The Glory Days

[fgcason]

Warning: Mindless rambling then something good from centuries ago.

Rant on.

Maybe it was the mandatory 1.5+hr all hands company meeting friday yapping about how we're doing infinitely great things, truly going places, and innovative creative risk takers that got to me. They acted like they were recreating The Glory Days. The whole time I'm fighting off falling to sleep from boredom (I wouldn't have gotten in trouble because my boss had already fallen asleep) and wanting to stand up and scream at them that they need a serious reality check.

The ISS is ok if marginal ability low Earth orbit is your life goal. The shuttle was a neat idea that just never lived up to it's intentions and is nothing more than a pickup truck at best. They're getting ready to torch the HST and won't even go bring it back down (treason IMNSHO). The 40 year old cold war Soyuz is pulling all the weight right now. (Wanna fly into space? Move to Russia) Rutan is the future if he gets his act together. My 0.9 ounce altimeter wrist watch is a more powerful computer than the 70 lb Apollo AGC. My Apple //e and low end digital camera (with 128Mb, not bits, is the size of a standard US mint quarter) are so far advanced that they couldn't even hallucinate such things in 1969...or 1972.
Today, 2005: The first time in the history of the world that we could really do incredibly wonderous things if we tried, we're doing absolutely squat nothing. We've stagnated into greedy money mongering and suing everyone to smithereens society that's afraid of our own shadows instead of doing something great. I'd go as far as saying we in 2005 are probably not smart enough to fly a 37 year old Saturn V design today (don't talk about how it can be done, just fly the thing as proof that you can actually do it)

Rant off.

Now for the good stuff:

For those who like real spaceflight and real might blow your tailfeathers clean off adventure, this should do it: The first two links are really really good. Transscripts, photo's and video.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/apollo.html
http://history.nasa.gov/ap11-35ann/index.htm
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/apollo/welcome.html#chart

I think we should go jam more flag bearing sticks in the ground on other worlds - BY HAND.


I'll go away now...

 

[The Old Man]

Amen, brother.
Not only could we not fly the technology we used in the 70s, Some friggin organization would complain about:
Safety, "You are deliberately risking a poor astronauts life"
Environment, Mixing chemicals, burning things in the stratosphere, all the metal shaping and finishing, burning all that fuel that could generate x kw of electricity, etc.
Cost, like every penny we spent going to the moon was in a pile at the Sea of Tranquility, not spent providing good jobs and good living to some of the most dedicated and resourceful people this country has produced,

Sigh.....

 

[gkainz]

Amen! (bet this needs a few more words to get by the 2 drink response minimum) ... :cheerio:

 

[Anthony]

Yeah I hear ya. Adventure is dead in America, killed by the Soccer Moms and spineless politicians. I won't say anything about lawyers out of respect for Jim, Adam, Catherine and Arnold.

 

[grattonja]

Yeah I hear ya. Adventure is dead in America, killed by the Soccer Moms and spineless politicians. I won't say anything about lawyers out of respect for Jim, Adam, Catherine and Arnold.

I would be one of the first ones in line to volunteer for civilian astronaut training if it ever happens. My wife, who is an attorney too, and I both feel that we would give major body parts up for the chance to fly in space.

Liability issues and stupid politics have just about murdered the sense of adventure that this country was founded upon. It really saddens me.

I say we should get off our duffs and get back into space. Now.

Jim G

 

[Dave Krall CFII]

I would be one of the first ones in line to volunteer for civilian astronaut training if it ever happens. My wife, who is an attorney too, and I both feel that we would give major body parts up for the chance to fly in space.

Liability issues and stupid politics have just about murdered the sense of adventure that this country was founded upon. It really saddens me.

I say we should get off our duffs and get back into space. Now.

Jim G

Inner 7 near Outer Space ? Sure, for fun and adventure and tourism... Just get your millions out and join Rutan or some other group and you might get up there for a little while. It's really expensive on the Hobbs meter. Plus, someone will fly you, but you do get a side window seat.

Outer Space for profit ? What... shoot bullets of solid nickel back from the moon with a big gun ? Then an Earth nickel wouldn't even be worth the penny that it is now.

And Mars ? Robots OK, but manned to Mars...? Forget it. Orders of magnitude more difficult and expensive than the moon. Even if we could bring a load of pink diamonds back, or plutonium, or even winning lottery tickets.

Take all that manned outer "space"-time (I do dig relativety), mega money, & reseach & use the lion's share both for GA and extensive long term psychotherapy for the stagnating, land-lubbing, earthbound masses !

