of Geophysical Research-Planets is a major journal on the study of the composition and geological history of the Moon and planets in our solar system.
So geology hasn't been restricted to study of the earth for quite a long time now
Energy: time to change the picture.
Everybody knows it was a Hollywood soundstage! Nobody ever actually went to the moon....
-psy
Link: Basically, there will be an harvester ant experiment on a space shuttle. It is supposedly to start on 1/16/2003 if plans go well.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Well ... Pease is not well-known because it's most likely not true. I just double-checked on Google, and yes you're right that resources are abundant but they're far from unananimous or even supportive. (Interestingly, virtually all the pro-Pease sites are in Australia or New Zealand, suggesting an alternative conspiracy -- or merely the affliction of regional pride. I'm not a fan of hypothesized conspiracies.)
Pease appears to have left the ground, but he conceded it was uncontrolled and ended in a crash. He did not later pursue the "first flight" trophy, and it was one hotly desired. The flight is described as "undocumented" with widely varying estimates as to distance and such. Undocumented history means unreliable history, and of further suspicion is that his aircraft did not prove itself in the long run, either.
A question that interests me more than who was first is whose airplane led to productive development in aviation. That would be the Wright Flyer, though Europeans soon pulled far ahead. An odd bit of deja-vu is that engineers are looking again at Wright-style wing-warping (Java applet) as a method of controlling modern fighter jets. Also intriguing is the habit we all -- not just Americans -- have in taking nationalistic pride in the accomplishments of people we not only have never met, but who are quite dead.
Now, if you really want some baloney, it is NASA somehow taking credit for the first flight by celebrating it. When was NASA, or even NACA formed anyway? 1915?
Hell yeah! Geeks and supermodels!
*shudder* I have this vision of a race of Lunatics with the brains of the average supermodel and the looks and charm of the average geek...
This entire 'landing on the moon' thing was all just a conspiracy. Proof:
...and probably the most important single piece of evidence, this clearly genuine movie of the moon landing.
Moontruth
Moon Landing Hoax
Moon Landings Faked
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
... 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)
He was (is?) the president for the citizen's space advisory council. They get to talk to (and advise) the President about space exploration... or at least, they used to, back before America began to truly suck.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
The lack of gravity in the ISS is not a bug: it's a feature!
You can "reproduce" gravity by spinning the spaceship: while it would be more confortable for humans, one of the goal of being up there is to lear what happen to people and material in 0G environement..
Beside on the moon there is gravity, just 1/6 of Earth's gravity, so the effect on the bone/muscle should be much lower.
I expect the next missions to the moon to be robotic.
Most of us have been expecting that since the middle of the 70's. However, with exception of 2-3 missions, we have not seen even coke cans being sent there. Frankly the problem is not how difficult is to send something or someone to the Moon. The problem is that 99% of the people only do care about Space when they check the day's prognosis for their sign... Probably, only when some astrologer will say that, sitting in the Moon, will make better predictions, we will see millions storming parliaments and congresses, demanding funds to set a ziggurath in the Moon.
we blew the moon up 30yrs ago accidentally. what's up there now is just a large plastic model we put there so nobody would find out.
Alberto Santos Dumont was born July 20, 1873, in the village of Cabangu, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. At the age of 18, Santos Dumont was sent by his father to Paris where he devoted his time to the study of chemistry, physics, astronomy and mechanics. His first spherical balloon, "Brasil," ordered from Maison LaChambre, with the capacity of 113 cubic meters, capable of lifting a ballast of 114.4 lbs, and having in its lower part a wicker basket, made its first ascension in Paris on July 4th, 1898. His second balloon, "America," had 500 cubic meters of capacity and gave Santos Dumont the Aero Club of Paris' award to study the atmospheric currents. Twelve balloons had participated in this competition but "America" reached a greater altitude and remained in the air for 22 hours.
Putting aside the aerostation, he began to devote himself towards solving the problem of steering the balloons. His first steered balloon, "Santos Dumont no. 1," ascended on September 18th 1898. Balloons "Santos Dumont no. 2," which wasn't successful, and "Santos Dumont no. 3," built at the Vaugurand workshop, followed. "Santos Dumont no. 3" ascended on November 13th, 1890. It circled a few times the Eiffel Tower, headed to the Park and from there finally headed towards the Bagatelle field where it landed flawlessly.
In view of the success of no. 3 balloon, the Aero Club of France was founded and Mr. Deutsch de La Meurt instituted the "Deutsch Prize" to be awarded to the balloonist who, taking off from Saint-Cloud, circumnavigated the Eiffel Tower and returned to the starting point in less than thirty minutes. This prize was conquered by Santos Dumont on October 19th, 1901, with dirigible no. 6. Besides this prize, Santos Dumont received the sum of 100,000 francs which he distributed in equal parts to his workers and the beggars of Paris.
Dirigibles nos. 7, 8, and 9 followed. With the latter, on July 4th, 1903, Santos Dumont maneuvered over Longchamps, where a military parade was being held in commemoration of Bastille capture.
Once he solved the problem of steering the lighter-than-air vehicle, Santos Dumont devoted himself to the heavier-than-air problem. Aboard the 14-BIS he made his first unsuccessfull attempt in July, 1906. On September 7th, the 14-BIS wheels left the ground for a moment; on the 13th it could reach the height of one meter; on October 23rd, the airplane flew 50 meters. It was on November 12th, 1906 that Santos Dumont's airplane, the 14-BIS, flew a distance of 220 meters at the height of 6 meters and at the speed of 37,358 km/h. Thanks to this flight the "Archdecon Prize" was awarded to Santos Dumont, who had thus, solved the problem of making a heavier-than-air machine take off by its own means.
