When I try to tune in and watch stuff like In The Shadow Of The Moon or When We Left Earth, it just pisses me off that the American space program has fallen from such lofty heights and that the only signifigant headline NASA has had of recent note was a tawdry, tabloid love triange. Plus we are saddled down with a clueless, uninspired and uninspiring administration that mumbles about some idea of going back to the moon around the time my kids graduate college. Compare that to the bold and courageous declaration that JFK made about getting a man to the moon and back on Earth within a decade. Where the hell are the Kennedys and the Von Brauns and NASA scientists and administrators who can make not only the US, but all the world believe that anything is possible when it comes to space exploration? Those men and women back then were no different from people now, except they dared to dream a little bigger. Why can't they do that now? Does anyone else think this when they watch Space Week (or try to, in my case)?
I can't watch Space Week on The Science Channel
- Thread starter blockaderunner
- Start date
It probably comes down to money. Budgets have been slashed. There are still people who want to do these things but there isn't enough money allocated to hiring them and funding their work. There are lots of shortsighted people who say that the country should be spending the money on problems here on Earth, not "wasting" it in space exploration.
It was around the time of the 25th anniversary of the moon landing. One of the major contractors involved in the program had an institutional spot running promoting their company. My thought was "Gee, that's nice but what have you been doing the past 25 years?"
Is there any scientific reason to go back to the moon or is just to say we can? Besides there's been the Mars probes, Voyager, the Hubble telescope, a hundred successful shuttle missions, that should count for something?
Nixon killed the space program. He got his "man-on-the-moon" moment and then couldn't give a s**t about NASA or space after that.
--Ted
--Ted
What is really sad is that apparently due to bad storage and record keeping, we have actually lost a lot of the technical data needed to accomplish this. Because the people involved have either retired or died, the current crop of scientists and engineers will be forced to reinvent the wheel.
*sigh* We have close to half a trillion dollars to spend fruitlessly blowing $#!t up but we can't have health care, good education and a decent manned space program. Whatever.
*sigh* We have close to half a trillion dollars to spend fruitlessly blowing $#!t up but we can't have health care, good education and a decent manned space program. Whatever.