 

[fgcason]

Inner 7 near Outer Space ? Sure, for fun and adventure and tourism... Just get your millions out and join Rutan or some other group and you might get up there for a little while. It's really expensive on the Hobbs meter. Plus, someone will fly you, but you do get a side window seat.

Outer Space for profit ? What... shoot bullets of solid nickel back from the moon with a big gun ? Then an Earth nickel wouldn't even be worth the penny that it is now.

And Mars ? Robots OK, but manned to Mars...? Forget it. Orders of magnitude more difficult and expensive than the moon. Even if we could bring a load of pink diamonds back, or plutonium, or even winning lottery tickets.

Sheesh. This IS NOT about money. Money is complete total bunk. Curiously those stupid little green pieces of paper with cruddy uninteresting drawings on them is the absolute end all of this civilization now. No one seems to be able to see past the stupid $$ signs. No one wants adventure because it cuts into their maximized profitability margins. We're so cheap now that we can't even tear down the old Apollo hardware to put in high rent condo's. Instead they paint "abandoned in place" on the thing and leave it to rot. Shameful. Money isn't all it's built up to be. It's not great. It's stupid. Put a $1 bill on your desk and stare at it for a while and you'll figure it out. There's nothing interesting or great about money at all no matter which way you turn it or flip it over. It's BORING. Anyone that thinks that $1 bill is interesting has some serious mental damage. Money is just a tool in a domination system that's setup to keep other people from doing something really neat.

People need to get their noses out of their wallets and look at the world and universe around them. It's a neat place, not that they will ever know...

Take all that manned outer "space"-time (I do dig relativety), mega money, & reseach & use the lion's share both for GA and extensive long term psychotherapy for the stagnating, land-lubbing, earthbound masses !

If you shut down all space exploration today, not a penny of that saved $$ will go to anything like that. Realistically it will end up being absorbed by the state and corporate profiteer margins for the select few.

My point is that for the very first time in 4.5ish billion years of history, we have the perfect opportunity and beginnings of the ability to go do some really neat things. Instead, we sit around bickering and infighting and whining and suing just to insure our greedy bank accounts of meaningless numbers are all maximized and no one offends anyone else. Shameful and lame. Maybe we should go back to sitting in trees eating bananas all day, or maybe back to being amoeba in the oceans if we have that much interest in the Universe we are in.

Forget the money greedmongering and sue happy trial lawyers. Going to the moon is realistic. BTDT. Mars is realistic. Nothing wrong with stomping around on the moons of Jupiter or Saturn while we're at it. Let's go, not because of profit, but because we can and it's interesting.

Sorry for the rant. Constantly seeing people having complete disinterest, blank looks and that empty dead look in their eyes about the world and Universe we live in is just something that irritates me to no end. All that wasted brainpower and ability is sickening and shameful.

 

[Ken Ibold]

This country is "outsourcing" its technological edge and our economy is dangerously becoming dependent on more imports than just oil, imho.

Because by and large the big companies are run with an eye only toward what the stock analysts will say about their next quarter earnings. Short term stock price, short term management, short term results.

It all fits in with our culture's focus on immediate gratification, which is reflected throughout society ... from teen pregnancies to ballooning consumer debt to declining work ethic to government policies to lawmaker motivations.

 

[bstratt]

Because by and large the big companies are run with an eye only toward what the stock analysts will say about their next quarter earnings. Short term stock price, short term management, short term results.

It all fits in with our culture's focus on immediate gratification, which is reflected throughout society ... from teen pregnancies to ballooning consumer debt to declining work ethic to government policies to lawmaker motivations.

Here here!! Also gave us Enron, Worldcom, Adelphia and who knows how many others.

 

[Dave Krall CFII]

Sheesh. This IS NOT about money. Money is complete total bunk. Curiously those stupid little green pieces of paper with cruddy uninteresting drawings on them is the absolute end all of this civilization now. No one seems to be able to see past the stupid $$ signs. No one wants adventure because it cuts into their maximized profitability margins. We're so cheap now that we can't even tear down the old Apollo hardware to put in high rent condo's. Instead they paint "abandoned in place" on the thing and leave it to rot. Shameful. Money isn't all it's built up to be. It's not great. It's stupid. Put a $1 bill on your desk and stare at it for a while and you'll figure it out. There's nothing interesting or great about money at all no matter which way you turn it or flip it over. It's BORING. Anyone that thinks that $1 bill is interesting has some serious mental damage. Money is just a tool in a domination system that's setup to keep other people from doing something really neat.

People need to get their noses out of their wallets and look at the world and universe around them. It's a neat place, not that they will ever know...



If you shut down all space exploration today, not a penny of that saved $$ will go to anything like that. Realistically it will end up being absorbed by the state and corporate profiteer margins for the select few.

