The Eagle Has Landed
A short time before he died, Neil Armstrong gave a presentation in Australia matching the footage of his landing on the moon against a modern Google map of the moon. Anyone who has any doubts that the moon landing was real should watch it at this link. The browser will not automatically open on the correct episode. Be sure to choose Episode 4 in the videos below.
And thanks to David, we have these remarkably evocative verses from Robert Heinlein to imagine them to:
The Green Hills of Earth
Let the sweet fresh breezes heal me
As they rove around the girth
Of our lovely mother planet
Of the cool, green hills of Earth.We’ve tried each spinning space mote
And reckoned its true worth:
Take us back again to the homes of men
On the cool, green hills of Earth.The arching sky is calling
Spacemen back to their trade.
ALL HANDS! STAND BY! FREE FALLING!
And the lights below us fade.Out ride the sons of Terra,
Far drives the thundering jet,
Up leaps a race of Earthmen,
Out, far, and onward yet —We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth.Robert A. Heinlein
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Some folks never get it. They think the earth is flat. Has to be, otherwise the Chinese would all fall off. Right.
Then there are those that think Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFk. And others believe that Obama was born in Kenya and the CIA blew up the twin towers.
It takes all kinds. The environmentalists are perhaps the worst.
Most of humanities problems center around the clash of belief systems. All you can do is keep an open mind and learn not to laugh right in their face if they are armed.
Haji can’t shoot.
“And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.”
From LOTR, in the book Tolkien’s narration, slightly modified and moved to a recital by Gandalf at the battle of Gondor in the movie.
Those who believe in Nothing will believe Anything.
Those who believe in Anything are capable of Anything, for they posses and create Nothing.
Think of Kurtz in “Heart of Darkness.”
“The horror. The horror.”
The nihilism within Islamism has been discussed here.
Those who believe in Something can create Something. They have equity in Everything.
Those who believe in Everything have problems with focus.
Aren’t we all deniers everyday?
Centuries after Copernicus and the language has no common substitute for ‘sunrise’ and ‘sunset’.
Those who do not believe have never seen CV flight Ops at sea, dark of night, in the rain, pitching deck, routinely landing aircraft and launching them That proves to me we have the men and the vehicles, equipment and control systems to go to the moon, land, walk about and come back.
Neil Armstrong was one of many such men and yes, He really went to the moon.
It is never mentioned, but during the Apollo 11 mission some amateur radio operators cobbled together some WWII vintage military gear and some later equipment and received the transmissions from the Moon directly. That alone would have been rather hard to fake.
And aside from that, the “analyses” done by the Moon landing deniers are absurd. Proably the stupidest of all is that you cannnot hear the engine in the LEM firing when the radio transmissions are made. I have listened to a great many transmissions from jet aircraft and have never heard the engine – and jets are surrounded by air, not vaccum, and the crew is not wearing full pressure suits.
These Moon Landing denier ideas seemed to be most popular in France, which I take to be due to sheer envy.
And a while back I stumbled onto a website asserting that the airliners on 9/11/10 could not have hit the WTC and Pentagon because those buildings did not have runway aiming markings – and asserted that if airplanes need those markings to hit the runway then they must need them to hit the buildings. I pointed this out to Bill Whittle, who thought it was as hilarious as I did.
By the way, the “Green Hills of Earth” verse was read over the radio on one of the later Apollo Moon Landing missions.
“Noisy Rhysliing”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Hills_of_Earth
Until I read this wiki article, I never realized that the music I hear in my head to the lyrics are probably only not the same ones that others hear in theirs. No voices, though, just the lyrics set to music.
The mind is an odd mistress. / erc
More Heinlein, this time his addition to the Navy Hymn:
Almighty ruler of the all
Whose power extends to great and small,
Who guides the stars with steadfast law,
Whose least creation fills with awe -
Oh grant Thy mercy and Thy grace
To those who venture into space.
I wrote something brilliant about this, but no one noticed it. I believe America didn’t stop going to the moon or else we would have better moon maps today- maybe down to the square inch like on Google. So something is probably there, and the people at NASA are covering things up.
We should ask them nicely to come clean… give them an amnesty period to confess, or else arrest anyone who is involved in hiding moon data.
Baobo, kindly mind your own business.
Fondly,
Brim Flagnick
Moon Colony 7.
Recent images by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) of the Apollo landing sites on the Moon:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html
LRO is currently on orbit around the Moon, refer to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Reconnaissance_Orbiter
It was improper to have annoyed Neil Armstrong with flatulent questions about faking the Apollo Program. Armstrong was one of America’s greatest living heros and above such questioning.
