I remember the last lunar missions. We all thought that man would be going back to the moon within a few years or so. Not the way it worked out.
Yup. It's odd that WW2 is closer to the moon landings than we are today.
Men Walk On Moon - July 20th 1969
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Re: Men Walk On Moon - July 20th 1969
#12Another significant event on that day was me being born. :-)
Re: Men Walk On Moon - July 20th 1969
#13Does anyone know how we got such high quality (live?) video of astronauts walking on the moon, but recent moon missions like LCROSS [1] didn't even have video AFAIK? [1] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/main/prelim_water_r...
According to Wikipedia, LCROSS had one visible light camera, as well has four infra-red cameras. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCROSS#Instruments. Presumably they were still cameras.
It was looking for water on the moon, so my guess would be that video just wasn't important.
Re: Men Walk On Moon - July 20th 1969
#14For me at least, I hope man goes back to the moon in my lifetime.
Dad has always talked about his memories of 1969 (he would have been a teenager at the time) and the excitement of it.
I feel like going back after so long will feel almost as momentous for some of my generation. Although possibly not the the majority, which is a little sad.
Re: Men Walk On Moon - July 20th 1969
#15Does anyone know how we got such high quality (live?) video of astronauts walking on the moon, but recent moon missions like LCROSS [1] didn't even have video AFAIK? [1] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/main/prelim_water_r...
Most missions don't value natural light photography over other spectrum specializations and a video of the moon without anyone jumping on it would be pretty boring.
Re: Men Walk On Moon - July 20th 1969
#16I remember the last lunar missions. We all thought that man would be going back to the moon within a few years or so. Not the way it worked out.
Yup. It's odd that WW2 is closer to the moon landings than we are today.
Doesn't seem totally odd, given that the war was the inspiration for much of the technology involved, was the platform for many of the brains involved to perfect their craft, and ultimately created the geopolitical climate in which space technology was one of the more important tools of the emerging superpowers of the age.
Re: Men Walk On Moon - July 20th 1969
#17I remember the last lunar missions. We all thought that man would be going back to the moon within a few years or so. Not the way it worked out.
Yup. It's odd that WW2 is closer to the moon landings than we are today.
Yes, and "space age materials" now invokes a feeling of being quite out of date.
Re: Men Walk On Moon - July 20th 1969
#18I remember the last lunar missions. We all thought that man would be going back to the moon within a few years or so. Not the way it worked out.
Wellllll... Pretty much the reason why a lot of progress in manned spaceflight came to a halt is due to the Shuttle program. It was sold on a laundry list of promises that somehow a lot of powerful folks utterly bought into. But in the end it ended up being far less capable and far more expensive than just about every alternative. Although admittedly it does look pretty cool.
Even the cool look holds a fatal flaw....never again will we design rockets where the cargo rides adjacent to the fuel, rather than on top.
Re: Men Walk On Moon - July 20th 1969
#19Mr. Armstrong replied:
"Thank you Mr. President. It's a great honor and privilege for us to be here representing not only the United States but men of peace of all nations, men with interests and a curiosity and men with a vision for the future."
Fucking awesome.
Re: Men Walk On Moon - July 20th 1969
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wellllll... Pretty much the reason why a lot of progress in manned spaceflight came to a halt is due to the Shuttle program. It was sold on a laundry list of promises that somehow a lot of powerful folks utterly bought into. But in the end it ended up being far less capable and far more expensive than just about every alternative. Although admittedly it does look pretty cool.
Even the cool look holds a fatal flaw....never again will we design rockets where the cargo rides adjacent to the fuel, rather than on top.
It wouldn't be so bad if the orbiter didn't have such big wings (due to a military requirement for a large cross-range flight ability that was never actually used). Big wings means a more difficult reentry scenario, which means exotic, and brittle, thermal protection systems on the wing leading edges, which means a much larger area of highly vulnerable thermal protection materials on the orbiter. And it wouldn't be so bad if the vehicle didn't use liquid Hydrogen, which is super-cryogenic, requires excessive thermal insulation, and is extremely prone to formation of ice. A lot of people think that we were unlucky with the loss of Challenger and especially with the loss of Columbia, but in truth it was the opposite, we had gotten extraordinarily lucky prior to that. In reality the chances were very high that we would have lost a vehicle to either of those failure modes very much sooner.
But yes, it's a very troublesome design for a lot of reasons.