My point is that for the very first time in 4.5ish billion years of history, we have the perfect opportunity and beginnings of the ability to go do some really neat things. Instead, we sit around bickering and infighting and whining and suing just to insure our greedy bank accounts of meaningless numbers are all maximized and no one offends anyone else. Shameful and lame. Maybe we should go back to sitting in trees eating bananas all day, or maybe back to being amoeba in the oceans if we have that much interest in the Universe we are in.

Forget the money greedmongering and sue happy trial lawyers. Going to the moon is realistic. BTDT. Mars is realistic. Nothing wrong with stomping around on the moons of Jupiter or Saturn while we're at it. Let's go, not because of profit, but because we can and it's interesting.

Sorry for the rant. Constantly seeing people having complete disinterest, blank looks and that empty dead look in their eyes about the world and Universe we live in is just something that irritates me to no end. All that wasted brainpower and ability is sickening and shameful.

We've already done the moon. It cost alot (of MONEY) & was worth it at the time in the Cold War and even just for fun a time or two.

If you don't think going farther, like Mars, is about money (an UNBELIEVABLE amount of mony compared to the moon) then you've forgotten what makes things fly. One year back & forth to Mars? To see what a robot 4X4 can show us for 1/100th of 1% in realistic $ ? Sure, let a few tourists take some orbital flights so they can say they flew (were flown) in space, or even a multi billionaire might go to the moon to take some more photos or something. It's fun to watch on the computer boxes.

Even if we could go to Mars in the next fifty years, there are many other different joy rides we could take that are much more feasible. In total, it goes way, way beyond being cheap.

 

[Henning]

I would be one of the first ones in line to volunteer for civilian astronaut training if it ever happens. My wife, who is an attorney too, and I both feel that we would give major body parts up for the chance to fly in space.

Liability issues and stupid politics have just about murdered the sense of adventure that this country was founded upon. It really saddens me.

I say we should get off our duffs and get back into space. Now.

Jim G

My nephew and I were out in the early morning on the ranch in N TX when the Columbia burned up, it was quite a sight. He wondered how they would get people for the next flight, I told him I'd go tommorrow.

 

[grattonja]

My nephew and I were out in the early morning on the ranch in N TX when the Columbia burned up, it was quite a sight. He wondered how they would get people for the next flight, I told him I'd go tommorrow.

Amen.

Jim G

 

[judypilot]

Frank,

I think the sense of adventure is still there, it just hasn't been channeled very well. Look at all the kids involved in risky sports. Those are the genes that 40 years ago got us to the moon. The problem is that the kinds of academic hard work they need to do to develop their brainpower is lacking. Their little self-esteems might be crushed if they're asked to do something hard in school.

But at some level, many kids understand that their self-esteem really comes from challenging themselves and overcoming their fears. So now we still have the same sense of adventure without the knowledge to translate that sense of adventure into a national goal. Steve said we are exporting our technological power, and boy is that ever the case. Last year the US graduated some 65,000 engineers. Wow, you say. That's a lot! No, it's not. It's nothing. China graduated 700,000, and they are building universities like crazy, and making sure kids go into the universities with all the technological knowledge they can handle (which is a lot more than our schools and parents seem to think our kids can handle). I have an acquaintance who was lured to China to start a university! We lost a huge talent when he went.

And as for the money, if you own stock, you're part of the problem. Investors have such unrealistic expectations for growth that they are forcing companies to look for the near-term expedient ways to increase profits, not the long-term solid ways. Sometimes the two mesh, but I really worry about the house-of-cards effect.

Guess what folks? We've already lost the race. India and China are the technological powers now that we were 45 years ago. Oh we'll still succeed in the niches, but we've quit investing in science and technology at the level required to keep our edge.

I suspect a lot of the politicking and infighting that Frank is complaining about is because the agencies that used to be responsible for helping maintain that edge have been cut back so far that it's devolved into fighting over the last remaining dollar.

Disclaimer: The above arguments are WAY oversimplified. But I do believe the fundamentals are correct.

Judy

 

[Dave Krall CFII]

Frank,

I think the sense of adventure is still there, it just hasn't been channeled very well. Look at all the kids involved in risky sports. Those are the genes that 40 years ago got us to the moon. The problem is that the kinds of academic hard work they need to do to develop their brainpower is lacking. Their little self-esteems might be crushed if they're asked to do something hard in school.

But at some level, many kids understand that their self-esteem really comes from challenging themselves and overcoming their fears. So now we still have the same sense of adventure without the knowledge to translate that sense of adventure into a national goal. Steve said we are exporting our technological power, and boy is that ever the case. Last year the US graduated some 65,000 engineers. Wow, you say. That's a lot! No, it's not. It's nothing. China graduated 700,000, and they are building universities like crazy, and making sure kids go into the universities with all the technological knowledge they can handle (which is a lot more than our schools and parents seem to think our kids can handle). I have an acquaintance who was lured to China to start a university! We lost a huge talent when he went.

