On this day in 1969, Man set foot on the Moon. It was an achievement that forever changed what we considered possible. It is an achievement that should be remembered and honored not just by Americans but all of humanity.
Space exploration has always held a special place in my heart – Always looking up at the starts; I remember looking at the moon through my first telescope. I remember making a Space Shuttle model rocket that flew from the launch pad in a perfect arch, landing nose first in the ground… We lived in Lancaster, CA most of my life and as a kid, my mom got (from a patient at the dental office she worked at) our family press level passes to see the Space Shuttle land at Edwards Air Force Base. I was also able to participate in a tour of Space Shuttle Columbia while it was at Lockheed Martin for maintenance; I believe this was just before its last mission in 2003.
I believe now, as I always have, that we need to go back to the Moon, we need to relearn the lessons that Apollo taught us 40 years ago, we need to relearn to land on another world so we can go beyond our planet. Space is the final frontier and we need to commit to exploring this frontier, we cannot let ourselves become complacent for if we fail to explore, we fail ourselves and the generations of people before us who gave so much to discover.
The future of human space exploration looks bleak. After making great leaps 50 years ago, stagnation has taken over. No human has left Earth orbit in 37 years, and NASA’s current unambitious goals look to be further delayed or scaled back.
http://www.watchinghistory.com/2009/11/future-of-space-exploration.html
@Canada Guy
Read the post you linked to, agree with the majority of it.
We went to the Moon for political reasons, the scientific and technological advances made along the way were byproducts. It’s a nice, but wrong idea that we simply went the the Moon out of the desire to advance science, technology and to explore the cosmos. The Moon was a political target and once it was hit people saw little need to keep going back.
When you look at the history of human exploration in general you will always find a political or financial (be that gold, land, or food) motive for exploration. I believe that humans have an need to explore, we are naturally curious, but that natural desire (especially these days) has real limits. It’s sad.
If there was oil on the Moon, we’d of had a Moon base decades ago.
For most people scientific and technological advances are not tangible enough to justify the financial (and likely human) expense involved in real manned space exploration. People don’t care about science, our kids are being taught to pass tests rather than being educated. We pay athletes millions, while kids have to peddle wares to fund their schools. The space race gave us numerous scientific and technological advances but people just don’t know, or don’t think it’s enough to spend the resources necessary to push froward.
With the lack of political and financial motive the future of human (or even robotic) space exploration looks quite bleak. It’s an amazing discovery, but you have to ask yourself why it took as long as it did for us to discover water on the Moon.
We may be able to find hope for space exploration in the private sector, it’s at least the most likely way average people will be able to get to space. But the private space market relies completely on how much profit there is to be had. So, unless something valuable is found up there progress in the private sector is likely to remain very slow.
I do hold hope, because I believe that space is humanity’s destiny. It is inevitable and necessary for us to not to only explore but colonize space. Wonderful things await humanity in space. It is a frustrating thing for people that realize the need to have to sit back and wait for the people that don’t to catch up.
Hi Adam, good points.
Of course, I’m very interested in the science we learn, but when it
comes down to it, space exploration by humans isn’t about science as
much as such the desire to explore and visit new places, and that has
value in its own right. I don’t like the debates about human vs
robot, because I think both are good, but for different reasons. But,
of course, in real life, there are funding issues.
I agree too, without the cold war, it probably wouldn’t have happened,
even today. It might still be something we’re planning for but
haven’t got around to yet. But the idea that we could have been on
Mars 25 years ago (which was a real possibility) but never did is
still sad. Still, people complain about wasting money, but how many
jobs did Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo create? How much did it advance
our technology and capabilities? Some of that is still around, but I
think I read somewhere they lost the plans for the Saturn V, and we
couldn’t even built that now if we needed too.
Actually, I never really thought about it before, but the Vietnam war
was probably a big reason why Apollo was cancelled. If there had been
no war, much more might have been possible. And as much as the cold
war competition helped the space race, there was also the possibility
of the Soviets and US cooperating on a Mars mission. We did have the
Apollo-Soyuz mission, and there was detente in the seventies. If the
Soviets had gracefully accepted the US winning the moon race, and
proposed a joint mission to Mars, I don’t think it would have been out
of the question.
I also keep hoping the private sector will do something, but we’ve
been hearing about “Pam Am to the Moon” for 40 years, and the best
we’ve got is SpaceShipOne, which is really not very impressive (no
insult to the brave people who built it and flew it.)
Anyway, you know the old saying, the Dinosaurs only went extinct
because they never had a space program.
@Canada Guy
I was not meaning to say that the human desire to explore isn’t justification enough for the space program, it certainly is! For most people though it isn’t. There has to be a financial or (as in the case with the Moon) political motive. I don’t see a political motive popping up any time soon (another space race) and as far as we know there isn’t anything valuable (like oil for example) enough to justify the resources for human space exploration to most people.
There are many people like you and me that understand we need to explore space, if just because it’s human nature to explore. We also understand the scientific and technological advancements that we could make with a proper human space exploration program. But the vast majority of people don’t and that is truly sad.
I agree that there are places for robotic exploration of space, but ultimately if we are not sending ourselves what’s the point? We need to learn to colonize space, if for noting else but to preserve humanity’s existence.