JS-Kit/Echo comments for article at http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2008/07/one-small-step-for-man.html (12 comments)

  Tentative mapping of comments to original article, corrections solicited.

jsid-1216609323-594422  RedneckInNY at Mon, 21 Jul 2008 03:02:03 +0000

Well, when the mothership comes to pick us up, they'll be serving Man...on the moon. Talk about your moonlit dinners under a star-filled sky.


jsid-1216612789-594425  Erbo at Mon, 21 Jul 2008 03:59:49 +0000

"I look up at the moon, and I wonder: When will we be going back? And who will that be?" - Tom Hanks, Apollo 13

I still hold out some hope that the answers to those questions are not null answers.


jsid-1216613330-594426  OldTexan at Mon, 21 Jul 2008 04:08:50 +0000

I was working a mid shift in a US Army intelligence operations building in Germany that night. We had the transmissions piped throughout the building and we went nuts cheering when the landing was completed.

What a night that was.


jsid-1216616800-594428  Ed "What the" Heckman at Mon, 21 Jul 2008 05:06:40 +0000

When I saw that video of Buzz punching the idiot, the first thought that crossed my mind was that he didn't hit him hard enough. It was also the second, third and fourth thought! ;)

I also remember watching the first moon walk as it happened. I was watching it on an old black and white Phillips TV in my father's living room. I remember being very confused when Neil stepped off, because I couldn't tell what he was doing. It didn't look like he had taken another step down the ladder. Of course, I was too young to realize that Neil was standing on the pad, not a rung of the ladder. I was so entranced that I have no idea who else was watching it with me.


jsid-1216629420-594432  Mike at Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:37:00 +0000

My mother worked for AC Spark Plug in Oak Creek Wisconsin before she and my father adopted me in early 1964.

AC was a contractor to NASA for the Apollo guidance system.

Her job was to do black-box testing of the guidance computer the engineers had built/programmed, using paper, pencil, and a slide rule. Dig that, man.

We never missed a scheduled live transmission. Didn't matter if it was in the middle of the night or during a school day, we were home, awake, and watching it.

Hats of to you, Mom! You make this engineer proud.


jsid-1216646570-594436  Guest (anonymous) at Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:22:50 +0000

Why haven't we gone back!?


jsid-1216649028-594439  Ed "What the" Heckman at Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:03:48 +0000

"Too expensive. It doesn't benefit the pore 'n starvin'."


jsid-1216650118-594441  Kevin Baker at Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:21:58 +0000

Because the powers-that-be would rather spend our tax dollars on welfare, food stamps, Section 8 housing, etc.


jsid-1216660429-594450  rocinante at Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:13:49 +0000

"Because the powers-that-be would rather spend our tax dollars on welfare, food stamps, Section 8 housing, etc."

I love it when Luddite 'tards say things like that. When they do, you know they have no idea what the space program costs or where most of the money in the federal budget goes. I always tell them to lay off NASA; NASA's entire budget might buy lunch for everyone on Social Security for a week or fund the Pentagon for a couple of weeks.

But you forgot the most important reasons (why we haven't gone back to the moon)!

Historically, the reasons for exploration - even government-subsidized exploration - have been fundamentally economic. Great nations explore, but they explore because they are looking to expand their power and resource base. Remember, Columbus was a visionary, but by sailing west, he also hoped to cut out the middleman!

Government-funded space exploration is stunt; an aerospace R&D demonstration project and a national prestige loss-leader. We won't go into space and to stay until there is an economic incentive to do so.

Right now, the Outer Space Treaty makes claiming, settling or exploiting resources on the Moon and other planets problematic at best. (Tho' all you have to do to unilaterally abrogate that one is give the other signatories a one-year notice of intent to do so.)

Low orbit, high orbit, the Moon, Mars, Titan - we'll go and we'll stay when somebody figures out how to make a buck off it.

(I always thought that a dark-side-of-the-Moon observatory/radio telescope would pay for itself if rented out via satellite relay to all those well-endowed institutions of higher learning...)


jsid-1216661917-594451  Stephen R at Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:38:37 +0000

Ooohhh. I'm loving that video. Go Buzz! :)


jsid-1216671085-594455  Magus at Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:11:25 +0000

I've met Buzz Aldrin twice, once was a "shake and greet" where all I got to do was shake his hand.

The second time was at Spangdahlem AB Germany sometime around summer 1997. Had a good opportunity to speak to him for a few minutes there. He got to ride in one of the F16s and I was around for the launch and recovery of the jet. After the jet returned and he exited the aircraft, he unzipped his flight suit to show his "T"-Shirt. It said, "I AM a Rocket Scientist."

Some things might not take a rocket scientist, but if they do, he's the man for the job.


jsid-1216671635-594457  JSinAZ at Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:20:35 +0000

I was a nine-year-old who had just moved to the Phoenix area with my parents; we had a suite at a hotel in Scottsdale (thanks GE!) and got to watch the landing on two networks at the same time.

I'm now almost fourty-nine. Where's my jetpack, dammit!


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