A Hinge in History
Keith’s note:We first sent humans to the Moon for reasons that now seem more romantic and idealistic than than they are relevant to today’s world. That said, this achievement transcended the politics of the day to become a moment in human history on a par with some of the greatest accomplishments our species has ever achieved. Whereas we once thought the notion of reaching the Moon was fanciful, we all too quickly made it reality.
Now, more than a generation later, half the world was not even alive when Neil Armstrong first set foot on the Moon. Indeed, a lot of people think it was faked in a TV studio. Those who are trying to send us back to the Moon lament that it may take longer to do it today than it did in the 1960s. Neil Armstrong entered this dialog toward the end of his life – his previous silence making his comments event more poignant. Now he is gone. While others who walked on the Moon will continue to speak out about space exploration, none will come close to evoking Armstrong’s humble authority on the subject. It may be another generation before we see someone like Neil Armstrong step once again into history on another world. But regardless of where they step, Neil Armstrong will have symbolically been there before them.
On a personal note: this is my connection to Neil Armstrong. I carried some rocks in my pocket for a month – rocks that he picked up from the surface of the Moon. Ever wake up in the middle of the night to feel a lump under your chest only to realize that it is a Moon rock?
Neil Armstrong was a complex figure, at a complex time, and at the focal point of achieving a complex goal. Why should we be surprised at the lack of a simple truth here?
The only way this becomes another pivot point is if in his passing, we strain as a culture and not as a “ends justifies means” as we too often do, to understand the achievement in all its complexity/backdrop, and come to terms, rather than run away from it, as we’ve done for 43 years.
Its as if we scared ourselves as a nation at our own accomplishment.
And all the nonsense that followed preventing our further achievement has been in avoiding the hard work of rational assessment of a nation, as a nation and not a mob dominating a nation.
Perhaps the sense of loss we feel at this moment, is that we weren’t able to sort this out to joint satisfaction … with the involvement of the man who will forever be linked with its achievement. Its not consensus, but diligently debated honesty that I’m referring to.
I worry that this 43 year lapse signifies that “we the people”, can’t be “a people”, … that can come to cope with such, to the point we can’t recognize in the present the appropriate means to go forward in space exploration.
That we can’t assess “One step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” 43 years ago, such that next “step” beyond either doesn’t happen, happens as a lesser, poorer echo of Neil’s words, instead of the grander ambition beyond, probably of much larger consequence, with words and vision to match.
Keith: You are indeed fortunate to have that connection. Mine is the mental image of the Apollo 11 first stage engines bursting into orange fireballs, as seen through a small refractor across 6 miles of soupy Florida air. I also remember a CBS commentator asking “If you were stranded on a desert island with an Apollo 11 astronaut, who would it be? Mike Collins would keep up your spirits and hope for rescue. Buzz Aldrin would figure out a way to convert sea water to drinking water, built a storm-proof shelter, etc. Only Neil Armstrong would find a way to get you off.
Eric Fischer
Pittsburgh, PA
Fair winds and following seas, commander.
Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins, along with Yuri Gagarin, Pavel Belyaev, and Alexei Leonov, are the big six who will be remembered as truly being “the first” when humanity ventured, step by step, into the universe.
They will, someday, be joined by someone who will step onto the surface of Mars, and who will – likely – say something along the lines of “that’s another small step, but an even greater leap…”
That individual, and the crew, will join the list – and even for the first onto Mercury or the moons of of the outer planets, will not quite be the same…
And then finally, when a human being steps onto the surface of a moon or planet circling Alpha Centauri A or B, or Proxima Centauri, the list of “firsts” will be complete – and humanity will have passed out of adolescence.
Ad astra per ardua
“They used to teach about us in science class, now they are teaching about us in history class”.
The spirit of this and most other discussions of the last week play straight into the hands of this quote.
The first footstep on the moon was historic, but we should be concerning ourselves with science and technology of moving forward. What should have been just one step among many became a high-water mark. So let’s stop reminiscing, and bloody get on with the program.
AND, learn the lessons of the Apollo program, or we’ll continue to reminisce for the next 40 years too.
Sigh. Who am I kidding.