Well said Wretchard. Neil Armstrong was privileged to be chosen to fly to the moon and be the first man to walk on it. But Neil lived his life with grace and class and performed magnificently. That is why we should remember him. RIP Neil.
I watched that amazing episode 4 and I thought “CPA Australia” – that sounds like “Certified Professional Accountants”. Then I googled CPA Australia and it IS a bunch of accountants – Certified Practicing Accountants.
My respect for Bean Counters – Australian version anyway – just went up a few hundred notches.
In 1943, Heinlein published a short story, “Solution Unsatisfactory”, in which he foresaw the nuclear stand-off of the Cold War. Much of his writing was prophetic.
I was an avid reader of Heinlein, Clarke, and the other greats of sci-fi’s Golden Age. In the era before interplanetary probes, writers envisioned life on Venus (Heinlein depicted it as a planet-sized swamp) and Mars, with colonies on both planets, the moon, and even on Ganymede. In “The Rolling Stones”, Heinlein depicted asteroid mining.
Heinlein, with the other writers of the day, misjudged just how difficult and expensive space travel would turn out to be, how hostile an environment space is, and the profit potential of space travel. It has been calculated that,if the surface of the moon were covered with cut and polished diamonds, they would not be worth the cost of going to get them.
Isaac Asimov lamented the “lost romance” of space, now that we are all but certain that there is no life – certainly no intelligent life – elsewhere in the solar system. I savored that vision, and miss it.
Correction Wretch: That was David—–note the “id” after the “v”.—— who
posted the full text of Green Hills of Earth.
An unwanted attack of modesty compels me not to take credit where none is due.
Yours truly
Dave
A picture is worth a thousand words
http://tinyurl.com/2ek3fg5
http://tinyurl.com/8m78wm6
http://tinyurl.com/8ms74t7
The cost of failure http://tinyurl.com/9b7jy5l
blackdog52 @ 15:
“Isaac Asimov lamented the “lost romance” of space, now that we are all but certain that there is no life – certainly no intelligent life – elsewhere in the solar system. I savored that vision, and miss it.”
A very unfortunate aspect about Science Fiction is that most of it was based upon bad science and poor aeronautical engineering. Much of the early Mars related science fiction (for example Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Barsoom” series) was based upon the nonsense “science” produced by Percival Lowell. One can arguably claim that Edgar Rice Burroughs’ writings were the beginnings of American science fiction (Jules Verne was French and H. G. Wells was British). Science fiction got another boost after WW-II due to all the advanced aeronautic engineering that supported the war effort and the German V-2 rocket. There was almost an entire generation of science fiction where all the rocket ships were essentially scaled up V-2 rockets (the lack imagination was remarkable). Then the Apollo program came along and science fiction got another boost from the example of the Apollo Command Module, Soyuz, the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station (ISS). Unfortunately, there has been a negative feed-back effect on the Mars program. It’s simply ridiculous to be looking for life on the Martian surface given how hostile the surface of Mars is towards biology. However the recently landed Mars Science Lab (MSL) (alias “Curiosity”) was funded as a “search for life” mission. Looking for life on the surface of Mars makes about as much sense as looking for buffaloes in the middle of Antarctica. A rational Mars exploration program should be based upon general geology, chemistry and planetary science. The question of biology on Mars should be addressed only after evidence was discovered indicating that biology was remotely possible. Of course getting funding for Mars exploration while not actively embracing the possibility of biology would be almost impossible. To some extent, the tradition established by Percival Lowell and Edgar Rice Burroughs makes it politically impossible to rationally explore Mars. Perhaps the old symbiosis of science fiction and Space Exploration needs to be broken. We should be exploring space because we can colonize it and construct an economy on it and not because there might be bug eyed monsters out there.
By the way, the following lists the various extra-solar planets discovered by the Kepler spacecraft:
http://kepler.nasa.gov/Mission/discoveries/candidates/
Key quote: “The Kepler Science Team has found 1,790 host stars with a total of 2,321 planet candidates as of 2012 Feb 27, up from the 1,235 planet candidates announced 2011 February 1. Some candidates may not be planets..”
There are lots of planets in our galaxy and many of them support life. However proving that there is life on them will be tricky.
egg @ 18: Looking for life on the surface of Mars makes about as much sense as looking for buffaloes in the middle of Antarctica. A rational Mars exploration program should be based upon general geology, chemistry and planetary science.