And as for the money, if you own stock, you're part of the problem. Investors have such unrealistic expectations for growth that they are forcing companies to look for the near-term expedient ways to increase profits, not the long-term solid ways. Sometimes the two mesh, but I really worry about the house-of-cards effect.

Guess what folks? We've already lost the race. India and China are the technological powers now that we were 45 years ago. Oh we'll still succeed in the niches, but we've quit investing in science and technology at the level required to keep our edge.

I suspect a lot of the politicking and infighting that Frank is complaining about is because the agencies that used to be responsible for helping maintain that edge have been cut back so far that it's devolved into fighting over the last remaining dollar.

Disclaimer: The above arguments are WAY oversimplified. But I do believe the fundamentals are correct.

Judy

I'm glad we don't have Asias or India's numbers -in anything. I'll take a handful of ours against millions of theirs in anything, any time. It's been that way a long time.

If we really WANT the work, we'll do it. In the meantime, we do like to party, don't we.

 

[PoAdeleted5]

We've already done the local pattern. It cost alot (of MONEY) & was worth it at the time ... just for fun a time or two.

If you don't think going farther, like Kansas, is about money (an UNBELIEVABLE amount of mony compared to the local pattern) then you've forgotten what makes things fly. One day back & forth to Kansas? To see what a jetliner can show us for 1/100th of 1% in realistic $ ? Sure, let a few tourists take some... flights so they can say they flew (were flown) in space, or even a multi billionaire might go to the air to take some more photos or something. It's fun to watch on the computer boxes.

My apologies in advance for altering someone's quote, but man, do y'all see the irony?

 

[Dave Krall CFII]

My apologies in advance for altering someone's quote, but man, do y'all see the irony?

Kinda clever... for movies or TV, but illogical.

The irony to be seen really is that if EVERYONE with imaginations that big would pony up about $30K or more of their money to get us through just the experimental stages, then we probably could send three people to Mars to take the photos & data that our robotics are getting already.

Oh, but I forgot -our best technology can't even keep ONE guy breathing in a simulated Mars sandstorm for ten minutes, right here on Earth, in our own O2, at one atmosphere. And that's with call-out available for lunch.

 

[poadeleted3]

Kinda clever... for movies or TV, but illogical.

The irony to be seen really is that if EVERYONE with imaginations that big would pony up about $30K or more of their money to get us through just the experimental stages, then we probably could send three people to Mars to take the photos & data that our robotics are getting already.

Oh, but I forgot -our best technology can't even keep ONE guy breathing in a simulated Mars sandstorm for ten minutes, right here on Earth, in our own O2, at one atmosphere. And that's with call-out available for lunch.

Then we need to figure out how to breathe on Mars, not walk away because it might be kinda hard. Because, when you get right down to it, I have no interest in paying for robots to go to Mars just so a bunch of science geeks can satisfy their curiosity. If the trips are not leading to a manned mission somewhere along the line, my tax dollars are being wasted. Let the scientists find a private company to subsidize their curiousity.

 

[fgcason]

My apologies in advance for altering someone's quote, but man, do y'all see the irony?

Yes but only if you replace 'Kansas' with 'dry land' and 'they' with '4 billion year old pond slime amoeba.'

Mornings are the most philosophical for me. Most people are in a coma this time of the morning but I can think very clearly...clear enough that it makes perfect sense to other people later in the day and even after weeks of contemplation. Anyway, this morning I wasted an entire hour and a half (currently 06:17 as I type this) writing up something absolutely brilliant on this subject of two amoebas in a puddle debating about dry land and how it would be such a waste of effort (future terms: MONEY) to even bother with the hazards and risks involved and nothing useful could possibly come of it. BUT no amount of discussing maximized profitability margins or risk avoidance or how the mere concept of infinitely inportant MONEY is limited to, under perfect (very unrealistic) ideal circumstances even if you cheated and gave benefit of a doubt, under 100 light years of this little ball that we are prisoners on and the rest of the Universe really doesn't care and is not at any disadvantage without the NYSE or tax laws or interest rates.
That 1.5hrs of typing and editing this morning doesn't really explain the point anyway in a manner that can be understood. I decided that a picture I just happen to have laying around explains it far better than any number of words...

It's all about ACTUALLY DOING something that is REAL.

Signed,
Caractacus Potts

Blessed are the cracked for they shall let in the light...at least until the power is shut off.