BREAKING NEWS (July 20, 2005): NASA will try to launch the Shuttle again on Tuesday, July 26. I’ll have more news as it comes in.
36 years ago today, Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on another world.
I was too young to remember it clearly (I remember the launch of Apollo 15 much better; my family went to Florida to see it). I only vaguely remember the other landings, too.
Somehow, that seems wrong. Anniversaries are supposed to be at least a little nostalgic, I guess, but still. There’s way too much nostalgia in this one. It’s just been way too long since we’ve gone back.
And this time there are better reasons. Well, the cold war was actually a pretty good reason. And there were other reasons too– the lessons learned, the technology pushed, the inspiration it gave to a generation of people (me included). But in the 1960s and 1970s, the attainment of the Apollo landings didn’t come with a warranty. There was no long-term commitment.
This time may be different. In 2008, NASA will launch the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which will map out the surface of the Moon at higher resolution than any spacecraft since the Apollo missions. It’s a prelude for colonization, and I think that’s a pretty good idea. As Robert Heinlein said, the Earth is too fragile a basket to put all our eggs in.
After that will be more probes, and by 2015 or so we’ll have spaceships which can carry people back to the Moon… this time, I hope, to stay.
Anniversaries, I guess, are for being nostalgic, but it’s important to leverage that nostalgia for the future. When I look at the Moon, I don’t want to think “Ah, what could have been” anymore. I want to think “Let’s take that next small step.”
July 20th, 2005 at 9:30 am
Will the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter have a high enough resolution to pick out the stuff left behind from the moon missions?
July 20th, 2005 at 9:53 am
How many of you would like to go live on the moon?
July 20th, 2005 at 9:54 am
I have seen that it has a resolution of 1 or 2 meters, and should be able to see the landers and rovers.
July 20th, 2005 at 10:17 am
Tom, glreno: yes, see here: http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/abandoned_spaceships_lroc.html?1272005
July 20th, 2005 at 11:05 am
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Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
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