“This is the hour of rejoicing”
I’d tell you about my memory of the Moon landing – sitting breathless in front of the TV, not sure why the grown-ups seemed so apprehensive, certain it would end well because this was NASA and we were Americans and this was the very future I’d been guaranteed as long as I could remember – but I didn’t see it. I was at camp. Way deep in the woods. I’m not sure television reached Camp White Earth, although I suspect it did, and the counselors put us all to bed then gathered around to enjoy history without the meddling kids.
The only memory I have of a night in the bunks is a sad one – I was unable to sleep because the counselor had put on a record, and it played softly, over and over again. “The Sounds of Silence.” Either he went to meet up with the Girl Counselors or they were watching the Moon landing, and I laid there listening to Simon and Fargin’ Garfargal knowing what I was missing, wondering how it went. I knew we’d make it. I knew they’d come back safe. They were astronauts.
It wasn’t just geeky nerd-boys who lived for Space. It seemed everyone did. Now that I think of it, I had my first – and possibly last – act of actual journalism in the summer of 1969; I got a cassette tape recorder for my birthday, and went over to Northport Shopping Center to ask people what they thought of the moon landing. (They were for it.) My dad also included a cassette of Martin Denny music, because I liked Hawaii Five-0. I’d listen to it – and, of course, the awesome Hawaii 5-0 soundtrack – as I sat in the basement and built these:
As I’ve said before, nothing sums up the seventies, and the awful guttering of the national spirit, than a pop song about Skylab falling on people’s heads. “Skylab’s Falling,” a novelty hit in the summer of ’79. It tumbled down thirty years ago this month, and didn’t get much press, possibly because of the odd muted humiliation over the event. But it wasn’t end of Skylab that gave people a strange shameful dismay. It was the idea that we were done up there, and the only thing we’d done since the Moon trips did an ignominious Icarus instead of staying up for decades. So this wasn’t the first step toward the inevitable double-wheel with a Strauss waltz soundtrack, or something more prosaic. Wasn’t that the way it was supposed to work? Moon first, then space station, then moon colonization, then Mars.
If a kid could see that, why couldn’t they?
What was stopping them?
Money, of course; a reason to do it; sufficient know-how. A proper adversary competing in the same arena. (The Reds weren’t heading for Mars, although that would have been an exceptional piece of propaganda. Not too many political systems have planets that match their ideological hue.) Institutional bloat. Cultural anomie. By the time we got our national mojo back in the 80s the culture had shifted, and the overculture was full of people whose hackles bristled when people started talking about national greatness, national destiny, as these were just code-words for whatever sort of warmongering madness that “actor” in the White House wished to bring down on our heads. But that was just part of it: mostly, I blame good special effects. Once we could experience space, and alternate near-futures in which we could see the great beyond in realistic ships piloted by Bruce Willis, the appetite for the real thing slaked off.
–
Robot exploration is very cool; I’d like more. As someone noted elsewhere, we should have those rovers crawling all over the Moon, at the very least. It’s just down the street. But think how much grander we would feel if we knew that our first mission to Jupiter was coming back next month. (Without the giant space-fetus.) How we would imagine our solar system, how each planet would feel like a blank page in a passport waiting for a stamp. Perhaps that’s what annoys some: the aggrandizement that would come from great exploits. Human pride in something that isn’t specifically related to fixing the Great Problems we face now, or apologizing for the Bad Things we did before. Spending money to go to Mars before we’ve stopped climate turbulence would be like taking a trip to Europe while the house is on fire.
–
This is one of my favorite moments: Astronaut punches conspiracy moron. (h/t insty.)
There’s a few years of repressed frustration in that punch, I think. What makes this a modern YouTube moment is the comment at the top of the list when I visited the page:
What’s wrong with some guy saying the U.S. didn’t land on the moon? Who cares. That doesn’t give Armstrong the right to belt him.
Blatherskate’s idea of “free speech,” fashionable neutrality, ignorance, victimization, and misplaced outrage: every minor modern pathology in one tidy package.
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OMD did a song 20 years ago; late 80s proto-techno synth pop. Those guys loved space exploration. Always liked this song.
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GardenStater,
I did not know that, that there was no outside handle. Man, talk about locking the keys in the car in the middle of nowhere. Not even AAA could help you there.
I guess they wanted to save every last ounce they could, but still.
One problem with going to Mars is the radiation in space, from which both the Earth and Moon are shielded. I work at a natl. research lab, and this is one of the concerns, that the astronauts would be exposed to huge levels of radiation for a very lengthy period. One way to protect them would be shielding, but of course that means a huge weight penalty, which means the rockets will have to have more power, etc.