But looking for fossil buffaloes in the middle of Antarctica *is* rational, as it turns out. It is entirely possible that there was simple life on Mars a billion years ago, and it would be astounding to prove it. There is even a non-trivial chance that *if* there was life there a billion years ago, it continues even today at low levels. Live cells are found in the most fantastic places on Earth these days, when anyone looks. Anyway the actual difference between a “search for life” and “general geology, chemistry and planetary science” amounts to barely more than the labels on the boxes, pretty nearly the same experiments are indicated either way. They haven’t equiped Curiosity with fake parking passes and packages of cocaine to try to sneak it into a Martian nightclub, y’know.
And I bridle a bit at the idea that science fiction was based on bad science. Wildly speculative, yes. More hopeful than proven, certainly. We watch Star Trek at the least knowing that warp drive and transporters are impossible *today*, and that alien women in spandex and sequins who speak English are, well, scientifically unlikely. It’s all meant to be more inspiring than inspired, you might say, it’s trying out all of the possible “what if’s” and at least pointing out some that would be nice, if they turned out to be true.
Heck, it may be that Earth-based fusion power is no more than a “nice if it were true”, much less transporters and warp drive. But sometimes you don’t know until you try, and you don’t try until someone at least dreams it up and maybe throws in a few alien princesses.
The stupidest thing about moon landing deniers is that the Soviets would have to have been in on it — they had both the technology and the motive (not to mention well placed spies) to have shot it down as a fabrication of American propaganda if that’s all it had been.
Mr. Fernandez, thank you for the compliment; to be noticed around here is very flattering, most of the time
. It was Matthew who posted the last verse of the Green Hills of Earth, and it just spurred me to post the whole poem. Credit goes to the dreams of Robert Heinlein.
All men that are born die, and just as day follows night, Neil, Buzz, Mike Collins and the other brave men that flew to the Moon will pass from this life.
I feel a great sadness and longing for the past sometimes, of those days in my youth when these events transpired, and remember how it made me feel. It was an heroic endeavor, and reminds us of what was possible.
But there is always tomorrow, next week, next year. Someday again, the Race of Man will look up to the heavens and follow the dream. We will go to the other planets, and someday to the stars. I wish that I would live to see it, but that probably won’t happen – at least the part about reaching the stars.
As long as people dream and look up to the sky, such dreams will inspire us to go farther, faster, higher……To go where no Man has gone before.
I have that much faith in the future, and in our children, that they will not falter and forget.
Ad Astra!
RWE 7,
“… popular in France, which I take to be due to sheer envy”
Now you’ve done it. We need to get Marie Claude in here to defend the honor of the negligee.
Humans are like sharks. If we are not moving forward then we are sinking. Forward is Up.
We need to get out there.
@21 David
It is entirely possible – probable! – that we won’t ever go to the stars. That would be sad – I wish we would go – but this doesn’t change the odds. What we know now weighs very heavily against it. Consider the fact that not even the ancients had reason to believe it was impossible to fly. They saw birds doing it. The idea of going to the stars is not like that.
David @ 21 – You forgot the most important part of that quotation!!!
“PER ASPERA” ad astra.
Slackers and dreamers won’t ever get there.
The “RIGHT STUFF” is having vivid, intense, personal knowledge of the cost of failure and the determination to “Git ‘er Done” anyway.
One of the biggest problems we have with manned space exploration today is that people still try to think of it in a 1960’s context. I think that is one reason that Neil Armstrong retreated into obscurity; he realized that the “space spectacular” and hero worship aspects were not conducive to real manned space exploration.
Here are a couple of articles that deal with that aspect:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/870/1
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2124/1
And a video is worth thousands of pictures. Actually, an old style video IS thousands of pictures. This video is shot from the external camera on the booster during a shuttle launch. The next time you read about the Chinese eating our lunch, ask yourself how many Chinese dudes have walked on the moon? How many Chinese robots are exploring Mars?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JU2HjLR-ts
America, Humanity’s last chance.
22. Blast From the Past: “We need to get out there. “
We Are getting out there!
The latest data from NASA shows a remarkable increase in cosmic ray radiation experienced by the Voyager 1 probe since May which suggests that it may have broken entirely away from any influence of our sun as it enters interstellar space, where it will be able to directly measure forces driving our milky way galaxy.
