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NASA Astronaut Dick Gordon, Pilot of Gemini and Apollo 12, Dies At 88 (astronautscholarship.org)
sconeu writes: Dick Gordon, pilot of Gemini 11 and command module pilot of Apollo 12, has died at the age of 88. Gordon was also slated to command the cancelled Apollo 18 mission. "Dick Gordon is an American hero, and a true renaissance man by any measure. He was an American naval officer and aviator, chemist, test pilot, NASA astronaut, professional football executive, oil and gas executive and generous contributor to worthy causes," said Curt Brown, board chairman of the Orlando-based Astronaut Scholarship Foundation and an astronaut and veteran of six space flights. "He was in a category all his own." The Astronaut Scholarship Foundation has a touching write-up that details Gordon's childhood and career successes. You can read the full article here.
It's not about bragging rights. It's more about what the title-tag of the image says: "The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision."
Eventually, we will have to leave this planet if we are to survive as a species. Now, you may argue that this day is far in the future, and I can only hope that you'd be right, but at some point we have to take that first step. And let's be honest here, considering the amount of steps it's going to take, we might as well start today.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.