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| Artemis II crew. |
Too bad some of the fame attached to remarks made on humanity's first landing on the moon, "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed," on July 20, 1969, and the even more renowned, "One small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind" was never extended to the enthusiastic, if ungrammatical, burst at the last moon landing, Apollo 17, on Dec. 11, 1972.
"We is here!" cried rookie astronaut Harrison (Jack) Schmitt. "Man, is we here."
Now we are returning to the neighborhood for the first time in nearly 54 years. All exploration is grounded in the time when it occurs, and just as the Apollo program was an artifact of the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, so Artemis II, expected to swing closest to the moon on Monday, can be seen through a lens of 2026 and a nation in turmoil.
A time when actual reality can be lost in the fun house of social media — for instance, we're skimming past, not landing on, the moon. Artemis II will fly about 5,000 miles above the lunar surface; to put that in context, the International Space Station orbits about 250 miles above the earth.
Is the public enthralled by this latest foray into space? Hard to say. Boredom with the assumed wonder of space exploration is a theme almost as old as space exploration itself.
If you remember Ron Howard's excellent movie "Apollo 13," interest in what would have been the third moon landing was tepid until an explosion damaged the ship and forced a dramatic skin-of-their-teeth return. Before the crisis, while Jim Lovell does a live broadcast from space, the guys at Mission Control in Houston sneak glances at the Astros game, and none of the networks chose to carry Lovell's show.
When Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, Chicagoans were almost as amazed by the fact they could watch it live on television.
”We were all there, bound together by the miracle of communication that intertwined all the other miracles of technology that marketed man’s first step on a celestial body,” the Chicago Daily News said in an editorial.
The Chicago Tribune, with characteristic modesty, editorialized that their coverage of the event was an achievement on par with the landing itself.
To me, half the wonder is not the journey but who's doing it. After years of headlines about private space ventures, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX, I reacted to the Artemis II mission with a surprised, "Does NASA still do that kind of thing?"
To add context, Artemis II took off Wednesday night. On Friday, the Trump administration proposed chopping the NASA budget by 23%.
I had two questions. Apollo used a three-man crew. So why does Artemis need four astronauts?
The short answer is the Orion spacecraft is designed to be flown by four astronauts — it has 50% more living space than the Apollo command module — but reading the NASA release announcing the crew, you can't help but suspect there's some Biden-era diversity going on as well:
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Notice how the Muskrat's Starship still can't even get to orbit!
ReplyDeleteAt least NASA has functioning rockets that don't blow up all the time like that overpriced, piece of crap he's built & blows up in Texas.
he followed the Soviet & Russian example of way too many rocket engines. So way too many things to fail.
Remember, while SpaceX does have the very successful Falcon rockets, the Muskrat had nothing to do with their design, actual engineers who knew how to build rockets did that, while the Muskrat made his Texas idiocy as bad as his Swastitruck, the ugliest vehicle & easily one of the most dangerous ever to hit the road. It's electric doors fail in a crash, the secret mechanical door opener is hidden & no one can access the outside door handle to open the doors, because that idiot has them retract to give the Swastitruck an extra 1300 feet of distance it can cover before a recharge of its battery! It makes East Germany's Trabant look like a masterpiece of design, safety, low pollution & efficiency!
He get billions from the government to that on top of that!
Maybe the Muskrat can persuade Bossman Trump to take a little trip around Mars. How cool would that be, eh Donny?
DeleteThen he could declare war from space and should any country with nuclear weaponry, decide to use them while Trump's away, thus provoking every nation so equipped to use theirs, King Donald would be the only survivor. Double cool! As well as ironic and iconic.
tate
So, in 1972, our 7th grade science teacher told our class that what we saw that day on tv was fake. That blew a hole in my 12 year old brain... 😳
ReplyDeleteThere are plans to continue sending rockets and people to the moon. A space station that would orbit the moon and a base on the moon.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a child in the 60s I found it all very exciting. Now not so much.
There is either something very valuable on the moon or we are going to need somewhere else to live (Mars) and the moon will be a Basecamp.
Maybe this is all about the continued militarization of space , or it's just vanity .
I used to have faith in NASA. Now I just hope the astronauts make it back safely.