Neil Armstrong

greg66_tri_v2.0

Neil Armstrong, first man to walk on the moon, has died. He was 82.

I am old enough to remember watching fuzzy black and white television broadcasts of men landing on the moon. Whether I saw Armstrong, I don't know.

Some sobering facts: only twelve men have walked on the moon. Of them, only 8 are still alive. The youngest is 76. Come December this year, no one will have walked on the moon for 40 years. Before long, there will be no one alive on Earth who has walked on the moon.

We no longer have a Space Shuttle. Concorde has gone without a successor.

Where did it all go wrong?



(To those who believe that the moon landings were faked in a hanger in the Nevada desert, just fcuk off.)

Greg T

If you haven't read "The Right Stuff" you need to read it straight away.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Right-Stuff ... 0099479370

If you believe that the moon landings were faked in a hanger in the Nevada desert, just fcuk off

tailwindhome

Greg66 wrote:

no one will have walked on the moon for 40 years. Before long, there will be no one alive on Earth who has walked on the moon.

Genuine question. Is there any particular reason to go back?

greg66_tri_v2.0

For me, there is answer enough to that question in "because it's there". We didn't stop going to the Americas after the first few ships had returned, and we didn't stop climbing Everest after the first few ascents.

I sometimes wonder whether the future of the human race was most accurately portrayed in the spaceship in Wall-E.

Hold on, that would require us to head back into space.

Christ. It's even bleaker than that...

veronese68

Greg66 wrote:

I sometimes wonder whether the future of the human race was most accurately portrayed in the spaceship in Wall-E.

I've thought that too.

walkingbootweather

Can't believe he doped and never will. I may have the wrong Armstrong :oops:

Good Luck, Mr. Gorsky!

TheEnglishman

Greg66 wrote:

Genuine question. Is there any particular reason to go back?

No, not really. Unless we want another pen that writes upside down. Or tiles that hold their heat really really well. Or carbon fibre technology. etc etc.

It seems nothing drives technological advancement like a good war or a space race.

walkingbootweather wrote:

Good Luck, Mr. Gorsky!

Top gag

First.Aspect

TailWindHome wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

no one will have walked on the moon for 40 years. Before long, there will be no one alive on Earth who has walked on the moon.

Genuine question. Is there any particular reason to go back?

To get more cheese?

TheEnglishman

TailWindHome wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

Genuine question. Is there any particular reason to go back?

No, not really. Unless we want another pen that writes upside down. Or tiles that hold their heat really really well. Or carbon fibre technology. etc etc.

It seems nothing drives technological advancement like a good war or a space race.

tailwindhome

TheEnglishman wrote:

Unless we want another pen that writes upside down.

I've always liked the story that while the Americans spent millions of dollars developing a pen which could write upside in space the Russians considered the options and just took a pencil.

rjsterry

Before we all start wearing sandwich boards emblazoned "the end is nigh", we should remember that we have just successfully landed on Mars, a much more difficult target to hit given that it's a lot further away ~ at least 56 million kilometres as opposed to 384,405 km, and both Earth and Mars are on different elliptical orbits. The Russians are still taking people to and from the ISS, and I'm sure the Chinese are thinking about it. When you look at how colossally expensive manned space flight [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA}is[/url} - more than 4% of the federal budget in '65 and '66 in the buildup to Apollo, it's more surprising that Russia are still doing it than that the USA are taking some time off.

jds_1981

TheEnglishman wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

Genuine question. Is there any particular reason to go back?

No, not really. Unless we want another pen that writes upside down. Or tiles that hold their heat really really well. Or carbon fibre technology. etc etc.

It seems nothing drives technological advancement like a good war or a space race.

walkingbootweather wrote:

Good Luck, Mr. Gorsky!

Top gag

Technically things lke the biro and aerogels have been around for longer than a lot of space aencies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballpoint_pen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel

rjsterry

TailWindHome wrote:

TheEnglishman wrote:

Unless we want another pen that writes upside down.

I've always liked the story that while the Americans spent millions of dollars developing a pen which could write upside in space the Russians considered the options and just took a pencil.

I understood that was a bit of a myth, but it's true that the Russians came up with Soyuz: a relatively cheap (compared with Apollo) rocket that worked, and have stuck with it from the '60s to the present.

Daz555

TailWindHome wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

no one will have walked on the moon for 40 years. Before long, there will be no one alive on Earth who has walked on the moon.

Genuine question. Is there any particular reason to go back?

Aye. Mining of Helium-3.

rjsterry wrote:

I understood that was a bit of a myth.

Yeah the pencil thing is a myth. You can't risk having bits of conductive material floating around a spaceship in zero g.

JamesB5446

Greg66 wrote:

For me, there is answer enough to that question in "because it's there". We didn't stop going to the Americas after the first few ships had returned, and we didn't stop climbing Everest after the first few ascents.

I've been to America, there is stuff there. And it's fairly cheap to get to.

tailwindhome

rjsterry wrote:

I understood that was a bit of a myth.

Yeah the pencil thing is a myth. You can't risk having bits of conductive material floating around a spaceship in zero g.[/quote]


Good story though.

