Space Geekin’
Posted on 16 July, 2009We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
– JFK
Today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 – one of the greatest achievements of mankind in the field of space flight. To this day, we have not landed a human being on another rock in space.
The whole mission is being recreated and streamed in real-time at We Choose The Moon. Get on, follow the different stages of the mission, listen into a “live” broadcast of the radio com, look at videos and photo galleries on each stage, and relive 1969.
NPR ran a story on restoring the original video of Armstrong stepping on the moon. Three years of searching yielded a disappointing reality – the original tapes, which were of higher quality than anything broadcast, were erased by NASA during a shortage of magnetic recording material. NASA decided to take the best of the broadcast video from different networks and have it digitally restored for the public. These videos are on NPR (and I’m sure elsewhere on the net). It’s remarkable how much more detail was pulled from these low-quality videos.
We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people.
– JFK
We need to return to the moon and go further. I’m both weary and exited for the future of space flight. Hopefully, as the years go by, the importance of space programs will be realized by politicians (specifically, the President) and we will be propelled back into a golden age of space flight. One day, we will go to Mars. It won’t be easy. But going to the moon wasn’t easy either (not to mention, they had only slide rules, pencils, pens, paper, and a very, very basic and slow computer to simulate landing – there is no excuse today with our modern computers).
It does seem like space exploration has taken a backseat to everything else these days. It used to be really exciting to see new pictures of Mars and hear talks about eventually going to Mars….not so much now. Hardly hear anything about it nowadays and it seems for most politicians that helping to further the space program isn’t one of their priorities.