This becomes more of a factor once they get to Mars and seek to come back (after making sure they haven’t locked themselves out!), because presumably they would have no access to the huge booster rocket that gave them lift-off from Earth.
In other words, I’m not so sure that either national will or technological ability is really the limiting factor in this case.
But even with all this– the guy that insulted Aldrin had it comin’!!
jimmy, try reining in your misanthropy when hailing the robot overlord scientists of the future. Your ideas of what is possible with automation, and the (lack of) utility of humans in science and exploration, are at best misguided and at worst Hollywood-absurd (i.e. don’t be holding your breath for the robot-staffed factories of Mars).
In any case, pure science isn’t the only reason to go into space. It’s certainly not what is driving the NewSpace companies.
First we’d walk upon the Moon,
Then we’d land on Mars
The asteroids, the planets,
And finally the Stars
That beautiful Tomorrow
Waiting on today…
Screwing in the mud at Woodstock
We threw it all away
We’d rather gorge on slogans
And masturbate with angst
Instead of firing rockets
We wound up shooting blanks
We scorned the triumphs of science
And raised superstition high –
To screw in the mud at Woodstock
We sacrificed the sky
What’s the point of spaceflight
Or the point of war and strife?
And what’s the point of science
If it won’t extend MY life?
We reject the claims of history
With its tears and sweat and blood –
We think mankind’s finest hour
Was an orgy in the mud
We abandoned our ambitions
For short-term pleasure schemes
And arrested our development
With counterfeited dreams
We demanded dope and circuses,
Enough for you and me –
We screwed in the mud at Woodstock,
Then went home and watched TV
– HeadlessUnicornGuy and JakeWasHere
We shall see human.
End transmission.
@Waterhouse
I get your point. However, I guess at this point in time, I just have more faith in technology. I could never imagine how the United Federation or whatever future-world you want to pick could have evolved from the disfunctional political system we and other countries (who would supposedly take the lead) currently are experiencing. You see an elite starship crew of the best and brightest flying through space. My prediction is a crew of politically connected elites with Uncle Leo on standby to sue the Federation the first time they have a “traumatic” experience on the holodeck.
I just don’t think we can do it is all…
I was 7 when Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon. I remember watching it with my family…but I was too young to appreciate the significance of what we were watching. It seemed to me at the time just another space voyage. I mean, Bugs Bunny had been to Mars several times, right? I’m glad I was old enough at the time to still carry the memory, now that I am old enough to appreciate the history I witnessed.
I just saw an article on a TV science show(NOVA Science Now?) about a plasma engine design that could shave somethinbg like 3/4 of the travel time to Mars.
And, for the record, the counter-culture left wasn’t exactly the majority voice saying, “OK. We made our point against the Russkies. Now back to serious business…” That would be the people actually running things at the time; the ones “screwing in the mud at Woodstock” wouldn’t be that, to any noticable degree, for at least another decade, despite fashion and trends. Try and remember, too, that the Pentagon always got first dibs on the budget–and they ain’t exactly left of center, now are they?
@jimmy
I could never imagine how the United Federation or whatever future-world you want to pick could have evolved from the disfunctional political system we and other countries (who would supposedly take the lead) currently are experiencing.
That was the reason Star Trek’s backstory included a World War Three/Eugenics Wars — to clear off the existing system and allow what became The Federation to start from scratch. Having a World War Three to clear out the deadwood and allow a fresh start was a common trope of SF future histories at the time Star Trek was originated.
@Headless Unicorn Guy
Oh yeah. I should have remembered that…Starship Troopers is one of my favorite reads.
@Queeg
Important Safety Tip: If you call a retired fighter pilot a coward and a liar, there’s a better than even chance that you’ll find out what his pointer knuckles taste like.
My older son (now twelve) LOVES science/technology/spacestuff, etc. Fortunately, he’s also bright, with a knack for science and math. I’ve been quietly encouraging him, so that by the time he graduates university he’ll be ready for the next big space thing. He was a bit chagrined (chagrinned?) to find out, a few years ago, that we _used to_ go to the Moon, but haven’t lately. The water-ice-in-the-crater story cheered him up considerably.
Also – the Buzz Aldrin punch was a winner. To paraphrase Montaigne, it is subtler to punch out a clueless bozo than to answer his lunatic arguments.
I do hope that moron learned his lesson. Here he is obviously taller and younger than the Buzz getting in his face calling him a coward.
But 10 to 1 the idiot still goes around spouting off the same drivel and considers himself a hero for being slugged…