As to things that used to be taught in science class, but are now taught in history class, that is, of course, an inane reason to get them back in science class. We can all come up with a flood of examples of such things that no longer belong in science class, but may be instructive in a history class. Same for engineering.
“So let’s stop reminiscing, and bloody get on with the program.”
Of course “the program” that we should be getting on with may not be human space flight. “The program” should be something with specific and compelling goals that provide value to our nation and let us move forward. Maybe that moving forward needs human space flight, but maybe it doesn’t.
The Apollo program, and human space flight in general have taught us important lessons, but the take-away lesson is not necessarily to just do more. That’s hard for us to admit, but it’s a decision we need to face up to. I’d like to believe that Neil Armstrong could see that.
It is certainly not a forgone conclusion that HSF is important, and I wasn’t implying that this quote is a factual basis from which one can start an argument – it is just a quote, after all.
While personally I do believe HSF is critically important, I don’t think Apollo 2.0 will be any more successful than Apollo 1.0, so “getting on with the program” does not mean dive right back into the program at the point where it began to visibly fail… Here comes the other quote… “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.
But for sure, for those that believe like me that HSF is important, it is a complete waste of time (This is constructive criticism, Keith) to drag around moon rocks to Mt. Everest and indulge in other worship-like behavior of past achievement and old astronauts.
To our “HSF camp”, the goal is to make Neil Armstrong’s step on the moon be just a small milestone in the progress of HSF.
“Doing more” as you’ve put it is not the take-away lesson from Apollo. Doing more is just a placeholder for human progress. We should always be doing more. The question is how.
My take-away lesson is that we should not embark on politically-motivated flag-planting programs that masquerade as science or exploration programs, but have no viability in the real world. It might be a quick way to get a budget through, but it is also a quick way to guarantee long-term failure.
What we should do, is cultivate within our culture the desire to tackle long-term challenges for the betterment of mankind. As opposed to embarking on short-term instant-gratification projects for the betterment of our immediate bottom line.
Sigh. Who am I kidding….
Very well said. Thank you. Neil Armstrong was a real hero, and we as a nation take great pride that he represented us in the difficult task that he helped achieve. But achievement of a difficult task is hardly rationale for doing it again, nor should it be used as a template for something else we should do (e.g Apollo 2.0).
Thanks back. It’s Sunday afternoon, perfect time for internet philosophy.
So we ruled out “doing it again” as a rationale for anything. Done.But what about the bigger picture? Is the expansion of mankind beyond Earth an important goal?While this was not why the politicians sent Armstrong to the moon, I am sure this is what he was thinking when he took his first step there.If such expansion is important – how should it be approached?
I think that’s precisely right. What human spaceflight has
to be about is the expansion of humanity beyond the Earth. It’s not about
exploration, inspiration, spinoffs, or resource development. None of that crap. Exploration now is better done with robots and telerobots. Inspiration is a non-directed goal.
Inspire to do what, exactly? More human space flight? Spinoffs are, well, spin. As to resource development, ain’t gonna have astronauts driving bulldozers and
swinging pickaxes. Look, LEO is firmly within our economic sphere, and it’s not because
of the few people that we’ve sent there.
So is expansion of humanity beyond Earth important? From a
species protection standpoint, that seems inescapable. Human spaceflight is a powerful way to accomplish it, and it’s completely impossible to do robotically. But our leaders don’t buy into that. You won’t find a single piece
of NASA legislation that even refers to species protection as a long-range goal. If it really is important, what are they scared of?
One reason for the reluctance of our leaders to accept this
as a long term goal is that species protection simply isn’t a national
priority. Protection of our nation – protection of us, not them – is of
paramount importance. We’re not spending any taxpayer dollars to protect Bulgarians. Another reason is that our nation is often simplistically defined as being land delimited by physical borders. “America”, wherin the United
States resides, is a chunk of real estate. When we settle on Mars, our
Constitution may be there, but Kentucky won’t.
So the approach that has to be taken, I think, is to decide
whether expansion of humanity into the solar system really serves our needs. From a national security standpoint, as much as from a species-security standpoint, it has to.
Nobody ever got fired for failing to protect their species.