Santos Dumont died on July 23rd, 1932, in Brazil. According to the law no. 165 of December 5th, 1947, enacted by the National Congress of Brazil and sanctioned by His Excellency President Eurico Gaspar Dutra, Alberto Santos Dumont was permanently listed in the Brazilian Air Ministry Almanac with the rank of Lieutenant Brigadier. He was promoted to the Honorary rank of Air Marshall on September 22, 1955, according to the law no. 3636, and is permanently listed in the Brazilian Air Ministry Almanac.
The BBC had an article on this, along with why it's time we went back..
I have to disagree. The Space Shuttle is a politically compromised vehicle with no place to go. It has failed to live up to its promise of reliable, cheap and frequent access to orbit. The capability to build and sustain a permanent human presence in Earth orbit should have come in the context of creating infrastructure to support missions to explore and exploit the Moon, Mars and the rest of the Solar System. Lacking the vision and the courage to actually commit to going someplace , we have instead conjured up the ISS, an expensive dead-end that appears to be little more than a more polished version of Mir.
While scientific research is a major and obvious component of space exploration, it is not and should not be the major motivation. Space exploration and exploitation should be driven by familiar human drives of wealth, power, greed, curiosity, freedom, etc., that have always sustained human expansion.
The greatest contribution the scientific and engineering community could make to space exploration right now is the development of propulsion technology that provides at least an order of magnitude increase in lift and speed capability. We aren't going anywhere as long as we're dependent on wimpy chemical rockets.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
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.
The greatest question of all time is: "Are we alone?"
...and yes I know the dark side of the moon isn't always dark, but we'd want to cut down on earthshine too probably... ...and imagine a beo [smack]
That's really the other ultimate goal of space exploration, isn't it? (The first goal is to find us a new place to live after the earth is used up).
But there is such a simple way to answer the question: Take all the cash we are using on rediculous stuff like the ISS and:
BUILD A GIANT TELESCOPE IN SPACE OR ON THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON.
And I mean BIG.
One so Hugeomegagigantic that it can actually SEE the surface of extra solar earth sized planets in detail to pick out cities, roads, and lights.
And then, if we saw with our own eyes that there was another civilization -- imagine the space program we'd start to have then.
they never even planned for him to return
:) Yeah, the version i read when i was a kid had her dying "painlessly" on re-entry. As each story comes out her death turns out to have been even earlier. Next we'll learn she died of a heart attack when she learned they were about to send her into SPACE in that little deathtrap. Not wanting to be executed, the scientists loaded the body in anyway, and hooked up the biometric sensors to thesmelves.
"Her." Sexist pig.
Which had my mind reeling on the possibilities of what would have taken place had Mondale actually won in 1984 (yes, a near impossibility, but work with me here...). Had he won, he would have been President during the Challenger disaster, perhaps leading the U.S. to have killed the space shuttle program out entirely. That in turn would have practically killed Hubble (no humans in space to repair the broken lens) and all that we got from it, too...
Just some thoughts...
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Whoever set that title, "Centenial of Flight" seemed to have forgotten that we'd been flying in baloons since 1783, and gliders within 50 years of that...
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
...last fake landing on the moon? December 14th markes the day that the government decided they if they continued faking moon missions, that people would eventually catch on!
...wait...
Yes, yes, I understand. It's the implication, not the definition that bothers me.
The time: 1993. The place: America.
Tim McVeigh: YEAAARGH!!
[explosion]
The Left: Clearly, this is an indication that Tim McVeigh was a crazy asshole; his beliefs aren't even worth mentioning.
Now, eight years later...
Osama bin Laden: YEAAARGH!!
[explosion]
The Left: Clearly, this is an indication that the US drastically needs to rethink its foreign policy.
Wait, I'm confused. Why weren't McVeigh's actions reason enough to rethink our tax policy? Maybe if his goals were the same as the Left's, it'd be okay to run around backing his ideas.
(The correctness of these ideas is immaterial. I'm pointing out lies and hypocrisy in dealing with two analogous situations.)
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Well... I'll believe it more when it actually receives a bit of funding! But yes, this would be very exciting if it actually happens. And it does look promising (I mentioned the science that still needs to be done on the Moon in another comment).
Energy: time to change the picture.
The whole point of the Arms Race of the Cold War was to bankrupt the USSR. Some Sov leaders (like Kruschev) even understood that going head to head with the U.S. in a nuclear arms race would mean throwing away any chance to build a "peace-time" economy. Unfortunately for them, the adept brinkmanship and propaganda machine of the West was too good not to fall for it. End result: USSR and USA both have giant arsenals, and only the USA has a healthy economy. Exit the Communists.
The current thinking in the Whitehouse is the same: trick China, then Korea, India, Pakistan, etc. etc. into building a nuclear arsenal, anti-anti-ballistic missile systems, Star Wars tech, etc. and sit back and watch them chew through their GDP in a vain attempt to play catch-up. Then, when their economies are wrecked, move in and offer to run things for them (as in Russia now... here, let us help you... strings? what strings?).
The only problem being, Mutually Assured Destruction doesn't scale. Can you say "deer in headlights"?
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
I've been waiting since watching Star Trek as a child to see humanity build a space station capable of launching missions. Once we have a space station that is able to store raw materials and build components itself we'll be able to do all other forms of space exploration at a much lower cost.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure that's even in the minds of those working on the ISS right now.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Two in the front, two in the back. What I remember most was the pain in my knees from sitting for hours at a time in what they call a rear "seat", where your butt is maybe six inches higher than your feet. OK, I wasn't sitting in the middle, but I never got to sit up front - I couldn't drive a manual shift at the time, and the other guys had to wedge themselves into either of the so-called rear "seats" to get into them at all.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.