The Eagle has landed.
Happy 40th Anniversary of THE MOON LANDING!!!
I wasn't born when Apollo 11 reached the lunar surface, but in Grade 5 studied the Space Race of the late '60s early '70s. I've been a fan of NASA ever since. There's something about a shuttle launch that gives me goosebumps.
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
Of course those famous words were uttered by Neil Armstrong, 40 years ago today, July 20 1969.
I wasn't born when Apollo 11 reached the lunar surface, but in Grade 5 studied the Space Race of the late '60s early '70s. I've been a fan of NASA ever since. There's something about a shuttle launch that gives me goosebumps.
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
Of course those famous words were uttered by Neil Armstrong, 40 years ago today, July 20 1969.
Comments
Even better if you were lucky enough to have colour TV
damn...trumped again.
There was a study released by some think-tank several years back which showed that, for every $1.00 spent by NASA during the space program (concluding with Apollo), $9.00 was returned to the economy in the form of discovery, product development, and commercial use of technology.
Post Apollo, NASA has been a bit of a sink-hole for $$$ but, leading up to that glorious day where mankind set foot on a landscape not our own, they paid their own way and then some.
All your precious aquatic study will be for naught when we ignite what's left of the atmosphere for our new galaxy SUV's..
Mark
obviously it is true that NASA's space exploration program has led to many inventions and technologies. however, i would find it hard to disagree with the fact that if any program was given tens of billions of dollars a year* for their budget that they wouldn't also be able to create many inventions and technologies for society. in fact, if that was their primary goal instead of space exploration, it would seem quite obvious that technological advances would even be greater (in the field(s) that they are focusing on) which, imho, should be revolving around bettering humankind on earth.
imagine the health care a country could have with ten billion a year as a budget. imagine the school systems a country could have with 10 billion a year as a budget. the list could easily go on. and hell, it could even be divided up among a bunch of different groups and still make an extremely large difference.
* since 1958 NASA's budget has averaged over 8 billion a year, however it has constantly increased every year to over 17 billion in 2008
as far as destroying our planet goes i completely agree. next one hundred years are going to be interesting i think. maybe a little longer, but who knows. as far as moving to other planets, i know that NASA does (literally) take this into account and there are groups whose goal is to find habitable planets out there for us (one potential was just recently found i believe). however, pretty much all of them are far away (we're talking light years away). i think it is much more likely that we'll just all get to die together on our little planet that we never took the time to get to know in the first place.
Do I think that climate change is the greatest threat to humanity's continued existence? Not even close.
Do I think that the human population of this planet wil be greatly reduced at some point in the future? Most definitely.
Do I think that whatever calamity causes this population decline will wipe out humanity? Not unless it is an Extinction-type event (meteor strike, etc.)
I have far more faith in our ability to overcome obstacles than most of the doomsayers. We need to get a handle on pollution far more quickly than we need to worry about climate change, for example. But we, as a species, have always been able to adapt and modify our surroundings to ensure our continued survival. That is why we have survived, and why we will continue to do so.
you are quite the optimist i will give you that. you outright state that this is simply your belief (i.e. faith) in our continued existence. i personally consider myself a realist. i never said the coming of the end of the world by our own hands was a certain thing in the next 100 years, but it's definitely possible and arguable.
furthermore, to simply state that "we've adapted and survived to this point means we will continue to do so" is a little narrow minded. that's like saying "well i've continued to live up until this point therefore i haven't died yet, hence i'm never going to die". it's a flawed form of logic. obviously a specific instance will never happen until it does. to say it never will happen in the future because it never has happened in the past does not make sense.
if you really want to get technical, you can read some of Hume's writings about causation. he goes as far as to state that we cannot even argue that the sun will rise again tomorrow simply because it has risen every day up until today. obviously this is the extreme, but it might help elaborate my point more on this discussion. (Hume does however state that we must "accept" a notion of causation since it does help us live our normal lives.)