I took my daughter out to look at the stars and had a disheartening thought.

I'm in my thirties and we've never been to the moon in my lifetime, I honestly wonder if we ever will be? Try explaining that bag of depression to a two year old.  

I dunno but it depresses me too. Stagnation is death.

Well we won't be going back anytime soon.  Welfare is more important than research and exploration.  Nevermind the technology we got out of NASA.

I've heard, as of ten years ago, we couldn't land on the moon if we wanted to.



Something about people being stupid now.

Well it would have to be a privately owned company now - didn't BO dismantle NASA or shut down their space program?

Maybe a private space agency should be formed and supported by investments, donations and the selling of shares. Private industry is almost always more efficient than government.

My grandfather worked for NASA since virtually the birth of the Space Program. He was one of those guys with the crew cuts and coke bottle glasses you'd see sitting at mission control. When he passed away about ten years ago he was pretty sad and bitter at what the program had become.

Can't help but wonder if a privatized space race wouldn't be the sort of boost our economy needs.

Hard to believe it's been that long.  I remember as a kid sitting and watching the first moon landing with my family.  A really special moment.  The next day my Dad, who wasn't known for sentimentality, bought by Brother and I little bronze keychains commemorating the event.  I've still got mine.  



I hope you and your Daughter have many of those special kinds of moments.  It doesn't have to be something like a moon landing, but it would be nice to see us do something like that again.



I'll just leave this here...

And then the government introduces legislation to regulate it.

I've been to the moon. It's not that great - there's the tacky little amusement park but that's all.

More like "we threw away everything we learned during Apollo and failed to build on any of it so now a lot of the tech and know how is lost."



 

Same here. I'm forty now and i read books when I was 6 years old saying we will have colonies on the moon by now. Try telling that to your own 6 year old when she wants to go to the moon when she gets older. IT SUCKS .  had to explain to her that we really don't have a space program anymore thanks to FBO.

In before the mooners?

ETA: It's not going to happen for a while. We won't go back to the moon until we have a big huge reason to do so.

Keep your chin up, you're only assuming that we actually went in the first place.







Just in time.
 

I watched the moon landings as a child and was certain I'd live to see a manned mission to Mars.  I don't think so anymore short of a miraculous turnaround.  We have yielded the high ground.  I was born in the American century and will die in the Chinese? century.

Really sad.

We ended racism so it was worth it.

It is disheartening. I remember reading several years ago that a modern graphing calculator has more computing power then the Lunar module (and any of the spacecraft) in the Apollo program.

I understand the desire for further space exploration but why the hell would we want to go back to the moon anyway?

I was 10 when they landed on the moon, remember it very well. It's sad that today there is not that drive to explore space like there was back then, at least in the .gov shit heads anyways. Maybe someday we will be ahead of the game again. I think if we lag behind other countries in the space race, we will be at a great disadvantage.

I didn't realize there isn't even a planned manned Mars mission on the books. Only vague future plans for a manned mission sometime after 2020.

Too many lazy leftists looking for their welfare checks from the working folks.

We've never been to the moon. It's unpossible.

To go somewhere else must go to moon first.  We aren't going anywhere with current president.  I remember seeing one of the later moon missions on TV.  I wonder if my daughters generation will see real space exploration.  I grew up reading sci fi and would give anything to catch a ride to the stars.

We went there and found it was made of rock, and haven't gone back since.



Behold, the power of cheese.



(Old cheese commercial).

Don't worry, now that the government is somewhat out of the way, there's a chance we might actually go back in your lifetime.

If we fund the research on carbon nano tubes and can produce it in quantity, things will change. We're stuck in this age until we can do it, period.

It's the ultimate high ground.



 

Don't assume that because all of the public space agencies and programs are impotent that their military counterparts are as well.

We may indeed have been back to the moon in recent times, in your lifetime.

And most of it was engineered with slide rules. Think of what we could do now with todays computing power if we applied it.

I have more computing power in my pocket right now than we used to get to the moon.

You believe there is a secret military space agency?  There seems to be some evidence for it, but it seems farfetched, and I've never really looked into it.

It's all about gravity.  The Moon is a perfect place to build space ships and launch space missions, light gravity and no weather make perfect conditions for that.  Think Enterprise or Star Destroyer.  Those kinds of ships can't land on a planet with a heavy gravity and if they did they'd never take off again.  And it's also about baby steps.  We learned those steps and have since forgotten them.





