Lest we forget: 43 years ago today Apollo 11 touched down on the moon (Can we do that again?)

American Thinker ^ | 07/21/2012 | Rick Moran

[SeekAndFind]

A thousand years from now, no one will care about the debate over Obamacare, or gun control, or Mitt Romney, or any other event or person from the last 50 years. Except the moon landing, of course.

It was 43 years ago today that Apollo 11 touched down on the moon and astronaut Neil Armstrong set foot on its surface. Because it was the first time in human history we had accomplished the feat of traveling to another world and leaving our footprints on its face, as long as humans are writing history, Apollo 11 and Armstrong will be mentioned.

There was so much we didn't know about the mission at the time; Armstrong gave himself a 50-50 chance of returning home (NASA thought the odds two out of three). The landing itself was a very near thing with the spacecraft having less than 30 seconds of fuel left before an abort would have been performed.

Veteran space journalist Jay Barbree recounts the moment of Armstrong's descent to the surface of the moon:

"Forty-three years ago, Neil Armstrong moved slowly down the ladder. He was in no hurry. He would be stepping onto a small world that had never been touched by life. A landscape where no leaf had ever drifted, no insect had ever scurried, where no blade of green had ever waved, where even the raging fury of a thermonuclear blast would sound no louder than a falling snowflake."

[Celtic Cross]

American Exceptionalism...Where has it gone?

[I cannot think of a name]

Sorry, but stuff like that is over for a long, long time.

It will take some purifying event(s) to produce people with the gumption to do big things again.

(The combination of the Great Depression and World War II produced a nation of giants; 40 years of liberal stupidity has left us with a nation of Pygmies.)

[sam_paine]

Forty years later American private industry is doing more aerospace development than the rest of the world, from the Boeing 787 to GE engines etc, while SpaceX etc and all the startups in West Texas are working to make a sport of it.

Meanwhile, the Chines GOVERNMENT with all their (ill-gotten?) resources are just catching up with pre-Apollo skills.

And the airforce now has what it originally wanted out of the space shuttle: the X37B.

We should be happy that NASA recedes and private industry moves forward.

[fatnotlazy]

My grandma was terminally ill and living with my parents and us children. She was taking powerful drugs to relieve the pain. The drugs made her sleep a lot. But that day and night, Grandma refused to take her meds. She wanted to be awake to watch the moon landing. I'm sure she was in a lot of pain, but she suffered through it and saw the landing with our family.

Grandma was not well educated — she came from poverty in Italy, but science fascinated her, even if she didn't understand it. The moon landing gave her such joy even through her agony. Grandma passed on a few weeks later and I still miss her, but watching her awestruck face as she witnessed the moon landing still makes me smile.

[Diogenesis]

... gone to Islamic deserts, every one.

[sam_paine]

American Exceptionalism...Where has it gone?

What? You think like Obama do you? Only THE GOVERNMENT can make things happen? American exceptionalism is defined by what NASA does, not what PRIVATE INDUSTRY does?

Here's your Exceptionalists:

Executive Members	Associate Members
Armadillo Aerospace	Aerojet
Bigelow Aerospace	Andrews Space, inc.
Blue Origin	ARES Corporation
Excalibur Almaz	Barrios Technology
Jacksonville - Cecil Field Spaceport	BWSC
Masten Space Systems	Cimarron
Mojave Spaceport	DCI Services and Consulting
Sierra Nevada Corporation	David Clark Company
Southwest Research Institute	Ecliptic Enterprises Corp.
Space Adventures	ETC - NASTAR Center
Space Florida	IHA[disambiguation needed]
Spaceport America	Jacobs Technology
SpaceX	J&P Technologies
United Launch Alliance	MDA Corporation
Virgin Galactic	MEI Technologies
XCOR Aerospace	Moon Express
Spaceport Indiana	ORBITEC
	OSIDA
	Paragon SDC
	Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne
	Raytheon
	RS&H
	Scaled Composites
	SEAKR Engineering
	Special Aerospace Services
	SRA International
	Triumph Aerospace-NN
	United Space Alliance
	Wyle
	X PRIZE Foundation
	Aeroports de Catalunya

/tr

[Gay State Conservative]

Forty years ago about 10% of US households were getting some kind of government handout...today it's close to 50%.We couldn't *afford* to go to the moon today.

[NonValueAdded]

sadly, no ... not in our current incarnation

[I cannot think of a name]

You might want to go back and read some history, such as in the 1950’s when Wernher von Braun pleaded with us NOT to go to the moon.

He understood (as many since have failed to) that get space commercialized would require a foundation of accomplishment, too large for any private company to make. That’s the reason he pushed for Mars, and not the Moon. He realized that the infrastructure necessary to make the trip to to Mars would be large enough to “birth” the commercialization of space travel.

All of the companies you listed are good folks, but so were the dozens more that have tried and failed (see RocketPlane for one). We need a ‘push’ to get over the hump and make commercialization viable - like going to Mars for example. We were so close after the moon landings, but the likes of Mondale and other nitwits stopped funding and squandered the opportunity.

[sam_paine]

in the 1950’s when Wernher von Braun pleaded with us NOT to go to the moon.

Complete and utter fabricated horsesht.

I just happened to have read Biddle's biography of von Braun last month.

He was eager to turn a blind eye to the Nazi atrocities, whatever it took to get his rockets funded. They threw all sorts of lives under the bus as the war ended in order to get captured by the Americans so he and his crew could continue their research.

He did want to go to Mars, but it was all a matter of development, crawl before you walk.

Throw some water (or facts) on your strawman.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks SeekAndFind. An ‘extra, extra’ ping to APoD.

[djf]

Gumption.
Exactly.

We have the tech, we just ain’t got the stones...

Damn shame, really. I remember the excitement when Armstrong took his first steps. The ones I think who were most impressed weren’t the adults, it was the children.

[a fool in paradise]

43 years ago, Ted Kennedy's car touched down.

[ozzymandus]

I was 15 and watched it on TV, lying on the floor on a hot July day. In those far-off days, they played space launches over the intercom in my school.(And the World Series)

[murron]

I thought the actual date was July 19th.

[onedoug]

I was working at the 312th Evac Hospital in Chu Lai, Vietnam and remember walking outside that night (July 21) and looking up at the Moon, realizing there were Americans there.

[Covenantor]

It’s hard for recent generations to comprehend the speed and depth of scientific and technological advances made during the span of our grandmothers generation. Mine was born at the end of the 19th century probably about the same time as yours.

Consider this, they saw the first self-propelled flying machines, not much more than large manned kites, wondrous and awesome things and survived to see passenger jets become common and culminating in that manned lunar landing.

Couple that with the rest of the wondrous advances that transformed the world and realize that in that span of a single life the world changed in ways unlike any previous epoch.

An awesome thing to contemplate.

[The Great RJ]

Now Americans must rely on the Russians to take them into space. How can we go from the triumph of landing men on the moon and returning them safely 43 years ago to this?

[satan]

As we enter the new dark ages the moon landing will soon be forgotten.