But some people get it, and there is an economic logic to it too. The ROI for settling Mars is simply the future value of the Mars economy. Even if it doesn’t export beans back to Earth. Earth’s economy doesn’t export anything to anywhere, and yet clearly there is value to being rich on Earth, right? So if the first people and companies that get to Mars start staking ground and building stuff, then they (or their grand grand children, rather) will be rich on Mars.
It is not clear to me that self sustaining economies can be set up in places other than Mars, but this does not mean people won’t try. Technologically, these other possibilities are much further into our future.
Meanwhile, governments will continue to talk about outreach and inspiration and other happy words, but from time to time, without meaning to, we’ll get some progress. And we’ll see how well SpaceX does, and maybe Blue Origin. These are two companies that started with the idea of space habitation, not because their founders liked rockets.
Helen,
Exploration now is better done with robots and telerobots
True for “exploration by the pound”.
Not true with “exploration by unit of time”. Steve Squyres said all of the Mars rovers work of many years could have been done in weeks by human explorers, and better.
At some point you hit diminishing returns with bigger/longer/more unmanned.
Inspiration is a non-directed goal.
Agreed. Especially since the youth of today’s non courageous but fear culture time, can’t be. How can you be inspired when you’re in a dismal culture that’s focused on consuming you, rather than on letting you be invaluable for making the future happen … what my students tell me.
So is expansion of humanity beyond Earth important?
Premature. Right and left will both kill any attempt, for different reasons.
Intermediate step: autonomous use of BEO resources that leads to a lower cost access to solar system targets. First “almost business” is logistical support for subsequent “real businesses”.
Right hates this because it disrupts its pseudo “national security” basis for fake HSF pseudo conflict between rival nations.
Left hates it because it fears co-opting eventually by the right on partial success.
Helen
Humans need to be out there! Not giving up to bots yet! Sure they can come help 🙂 Even if the ticks need to be outfitted with surgon steady robot fingers. lol I want to be driving the tick. Ok Ok I’ll settle for driving one of Ballards robot Alvins(correction Jason or Jason Jr.) while I sit safely in my Dragon for now Paul 🙂
Paul
I don’t miss your points. I am absurbing them. Using a chassis frames like old cars and tech from dragon or boeing capsules. Couldn’t either of those companies make little vehciles for very cheap. Couldn’t a simple frame of tanks and dracos be used to make little vehicles of all sizes and shapes just like a car company put diffent tops over different chassis.
the same frame bent and stretched could make Tinkers 2001 sphere or my Tick suit or a bug you lay down in.
Can’t these companies scale their life support systems.
The point Helen is robot tech can help us settle space. We don’t need to sit here scared on earth and let robots raine.
I respectfully disagree!
Add
“Don’t discount robotic proving pre HR hardware as a rapid advancement to HSF flight qualified status.”
I think that was my point Mr. C I wish in 2016 We were landing a robot red dragon on mars named after Mr. Armstrong and setting a new robot standard to build on. Not that much more risky and probably just as cheap as the mission now planned. And a step to a human space
settlement future instead of the expensive past.
A failure of a much cheaper Dragon mission would still be a step forward.
Don’t discount robotic proving pre HR hardware as a rapid advancement to HSF flight qualified status.
As a recent example, COTS 2+ advancing DragonRider.
I have said for literally decades (and published in books) my personal opinion that both human and robotic “exploration” are needed to do the different things we will need to do in space. In all those years, I have never had anyone provide me with a convincing argument against that idea. The only “discussions” required are about how to use each one to our best advantage. And, of course, those discussions must always take into account the fact that money is always going to be an issue. In our pleas and proposals we need to be going after money for both human and robotic exploration tasks, and never favor either one at the expense of the other.
Steve
Mr. C
In an earlier post when I said that Man will go beyond Mars to get resources. Its that Simple!, You said “he already can but doesn’t”??
Sir,
May I be so bold as to ask for an example or two??? lol
That’s a pretty good one liner as you race by with your rocket pack lol
In terms of capabilities, it is possible right now to return resources (for example asteroids) to the earth, in that its been demonstrated by NEAR on Eros that we possess the ability to soft land, we possess the ability to transfer enough propellant (in this case Xenon/Krypton) to affect a long term return of a 100-200T in the course of many years (other orbital dynamics work), and we have the ability to field a scalable reentry technology (three actually).
