“The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever.”

Cool.

I recommend reading JFK’s speech delivered at Rice University in September 1962.
I’ve tried posting a link, but for some reason, it keeps getting hung up in moderation.

What they need is leadership.

Who’s up for the Google Lunar X Prize?

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky said something that echoes through my mind at least once a week:

“The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever.”

J.

Have you seen “In the Shadow of the Moon?” Very cool documentary.

Another thing I wish people would realize: how much we benefit from space technology (weather and world-wide communication satellites, etc.) and spin-offs.

Here’s a factoid for you:

NASA’s 2007 budget: $16.3 billion

Iraq war: $10 billion per month

http://www.amazon.com/We-Seven-ASTRONAUTS-Themselves/dp/B000CBHTLA

NASA does have limited resources; but it is also hampered by being a government agency, subject to partisan leadership priorities and Congressional budgeting fights. It is a Cold War agency that suffers from the government no longer having the push to beat the Commies; now it’s a political soccer ball that gets kicked from side to side depending on who’s in office and what the administration’s political needs are. Unfortunately space exploration is such a massive undertaking that I don’t see the private sector doing anything very significant in the near term. It takes huge resources, which even Richard Branson doesn’t have, to run a space program. I don’t have a solution; but fewer wars in the Middle East (at least fewer wars paid for by us) would be a healthy step in the direction of freeing up resources for space.

My uncle is one of those people who are convinced we never landed on the moon. Like one of the astronauts said, “we went to the moon 9 times! Why would we fake it 9 times?”

My uncle always said we didn’t have the technology at the time to pull it off, to which I reply, “You’re right. We didn’t. But we did it anyway.”

There is “can,” and there is “find the money for.”

If we put more money into space exploration, then how are we going to bring more American-style democracy to the Middle East, Oliver? Huh? How are we going to do THAT?

I’m all for space exploration, but doing it manned right now is a waste of resources (and probably a waste of lives). I know, I know, a lot of people don’t think robots are as sexy as people in tin cans, but many a scientist would disagree.

NASA has limited resources, and we’re two or three paradigm leaps from manned exploration of space being worthwhile (propulsion and life support being the most important things to work on). But 50-70 years from now, hell yeah. Until then robots can tell us a lot more about the universe than people ever could.

And Oliver… do you really want to get into how cool the Mercury Astronauts were? Find time to read Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff.”

An aspect of the space program that doesn’t get enough attention is the logistical and management task of coordinating all the work of the multiple contractors and sub-contractors. For political purposes, bits of the work needed to be placed in as many states as possible. That “tin can and giant missile” Oliver refers to was also an amazing assemblage of puzzle pieces contributed from an enormous number of sub-projects.

Honest to God, the only movie that’s ever made me cry is “The Right Stuff.” They were tears of AWESOME, for exactly this reason.