As we look back on the moon landing forty years ago, I can’t help but think what a bunch of pathetic sissies we are. Sixty-six years after the Wright brothers’ plan flew a couple feet, we made it to the moon. In the forty years since that, we’ve done crap. Yeah, the new iPhone now has cut and paste, but there is a whole universe out there to explore and conquer and we don’t even really have a plan on what to do with it.
The sad fact is we can’t nuke the moon because we still need the moon to practice landing on so we can go to other planets. I dream of the day we’re like, “Screw you, moon! We don’t need you any more!” and launch a barrage of missiles at it, but we’re far from that point.
So why do we suck? Some of it is we’re risk averse. Today it’s unimaginable to strap a couple people on a giant rocket and try to land on the moon using less computing power than the average person has on his cellphone. While we had a giant war going on! Most of it I think is just our general sissiness. We’re too focused on little dinky problems like global warming to think big about the human race. Even conservatives will be like, “We spend too much because of Obama to think about space.”
Well guess what: Space is the solution to these problems.
As soon as you land on another planet, we no longer have to worry about global warming, poverty, or war because that will now be some other planet’s problem. As for Obama, we just say, “Screw you, hippie!” and start a new libertarian society on Mars like from some Heinlein novel.
So, we need a plan. I don’t want my kids to have to watch old documentaries about the Apollo missions to be inspired by space; we need new heroes and challenges. I don’t know if we have to boost private industry into space exploration or what, but we need to do something and make it a priority. It doesn’t matter if it makes since economically or what-not; it’s a matter of pride. It’s a matter of reaching our potential as the human race. We’ll always have these Earth-problems, and the only solution is to go somewhere else.
Yes, well said. The only way to go is up and out… Lets get moving! BTW: I think the average digital watch had more horsepower than the Apollo did… 😉
Libertarians scare me.
[Then help them leave the planet. -Ed.]
The ISS was originally planned to be used as a platform for further space exploration, including to the moon. However, Russian rockets have to launch farther from the equator, then American ones, so the orbit of the ISS was placed so that the Russians could reach it. Sadly, because of this, it is just as difficult to reach the moon from the ISS as it is from Florida, so it is worthless as a midway stop off point. This was done in the name of international co-operation. However, none of the other nations really bring anything that we need, and in the case of the Russians, are actually holding us back. This is another example of liberal feel goodism, getting in the way of actual progress.
When we went to the moon, we were in a space race with the Soviet Union. What we need is another enemy to race against. We should start spreading the rumor that Al Qaida is gearing up their Mars program.
Fred Thompson in ’12!
* Privatize space
* Nuke the Moon
* Punch the hippies
We can solve many of our problems with space. Tell Obama, Pelosi, Reid and the others that there are untaxed people on the 7th planet. Make Algore, PETA, Whoopi, Rosie, Janine, and the other fruitcakes aware of global warming and frightened animals on the 7th planet. We will for sure have a rush for all of them to buld a space ship so they can travel to the 7th planet after they find out Jimmy Carter and the Kennedys came from there. Soon the 7th planet will be filled with liberals, and Earth can go about it’s business. Space exploration can save the day!!
Are there android zombies on Mars? Do we have any pirate gnomes to help counter that menace?
Reasons we haven’t gone back to the moon:
1 The government is a bloated, gassy, self congratulating sloth.
2 Congress, in it’s infinite wisdom, decided that the NASA programs were too boring and not popular enough with the people any more. So they decided to spend the money on Teddy Kennedy’s yacht collection instead.
3 But since they didn’t want to be seen as completely backwards nincompoops, they decided to fund a new program- the Shuttle program. The shuttle can’t even leave the Earth’s orbit. They had to build a space station to give it some place to go to.
4 THEN! They stripped the remaining Saturn V rockets down and stuck them in museums. All except one. Which sits by itself at the Johnson Space Center playing Sims3 and picking the lint from it’s toes.
5 Fortunately we have the Shuttle program! Which turned out to be WAY more expensive than they thought (derruh), it doesn’t do what they said it would do, and turns out to be a freaking dangerous way to fly in and out of the atmosphere.
Heinlein wouldn’t have put up with this frightened, ball-less, risk adverse generation of sheep. He and his alter ego Lazarus Long would have just started shooting people until they agreed to build big rockets and fund the colonization of Mars.
I think someone here had it right. Go to Obama and the UN, and tell them that if they stop taking our money and telling us what to do, then we’ll use the money to leave the planet. We’ll go colonize the Solar System, mine and drill asteroids, and generally have a blast.
They can finally implement their anti-technology, Luddite ideaology, and go back to pooping in the woods and living in caves.
In 200 years, we’ll come back, install brain control chips in their heads, and enslave the entire population and force them to cut our asteroid lawns and bring us Gin & Tonics.
I’m ready for departure sooner than later.
So we haven’t been to the moon in a few years. The reason Ronald Reagan (he of the Totally Awesomeness) didn’t go back is because we found out there weren’t any other races to enslave. So, he woke up one day, kicked the Ruskies in the junk, and fired all the air traffic controllers.
Bush Sr. didn’t go back because he was too busy breaking campaign promises. Clinton didn’t go back because he had someone better to do and W didn’t go back because he spent all his time shootin’ terrorists, spending money on government projects, and kissing Ted Kennedy’s backside.