That’s why there are some commercial ventures springing up … because it is possible to start going after “beyond earth resources”.
In fact, there are certain rare earths that limit industrial growth, so the cost profile can go exponential on them … should certain countries play hardball. One might like to have an ace in the hole just in case.
Beyond that, after you develop the capability to do so, you find that certain other propellants might become better sourced from beyond earth’s gravity hole, so as to increase your scope of activities as well as reduce your cost footprint. In essence, like they say at Microsoft, you eat your own dog food.
In some architectures I’ve seen, it may be cheaper to source propellant in the shallowest of gravity wells …
Now, what would you do with propellant sources distributed across the solar system?
meekGee,
Don’t feel like your kidding yourself; that sort of thing is contagious. We will move forward, as will other nations, when the time is right. At the present we have major money problems in many industrial countries, and even worse, we have decision makers who are still living the Cold War. But these promoters of devolution can’t live forever. I feel strongly that it will be just like in the history of science, where there have been many cases of activity and progress being stifled until the older generation dies off, making room for the “new thinkers” to become the decision makers. Once that happens, I think we’ll see a renewed commitment to space, especially considering that some of the reasons for going into space will be even more valid and immediate than ever. Keep the faith.
Steve
Steve,
Recommend to you the movie “Key Largo”. In the fear culture of the 30’s mobsters were popular in that dismal time, where in going off to war they faced enhanced criminal cultures of Natzi / Soviet that took the culture to extremes of world war. On returning, the Bogart character has to confront lack of courage to certain death from the Rocco mobster to survive.
For America to return from defeatism to optimism means it has to give up on “unfair advantage” cult of monetary mobsters we are held in thrall by, and make the journey back to courage culture than denies completely the cult.
Then heros can be recognized like the single combat warriors like Armstrong, where inspiration apart from being the biggest money mobster becomes admirable once again.
We have to go through the same agonizing reappraisal that the Bogart character does. It will be the GenY’s (or later) that come to face with this through some calamity unforeseen, as the other generations cannot even see it, let alone face it.
So this is an example of the previous encounter we had with our current malady … which actually spawned NASA from NACA.
Incidentally, what my NACA mentor called his proudest moment of service was “debugging” the airworthiness of fighters/bombers for WWII. Reminded me a lot of Armstrong’s modest view of his own personal accomplishments.
One of our problems is that they are not even teaching this in history class. American school children are more likely to learn about the My Lai massacre than the Apollo program. There seems to be a movement in this country to bring the country down
One’s got nothing to do with the other – the My Lai massacre is not exactly something that brought our country up.
Neil’s plaque said “We came in peace for all mankind”. Kids should learn about both.
This post is not about My Lai. No more off-topic comments please.
There is no such movement. History should just be a recounting of the past, not a political effort to buoy or deride a country. The problem is that there is so much is history that influenced our country and world so much more than our space programs. That’s not a statement against our space programs, just a statement of reality.
What would be interesting and appropriate would be a history of technology and science course. Such a course would be the perfect venue for discussing achievements in space and how the space programs have changed our technological landscape.
It was a beautiful, clear night last night. Looking at the moon, I saw footprints.
Monument
Sunday August 26th 2012
I woke
Somebody told me the news.
They had heard the TV during the night.
I wanted to hear the stories of his coolness under pressure, his humbleness .
But all I heard was political rant.
I’m not connected out here.
I thought , What a historic day. The first human EVER to step foot on another celestial body is now a star child.
I always felt two earthlings touched down on the moon at the same time, so who climbed down the ladder first made little difference.
I thought how sad he never embraced Spacex, Commercial Space, the next phase, the future.
After dark, I stepped outside and looked up, grave stone grey, a third of it was there.
I stepped inside and said “It’s there.”
only to hear “what’s there?”
“The moon!” I said
I heard a quiet laugh, “of course, what did you expect?”
Before going to sleep I stepped outside to look again. It glowed orange as it sink in the past.
I wondered how many of you had made a special point to look at it too?
Neil is gone, Buzz remains
Life on our planet races on.
What future will we choose?
PARALLEL LINES
First guy on the moon. Who could ever top that? First guy to set foot on anything outside the earth. Mars is next, probably harder, both for funding and for technical work. Hope the next guy gets as much attention.