This is not a NASA Website. You might learn something. It's YOUR space agency. Get involved. Take it back. Make it work - for YOU.
Exploration

Billions Await Their First Human Landing On Another World

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
December 13, 2017
Billions Await Their First Human Landing On Another World

Trump signs NASA directive aiming at moon, Mars and beyond, Houston Chronicle
“When people question why the U.S. would return to the moon, Keith Cowing, editor of NASA Watch, a website devoted to space news, has a pretty simple answer: most people alive today have never seen a human walk on another world. “I think my generation should stop being selfish about what we did,” said Cowing. “It really is time for the vast majority of the people in the world to have their chance to see this.”
Doing Something Again For The First Time, earlier post
“Take a look at the chart below. More than half of the Americans alive today never saw humans walk on the Moon – as it happened – including the person slated to become the next administrator of NASA and the entire 2013 and 2017 astronaut classes. If/when we go back to the Moon in the next 5-10 years this number will increase. For them these future Moon landings will be THEIR FIRST MOON LANDINGS. That’s several hundred million Americans waiting to see what I saw in 1969.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

16 responses to “Billions Await Their First Human Landing On Another World”

  1. Jeff Greason says:
    0
    0

    Presidential space policy has been evolving in measured steps and in a good direction from Reagan onward. The problem tends to lie futher up Capitol Hill

  2. Tritium3H says:
    0
    0

    Well said, Keith! (in reference to your statement quoted in the Houston Chronicle)

  3. sunman42 says:
    0
    0

    And I’m certain the world will be impressed when the Chinese get there a decade before we return — assuming we have the political will to sustain the development of new lunar landing hardware and support facilities.

    • Michael Spencer says:
      0
      0

      I’ve been thinking similarly. The Chinese are the embodiment of the Hare and the Tortoise.

      • Tritium3H says:
        0
        0

        Hello sunman42 and Michael Spencer,
        It is certainly true that it is never healthy to underestimate China, nor dismiss the impressive pace of technological and infrastructural advances China has made in the commercial, industrial, and military sectors over the past 30+ years.

        By the way, I am not suggesting anyone is making unreasonable or exaggerated claims, or that your points are not well taken. However, with that said, IMHO we should also keep things in perspective, particularly in the case of the PRC’s historical contributions and accomplishments in the sphere of space exploration.

        It might be appropriate to note that the furthest extent of the PRC’s space exploration (beyond Earth orbit), to date, has been a remote lunar lander with a mini-rover. The rover managed to make it a whopping 374 feet before biting the proverbial Moon dust. That is it. Their previous attempt to send a probe to Mars failed after launch, in 2011. Meanwhile, we have a rover on the Martian surface that has been performing science going on 18 years (Opportunity), having traveled some 45 kilometers, to date. A bit further from home, Voyager 1 is now officially in interstellar space, and has been in operation for over 40 years. Also, New Horizons will soon be visiting a Kupier belt object.

        With tongue firmly in cheek…I would cordially submit that the PRC has just a wee bit of catching up to do. This nifty JPL graphic brings this point home, quite nicely:

        https://uploads.disquscdn.c

        • fcrary says:
          0
          0

          Actually, the Yutu rover was probably lost due to the temperature (or low power) of the long, lunar night. I don’t think the United States has ever landed anything on the Moon which operated through fourteen days of darkness. (Possibly the ALSEP instruments?)

        • Michael Spencer says:
          0
          0

          Points taken (and also to Sam S, below).

          But I would offer this: China has the same advantage as SpaceX: someone else already made the mistakes. Don’t think they have the same treacherous road. They don’t, because we are busy paving it.

      • Sam S says:
        0
        0

        Honestly, PRC doesn’t even seem to be a tortoise in this race. They only launch a manned mission every year or two or three, and while they have talked a good deal about their future plans, they simply don’t seem to be actually doing any work to back up those words.

        I am aware of course, that PRC has launched more crewed missions in the last decade than the US has, but there is tangible progress in the US toward the next phase of manned launch vehicles, there’s just a complete lack of focused direction on long-term destinations for those US vehicles. PRC seems to have neither a next iteration of their current technology, nor a serious focus on long-term goals in their program.

      • Daniel Woodard says:
        0
        0

        China’s principal goals for their human spaceflight and lunar programs are pragmatic; to encourage national pride, build international relationships, and market their technical capabilities. Racing the US to the Moon would not serve any purpose for them. If they lost they would look incompetent; if they won they would irritate their biggest customer.

    • Vladislaw says:
      0
      0

      Since they announced they are building a space station the Chinese have moved the date to the right already 3 years and still have not launched a module… I will not get to excited about them landing on Luna anytime soon.

      • BigTedd says:
        0
        0

        Actually they have launched a module 🙂

        • fcrary says:
          0
          0

          And, in fact, they are where we were in 1979. Not only have they launched their first space station (one visited by astronauts but not permanently occupied), but they also goofed and it will shortly be lost to an uncontrolled reentry. Except for the smaller volume, that’s quite a bit like Skylab.

  4. DougSpace says:
    0
    0

    I was two years old when Apollo 11 happened so, yeah, It’s a bummer wondering if anything approaching the Apollo level will happen within my lifetime.

  5. NArmstrong says:
    0
    0

    At the rate we are going most of the population of Earth will not have experienced a man on another world by the time anyone gets back.

    NASA ought to get back to its role in advancing technology and facilitating others in the commercial entrepreneurial world. As the last 30 years have shown, NASA and the US Government cannot efficiently and effectively operate or advance the cause of space transportation, and really the American people should not be relied upon to pay for most of that through their taxes.

    Commercial entrepreneurs ought to be encouraged to develop space flight, space transportation, and space operations. They will work effectively, efficiently, and for profit.

    I think we learned this lesson once before in the rise and fall of communism/socialism.

    • Paul451 says:
      0
      0

      At the rate we are going most of the population of Earth will not have experienced a man on another world by the time anyone gets back.

      Most of the population of Earth haven’t. The global median age is in the late 20’s, so more than half the population of Earth are too young to have witnessed the Challenger accident, let alone Apollo.

      Only Italy/Germany/Japan have a median age above 45, so they are the only major countries where more than half the country is older than Apollo 17.

      [The “average” human being was born in 1988. You old, old man.]

  6. Donald Barker says:
    0
    0

    This is just a rehashing and rewording of Moon, Mars and Beyond: https://www.whitehouse.gov/….
    I would not hold your breath on anything being truly accomplished on any of these fronts more than what has been done in the past 18 years.