I remember this well...was at the jersey shore on vacation...


vpgIaWbA-vs

Ok...

Ok...

It launched on July 16th. Biggest day in human history.

It took 6 seconds for the behemoth that was Apollo to even clear the tower. The F1-A engines that were used are still the 2nd most powerful single engine configuration to be flown, right behind a Russian configuration with 1 pump and 4 nozzles.

Its incredible it even got off the ground, let alone reached Mach 25.

I watched the entire video series this afternoon, I highly recommended it, it perfectly highlights the entire mission from beginning to end.

It still amazes me to this day that they landed on the moon with this ground breaking technology:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer


Cheers,

It launched on July 16th. Biggest day in human history.

Yes, I know well the date and it's significance.. I am just surprised to see Rover post something...Cool. I also expected to hear the MTV title theme at any moment in that video.

...and 40 years ago today!

l6sbOr8pVbc

As cool as this event is to commemerate. it really does point to how much the USA has dropped the ball concerning space.

As cool as this event is to commemerate. it really does point to how much the USA has dropped the ball concerning space.

Oh we've dropped the ball on pretty much everything at this point.

Edit: Actually I think this does a great job of pointing it out. The sad part is that it is not an unattainable goal for us to regain our former status in the world...it just keeps getting farther away.

I honestly don't think "dropped the ball" is the right phrase.

Of course it has slowed down, our biggest % of the federal budget went to NASA in 1966, roughly 4% while today we're only half of a percent (nevermind that both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have cut NASAs budget quite a few times in the past 10 years). The tide started to turn with the election this past year with Obama increasing their budget AND giving them another billion on top of that in stimulus.

So what is the right phrase? NASA simply was headed in the wrong direction. The ISS and even the Space Shuttle are such a drain on funds without really notable gains. Not only does the scientific gains not merit the money being spent, aside from Hubble there hasn't really been anything exciting. Retiring the Space Shuttle next year and preparing for Constellation will really retool our space program, and in the next ~20 years I'm sure we'll all be celebrating when we succeed in our manned space station on the moon and our Mars surface landing.

I believe Orion is supposed to start landing humans back on the moon in the 2015 - 2020 timeframe.

Here's a chart explaining how NASA's spending was going to change that came out back in 2005. If nothing else, President Bush probably got this part right - we needed to get away from the Shuttle and the Space Station and start doing something more rewarding as soon as possible:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0d/NASA_budgetFY05.jpg

It is all about priorities. Why value little that will not make the country richer. :(

If only NASA would change its name to Goldman Sachs or AIG.

Well NASA is really an amazing return on investment, though its a tough sell. It costs us less than $1 per taxpayer per week, about $40 per year. What did we get from that $40 in recent memory? A Mars lander that crashed because they screwed up meters and feet, and that memory foam bedding. The reality is there is so much more they've done (if nothing else, the satellites that simply video tape the sun in a pseudo 3-D so they can study solar storms which have a horrible tendency to knock out our own electrical systems are an invaluable resource to almost every human on the planet) but its not exciting. Like I said, Bush didn't understand much but he understood excitement - his new initiative to refocus NASA to head back to the Moon and to Mars will do wonders for the program. Its now ~5 years since that plan has been put into motion, they've already been working on the Orion (the Moon lander) and Constellation (the Shuttle replacement) for a while now and the Shuttle retires sometime next year. We're all in for a lot of excitement when these projects finally get off the ground, literally.