I had the pleasure of seeing an almost finished cut of this at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival earlier this year. It is fabulous. Unbelievably fabulous.

It will be playing in theaters in limited release next month (September 2007). I believe it will be released on DVD in spring 2008.

It is a must see.

No. Putting a man on the moon was easy. Bringing him back alive was the tricky bit.

I seem to remember reading that JFK insisted that the words “and bring him back alive” were added to the original mission statement to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

Not to defend psychic claims, but can Niven cite any data for this? I don’t know how you prove this.

I’m serious. If I could predict horse races or stock markets due to some metaphysical ability with enough accuracy to consistently make money, I wouldn’t tell anyone.

I figure the government, or someone with a lot of power, would have me in a lab or chained to a stock ticker so fast my poor psychic head would spin.

Again, no, I don’t think anyone is doing this. It’s just not a sufficient statement to disprove psychic powers by itself, which seems to be his implication.

These guys are heros and the moon effort did give us all a valuable new perspective on the planet we inhabit.

Gary 7

For example, fundamentalist religious (and political) fanaticism (whether it’s “ours” or “theirs” ) which leads to violence shuts down the rational part of the brain and appeals to the baser parts. People like that are in the minority in the world, though because of their actions they capture the lion’s share of the attention. But they are the minority. We know that the rational part of the brain can overpower the irrational, and we know that people can live in peace.

We can make things better for the future.

We can do it.

Tell that to the Iraqis. Sometimes you really can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube – or indeed the blood back in the veins.

Sorry to be a bummer, but this “we can fix anything” mentality is a great way to get yourself into trouble that you actually can’t fix. Hubris kills.

We can achieve some truly remarkable things if we really try – but there are limits.

When you consider what the massive resources we put toward killing each other could have done in regard to bettering ourselves we could be a lot farther ahead than we are now with less danger and more hope which brings more motivation – an vicious cycle in a good way.

Frankly, I don’t have a lot of faith in humanity although I don’t discount what we’ve accomplished either.

It’s like all of mankind is being carried on the shoulders of a very small percentage of people who care to learn and willing to take extreme risks.

And while they’re doing that there are people who not only do nothing to help but there are those who do anything they can to hinder us. The “moon landing conspiricists” for example, aren’t just paranoid but they are counter-productive and actually convince others that they’re right.

And don’t even get me started on putting people in charge just because they seem like they would be cool to have a beer with…

By the way, I don’t know if I mentioned this before but I met Neil Armstrong in the early 70′s when I was a caddy at a celebrity golf tournament. He hit me square in the ass when I was standing too close to a par 3 green. He apologized a lot but all I cared about was meeting Neil Armstrong and getting his autograph. I met Bob Griese at the same tournament.

Cheers.

As I told Hale-Bopp after he told me his story, he should have turned to Cernan and said, “Yeah, and I bet you’ll be the last one out of the bathroom, too!”