Obama is a sissy. He won’t go back because he figures space is racist because of it’s color.
[We] never have to be under the heel of nobody ever again. No matter how long the arm of the Alliance might get, we’ll just get a little further.
It’s all the hippies fault….
Going to other planets is too expensive and a huge waste of resources. NASA should be scaled way back to do satellites and nothing else. Going to the moon, the space station and Mars is all a bunch of very expensive play time for a bunch of PhD’s who need honest work.
Bob A doesn’t see the big picture. Probably doesn’t even agree with arming dinosaurs with rocket launchers, either.
Sure, we have made huge advances in computer technology, but virtually nothing in practical hardware. SST’s? All gone. Fastest airliner in the sky now? The 1960’s Boeing 727. The new Orion manned space vehicle is basically a scaled up 1960’s Apollo. Ugh. We are wasting our inheritance on online role playing games and I-pod applications.
Heinlein would not be happy.
You know, I’m sure glad the first people who took off across the freaking Atlantic Ocean didn’t say to themselves “why go over there? It’s so far. And it’s expensive. And probably nothing much to see over there. We should stay right where we are. Now pass me a few leaches, I have a headache.”
I do think that the government needs to get it’s butt out of all space programs. They should do like they did with the airline industry and help people get themselves into space. Right now, they aren’t doing anything legitimate except to get in the way of actual real progress.
Besides, their tv programs are as boring as hell.
leaches = leeches. duh. Where’s Ed when you need him?
we need a plan. …I don’t know if we have to boost private industry into space exploration or what, but we need to do something and make it a priority
Where’s DD Harriman when you need him?
“A plan to get america back into space”
*punch hippies
*fire Congress
*do away with welfare and funding for illegals
*give new found money from cutting welfare and funding for illegals to NASA
*punch hippies
*go to space
You mock me!…And I will NOT be mocked! The insolence and bold affrontery! The moon is out. I say, the moon is out, and yet it is day. The MOON MOCKS ME!…AND I WILL NOT BE MOCKED!
Beam me up Scottie, no intelligent life here.
Beam me sideways, Scottie, no one here knows which way is up!
I just saw a documentary on the History Channel (though made by ABC News) about the possible disasters that could hit Earth, and they put Global Warming ahead of meteor collisions, claimed the sea levels would rise 40 feet, and claimed they’d already risen 18 inches (which we were told all through the 80’s was the fatal total amount.) All reports were cherry picked and at the end they did a montage so that something a scientist said about meteor collisions was implied to be something said about global warming. It was a total Michael Moore job, possibly more so. The even asked Al Gore about the whole issue with China and India and he said, with a straight face (I guess he doesn’t have any other expressions) that we had to provide leadership. Yeah, that REALLY works, Al.
When the schools stopped teaching science and started teaching environmentalist dogma, we lost.
When scientists stopped pushing logic and wonder and started pushing atheism, arrogance, and morality-free experimentation, we lost.
When we stopped having children and started celebrating the rights of the illegal trespasser, even if he was an Islamic Jihadi bent on our destruction, we lost.
Dr. Robert Zubrin, head of the Mars Society, has an excellent speech that he alludes to at the end of his Energy Victory or Mars Society speeches. Unfortunately, I’m having problems finding it online, but it is basically this – there are two views of the future of humanity. In the future where resources are finite and oil is the source of energy, then every baby born is a competitor, every nation is an enemy, and the future is going to consist of more people fighting over fewer resources. I a future with space development and ethanol fuel, resources are unlimited, every baby born is a possible future inventor, and the future consists of more people cooperating to gain more resources. Here is one of his speeches, heavily edited, but it will give you some idea about him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0O2YZwSkgM
Speaking as a member of the human race generally, we’re still up there: Earthrise from the moon on April 5, 2008:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S4GghwAoYw
Now, picture a nuke coming straight at you from Frank J’s private space pad on that blue marble. Actually, the Japanese thought they saw just that, and they crashed the space ship trying to dodge it:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090629.html
Anyway, NASA has this big Constellation program, and says the Next Giant Leap Has Begun (TM):
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/main/index.html
I dunno. I think we need another macho Captain-Kirk type and some huge, loud rockets like the Saturn V to generate some real excitement again. And maybe we should take away all of NASA’s computers and tell them they’ll have to dress in formal 1960s-era nerd suits and use slide rules until the moonbase is up, running, and turning a profit. Their brains will be busting out of their ears as they work hard to get their toys and cool back — they’ll probably come up with so much good stuff trying, we’ll end up on Saturn within the year. (Dibs on that big chunk of one of the bigger rings over there!)
The human race has no purpose and will not be remembered if we sit here and die on this stupid rock. Global cooling aside, something someday is DEFINITELY going to cook this planet and us with it, unless we can figure out how to expand to other places. THAT is a fact.
“What did humanity do?”
“They went to the moon. Then they died.”
That’s our tombstone. All your fa**ety socialism and health care and windmills won’t even be in the stupid history books.
Hate to tell you this Frank, but London Mayor Boris Johnson agrees with you: “We are now so spineless, I will never see a man walk on Mars”