Kieran_Burns

It's lengthy, but a must read (in my opinion)

This really says it all for me:

http://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/0 ... in-africa/

Davdandy

I strongly agree in going back.Space exploration is more than just walking on the moon.
As human beings we need to push our selves,other wise the world would grind to a halt,nothing would be created and nothing would get made.The world would become stagnant and wither away.

Going to the moon has been mankinds greatest ever achievement and going to Mars pushes that envelope even further.

Would a cyclist give up after a few hundred yards or do they push on.Thats what the space industry does,push on and develop new ideas that move the world forward.

The flip side of course is money,it isnt cheap to go into space but i firmly believe that we should always try.

DanDax1990

RIP Neil Armstrong. The man responsible for the United States most unique achievement: planting the Stars and Stripes somewhere without having to kill anyone.

SteppenHerring

The Onion take on it (NSFW)

cyclingprop

jds_1981 wrote:

TheEnglishman wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

Genuine question. Is there any particular reason to go back?

No, not really. Unless we want another pen that writes upside down. Or tiles that hold their heat really really well. Or carbon fibre technology. etc etc.

It seems nothing drives technological advancement like a good war or a space race.

walkingbootweather wrote:

Good Luck, Mr. Gorsky!

Top gag

Technically things lke the biro and aerogels have been around for longer than a lot of space aencies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballpoint_pen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel

Biros don't write upside down, underwater, or in a vacuum. You're thinking of the Fisher Space Pen.

The Russians took pencils.

JamesB5446

As did NASA.

http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp

tailwindhome

Was just reading the Wikipedia pages on the moon landings. Apparently there was a contingency speech prepared in the event that Armstrong and Aldrin couldn't get back from the surface. Quite poignant in the circumstances

Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.

They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.

In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.

In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.

For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind

milleman

Very poignant speech, thankfully not needed.

I too consider the Apollo mission to be mankinds greatest achievement, surely the future for our kind is in space-we are simply using up this planets resources at too fast a rate to survive here in the long term

prj45

I read the other day that Armstrong used to tell unfunny jokes about being on the moon, and then said, "well, I guess you had to be there".

Big_Paul

rjsterry wrote:

TailWindHome wrote:

TheEnglishman wrote:

Unless we want another pen that writes upside down.

I've always liked the story that while the Americans spent millions of dollars developing a pen which could write upside in space the Russians considered the options and just took a pencil.

I understood that was a bit of a myth, but it's true that the Russians came up with Soyuz: a relatively cheap (compared with Apollo) rocket that worked, and have stuck with it from the '60s to the present.

Which is why the Russians have only ever lost 4 crew on missions compared to the the 14 Astronauts lost on Shuttle missions. The Shuttle was a huge dead end for the US space programme which is why the future of manned orbital flight will be privatised.

davis

Big_Paul wrote:

Which is why the Russians have only ever lost 4 crew on missions compared to the the 14 Astronauts lost on Shuttle missions. The Shuttle was a huge dead end for the US space programme which is why the future of manned orbital flight will be privatised.

Only if you consider forward progress and startling technological achievements to be a "dead end". Sometimes difficult things are just worth doing.

Greg T

Big_Paul wrote:

Which is why the Russians have only ever lost 4 crew on missions compared to the the 14 Astronauts lost on Shuttle missions.

Whilst the Russians have had fewer fatalities they have also flown significantly fewer missions and put many times less people into space. I'm thinking the deaths per mission / man in space ratio may be about the same ish . . .

veronese68

prj45 wrote:

I read the other day that Armstrong used to tell unfunny jokes about being on the moon, and then said, "well, I guess you had to be there".

Big_Paul

davis wrote:

Big_Paul wrote:

Which is why the Russians have only ever lost 4 crew on missions compared to the the 14 Astronauts lost on Shuttle missions. The Shuttle was a huge dead end for the US space programme which is why the future of manned orbital flight will be privatised.

Only if you consider forward progress and startling technological achievements to be a "dead end". Sometimes difficult things are just worth doing.

It didn't really achieve much, it was a compromise design that didn't really live up to it's expectations, it couldn't lift that much into orbit compared to an expendable booster, needed hugely expensive maintainence after every flight and it's one saving grace was the ability to retrieve satellites.

Despite what the NASA folk said, it never made space flight routine, the closest it came was in 1984-86 when the Shuttle programme was so stressed they ignored the engineers until the inevitable happened.

Mike Mullane, a retired astronaut wrote a book called "Riding Rockets" it certaimly opened my eyes to the inner workings of NASA and the Shuttle.

Daz555

Big_Paul wrote:

The Shuttle was a huge dead end for the US space programme which is why the future of manned orbital flight will be privatised.

Shuttle was a mixed bag. It was expensive but it also had flexibility and Shuttle missions performed some tasks which cannot be completed by any other craft.

As for privatised? Yes I agree - orbital flight will be private enterprise. This will leave the public purse free to move into deep space - one of the main reasons why Shuttle had to go. NASA cannot afford two programs at the same time.