tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15868947.post6870880673906357937..comments2023-10-29T06:41:23.910-07:00Comments on Halfway There: The Eagle has landedZenohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09058127284297728552noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15868947.post-83545700176395996462009-07-21T05:40:54.724-07:002009-07-21T05:40:54.724-07:00I was fortunate to be in California on Moon Day (a...I was fortunate to be in California on Moon Day (at the age of 10), so that I only had to stay up to 1 am instead of the 4 am it would have been back home in Toronto. What I find remarkable is how badly people over-estimated the projections of advances in transportation (where's my flying car?), and how badly we under-estimated the advances in computer and communication technology (handheld devices that can communicate across the world are commonplace, and each has many times more computing and storage capacity than existed in the entire world just 50 years ago).Theo Brominehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14078583453130339726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15868947.post-62986523698405141212009-07-20T12:38:43.715-07:002009-07-20T12:38:43.715-07:00I didn't realise that Nixon was that instrumen...I didn't realise that Nixon was that instrumental in ending the Apollo programme. I only recall hearing recently that there wasn't all that much opposition to doing it, exactly because it had been so succesful. Three more missions would have increased the risk of something going wrong - someone being killed - and that was very much unwanted publicity by then.<br /><br />And Nixon *did* fund cancer research instead. It just turned out to be hella lot harder to do than go to the Moon.<br /><br />Interrobang,<br /><br />The money spent on space research is a pittance compared to the current wars - or just the recent bailouts. But unlike either of those that is *research* and as such there's every reason to think that it will be for the good of mankind. Apollo was not the cause for devoloping microprocessors, but it was nonetheless the first major project to use them.<br /><br />We need space as much as we need the LHC and every other sort of basic research. If we were never to aim further until everything that's wrong has been fixed, we would still be in the caves.<br /><br />I'm thirty-two, and I politely suggest you put a sock in it.Jens Knudsen (Sili)https://www.blogger.com/profile/14078875730565068352noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15868947.post-88604654062208424432009-07-20T12:18:54.201-07:002009-07-20T12:18:54.201-07:00David, you obviously remember The Deep Range bette...David, you obviously remember <i>The Deep Range</i> better than I do. I had quite forgotten the sf elements and recalled only the sea farming, which seemed rather tame and almost contemporary.Zenohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09058127284297728552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15868947.post-68444413194278175352009-07-20T10:54:23.830-07:002009-07-20T10:54:23.830-07:00"...I was reading The Deep Range (one of Arth...<i>"...I was reading</i> The Deep Range <i>(one of Arthur C. Clarke's non-sf novels)."</i><br /><br />Surely <i>The Deep Range</i> is science fiction? The plot is built on a UN organization tasked with farming whales for milk and meat like we farm cattle. The protagonist is a grounded spaceman. And there's an antigravity spaceship at the end.David Ratnasabapathyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09411589929439750244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15868947.post-86434582176393782822009-07-20T10:43:07.859-07:002009-07-20T10:43:07.859-07:00I'm too young for the moon landing. I mostly ...I'm too young for the moon landing. I mostly remember space as a place where you <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster" rel="nofollow">die</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaster" rel="nofollow">horribly</a> trying to get there or back. Now that the US is no longer interested in space because they're trying to keep up with the Joneses, er, the Soviets, and like many of my generation, Cold War paranoia seems weird to us, we're mostly sort of like, "Why do we want to do this again? Um, shouldn't we be taking care of global warming, poverty, war, the subhuman status of women on most of the globe, and ten thousand other things here at home before we think about trying to export the madness into space?" 'Because it's there' just doesn't really cut it for a lot of us, I think. (And yes, I realise that none of these things are an either-or proposition, but I'd rather people were paying attention to problems here at home before getting distracted by space to do...what exactly? There's no earthly reason we need to continue the Cosmic Cock-Swinging Exercise, so why bother?)<br /><br />I'm also against private space exploration largely on the grounds that it's likely to be even <i>less</i> safe than governmental space programs, and I think space exploration is too dangerous as it is anyway. So...very likely to kill you, no real benefit that hasn't already been derived, and, in the case of private space exploration, no real innovation (a couple of the X Prize teams were using WWII era rocket technology *headdesk*)...what for? Why even <i>want</i> to do this?<br /><br />I'm 34, for what it's worth, and I <i>still</i> don't get it.Interrobanghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14073177798747299275noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15868947.post-45972125384083460162009-07-20T08:24:41.503-07:002009-07-20T08:24:41.503-07:00"And I imagine you back then, with snap-brim ..."And I imagine you back then, with snap-brim hat and farmer's tan where horses pulled their wagons through the fields... Now the fields are all four lanes, and the moon's not just a name. Are you more surprised by how things change, or how they stay the same?" (Cheryl Wheeler, 75 Septembers)<br /><br />I want the George Jetson car that folds up into a briefcase light enough to actually carry.The Ridger, FCDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01538111197270563075noreply@blogger.com