 

I was maybe 8-9 when i watched those grainy black and white pictures coming down way after my normal bed time...i was awestruck...Now after working at NASA for 28 years it really hurts to see how gutted it's become. When I first hired in we had a lot of the old-school get-it-done managers who were rough around the edges and would tell you in no uncertain terms if you were being a dumbass. Now days it's become a bloated .gov agency that's lost it's way. Just when we had SOME goal lined up, Hussein cancelled a program that had some promise of succeeding. Maybe it wasn't the BEST solution but it would've been good enough..He destroyed years of work. In doing so, he showed the utmost distain for a workforce that's put heart and soul into giving this country a top quality space program. Not just .gov employees but our contractors put a lot of dedication into flying safely. We had and have our deadwood, but ya know what, even the commmercial world has their deadwood. And now THIS is something to think about.

The guys that knew how to build Apollo are long gone, the guys (and gals) that KNOW how to build Shuttle are going away. The new kids have never built a space vehicle before and all their mentors are going away. All those lessons learned the hard way with (literally) blood and twisted hardware are going away with them. All that will be left as guidance to the kids will be dusty old requirements documents. And since the kids won't understand WHY those requirements are there, they will be blown off as being 'out of date and obsolete'. And the learning cycle will start ALL OVER AGAIN. Vast amounts of money will be wasted, lives will be lost all because we lost continuity....As for the commercial launch market? Their focus is on bottom line and if it costs a few people their lives, well...that's just the cost of doing business....Don't believe me? Look at the airline industry, you think they're flying safely because they are dedicated to our safety...hell no, they're flying safely becuase the FAA stays on their ass and fines the hell out of them when they ignore the regs...

Sorry if I sound cynical and bitter...But I LOVE my space program. I never lose sight of the fact that if I don't do my job RIGHT, my (our) astronauts may die, and everyone I know on my project feels the same way. Everyone I know working other shuttle elements feels the same dedication. The grief we've felt at the loss of Challenger and Colombia never left some of us....A few months ago I was at a briefing going over some of the lessons learned from those losses and one of the briefers had to take a moment to compose himself.  

Now we face the fact that America may not have a manned space program for decades.....you may feel depressed, I feel grief....

It's ironic that a president (Obama) who modeled himself so much after Kennedy,  single handedly did away with the space program, and all the associated advances. As a scientist, it saddens me how behind our country is when it comes to scientific advances, especially those that aren't medical associated. Granted, I'm all for further medical research, but so many advances come from true science done for science sake.

Jack O'Neill thinks so.  



In all seriousness, though, I wouldn't be hugely surprised by such a revelation.



 

I had the same feeling when I visited NASA last year with my son.

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Yep.



Somebody can throw rocks at you from up there.



 

Find out when the ISS is visible next and take her out to watch it go by

Mass drivers FTMFW!



 

If you beat her to death, she will never know the fail that is your life. Maybe she can be on a stamp.  



Or, if that isn't your cup of tea, you could just try to be a good dad.



I was too lazy to beat the kids to death, and now they are big enough to fight back/drive me to the liquor store.   Meh... I wonder some times.....

skepticism about American exceptionalism, lack of interest in space exploration) have broad support on the US political left.     

airforce space plane.  









Launched not too long ago and may still be in orbit.





 

Ya, like you'll ever use Velcro or Teflon.



At least I think those came from NASA. . .



 

No, neither did.



 

but the miniaturization of computers that make you posting on an internet forum possible did.



 

I remember watching it on TV.....and now....thats depressing..

MINIRAKER!

We best get back to the moon and beyond in my lifetime. I too was raised on 2001,buck rogers, Space 1999, etc..... ever sense clintoon, I have learned that the liberals will go out of there way to destroy NASA.

Not really.



 

I think that Branson billionaire dude is doing something in that regard. He's calling it Virgin Global or soemthing like that. I think tickets are $100,000+ per person too.





But... to me its sad. My brother was working in Houston for a NASA Contractor on the Intl Space Station ISS - Lunar Module division. When he said "Lunar Module", I asked him to repeat what he said, then I asked him if he knew what that means. Of course he did - we were designing a missionand a ship to take us to the Moon again.



Then AIG, Wall Street, and the world's biggest banks collapsed, not to mention Hurricane IKE. Nearly everyboyd on the ISS - Lunar Module group was laid off in a few short months. Last I heard is that NASA's Houston Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center is laying off 5000+ NASA engineers, scientists, and workers once the Space Shuttle Missions end.



I think that says something about where we are, not just the "Space Race", but versus other countries and cultures.



We're losing ground.

After Rome fell it took until 1800 before another society was able to support a city (London) of 1 million people.    Humanity doesn't always move forward.   The downturns can be steep ...... and long.   I'd be amazed if we made it back in my lifetime.