Comments on: 1969 Sci-Fi: Humans Walked on the Moon, and Dreamed Still Higher

By: Sharon E. Dreyer

Sharon E. Dreyer — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:02:12 +0000

After the Apollo program concluded, NASA focused on the Shuttle program. Unfotunately, too many of the people directing and running NASA before the Challenger disaster were political appointees and not the techno-geeks who had scientific/aerospace backgrounds they replaced. Too many of the decisions the politicos have made have resulted in too many deaths and the loss of millions of taxpayers’ dollars. Examples are: 1) Challenger would not have been lauched when the temperature was so low if the political appointees would have listened to the technical experts who wanted to postpone the lauch; 2) the disaster during the re-entry of Columbia could have also been prevented if the process for making the foam on the wings of the shuttle had not be changed. What is means is that the original process of making the foam was deemed to be “environmentally unfriendly” so the new process does not use the freon. The new foam doesn’t adhere to the wing as the original foam did. Go figure!

By: toasterhead

toasterhead — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:07:59 +0000

1. Thomas Says:
July 21st, 2009 at 4:26 am

I’m really glad about all the attention the 40th of Apollo XI is getting but, let’s be honest, manned space flight since the 70’s has been kind of an embarrassment.
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I can’t entirely agree with that. The Space Shuttle has allowed us to master some basic fundamentals of working in space: space-based construction, performing on-orbit satellite repair and retrieval, and mission flexibility.

Unlike the old Apollo rockets, which were designed and built for one mission and one mission only, the Shuttle is able to improvise. If it needs to stay on-orbit an extra few days, it can do that. If it needs to host an unplanned fourth EVA to fix a broken solar panel, it can do that. It’s also been a platform for development of a few generations of rocket engines, guidance software, remote manipulators, and countless other pieces of technology.

Our space program was a very precocious youth, reaching for the moon in its infancy and reaching it, quite literally. But I believe it really wasn’t ready for the task – it still had a lot of learning to do. I see the Shuttle program as the time we needed to spend at Space Exploration University, getting our graduate degrees and mastering the fundamentals that were skipped over in the quest for the moon.

I don’t see it as a betrayal at all. Just a bit of maturation.

By: Peter Reyes

Peter Reyes — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:10:17 +0000

For all of the great sci-fi that came post-Apollo 11 that you’ve noted here, there have been some real clunkers too!
I found this really funny article that sums up the 5 worst sci-fi TV series. Thought you might like it!

http://www.tvtango.com/news/detail/id/54

By: Thomas

Thomas — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 08:26:41 +0000

I’m really glad about all the attention the 40th of Apollo XI is getting but, let’s be honest, manned space flight since the 70’s has been kind of an embarrassment.

While we’ve made massive strides in other areas, information technology being the most obvious example, we have let four decades go by without topping ourselves. Moreover, we now lack the infrastructure to accomplish this feat and have to start largely anew.

We were supposed to be to Mars and beyond by now. What happened to our ambition, to our dreams to the only reason one needs to climb a mountain?

Now, with the shuttle retiring and the USA being relegated to the status of space passenger, I can’t help but wonder if the last thirty years have been one big betrayal of the twenty that came immediately prior.