NASA’s Science News reported: “June 22, 2012: For nearly 35 years, NASA’s Voyager 1 probe has been hurtling toward the edge of the solar system, flying through the dark void on a mission unlike anything attempted before. One day, mission controllers hope, Voyager 1 will leave the solar system behind and enter the realm of the stars—interstellar space.
That day may be upon us. “
Someimes things move so fast, relatively speaking. It would have been possible for a young Indian boy to have watched his tribe go out armed with bows & arrows to deal with General Custer; and still be there as an old man to watch his grandsons return from atomic war in the Pacific. A boy on the beach at Kill Devil Hills watching the Wright brothers first flight in 1903 could easily have lived long enough to see Neil Armstrong step onto the Moon.
And then sometimes things seem to move so slowly. Two generations have passed since Armstrong’s great adventure. The US gave up the capability to send men to the moon, and then even to put human beings into space. Instead, our leaders gave us the “reusable” Space Shuttle, which cost much more to do substantially less. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned there.
Kinuachdrach #28
There were old lessons that were not learned.
At the end of WWI the USA was the world leader in torpedo design. But with the end of the war the USN decided to dispense with private industry and do all work at a government plant, using government civilian workers. The operation rapidly turned into a jobs program, and the Rhode Island delegation made sure that the place was protected from any corrective action or competition. When WWII started we not only had the worst torpedoes of any major combatant but a supply that was a couple of orders of magnitude too low.
The answer was to get academia and private industry involved. In an astonishingly short period of time they designed an acoustic homing torpedo and got it into operation. It sank a U-boat on its first operational use. Then they turned to developing better torpedoes for other uses. By 1945 no one gave a rat’s rump about the government-run torpedo plant and it’s workforce was reduced even as the war went on. They shut it down and sold it after the war.
So after the triumph of Apollo NASA decided to duplicate the torpedo plant experience by using the Space Shuttle.
Read those 2nd of those articles I listed above to see what the “new” approach is.
28. Kinuachdrach:
We have slowed down in many ways. As you know, the huge bureaucratic and sociopolitical burden we’ve placed on ourselves has led to near paralysis on many fronts that matter.
But there are also other curious examples of “stasis” these days, even in our popular culture. 2012 is the 50th anniversary of the Stones. 50 years — think about that. In 1962 middle aged Americans did not still listen to music from 1912. Their “musical memory” tastes dated back no further than the 30′s, only two decades.
“Isaac Asimov lamented the “lost romance” of space, now that we are all but certain that there is no life – certainly no intelligent life – elsewhere in the solar system. I savored that vision, and miss it.”
All but certain? Today’s authors of hard sci-fi, such as ex-astrophysicist Alastair Reynolds are anything BUT certain there is no life/intelligent life. In fact, the planet finding efforts of the last 10-15 years have made it seem more likely than previously considered that such intelligent life does exist out there. . . at very least, the likelihood of planets capable of supporting such life has increased substantially based on these surveys.
In the end, it doesn’t matter if life does or does not exist beyond Earth. Our future, if we survive so long, is out amongst the stars. Neil Armstrong knew this, and knew that we can and should continue ever outward.
Josh @ 19 said:
“But looking for fossil buffaloes in the middle of Antarctica *is* rational, as it turns out. It is entirely possible that there was simple life on Mars a billion years ago, and it would be astounding to prove it.”
Take a look at the recent image downlinked from MSL:
http://i.imgur.com/76icp.jpg
If you showed me landscape like that on Earth and asked me what the probability was that there were fossils there, I’d reply that it was 100%. In making that statement, I’d be repeating the classic error about Mars, i.e. applying intuition that was valid for terrestrial geology towards Mars. Chances are those strata formed over hundreds of millions of years and are the consequence of some aeolian process. Never the less it will be extremely interesting to take a close look at them. If there are fossils on Mars (which I doubt) it is probably in that strata somewhere.
RWE 29,
You forgot our super secret weapon, Hedy Lamarr.
Safire Speech for Nixon;
IN EVENT OF MOON DISASTER:
Transcript
To: H. R. Haldeman
From: Bill Safire
July 18, 1969.
——————————————————————————-
IN EVENT OF MOON DISASTER:
Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.
These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.
These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.
They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by the nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.
In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.
In ancient days, men looked at the stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.
Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man’s search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.
For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.
PRIOR TO THE PRESIDENT’S STATEMENT:
The President should telephone each of the widows-to-be.
AFTER THE PRESIDENT’S STATEMENT, AT THE POINT WHEN NASA ENDS COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE MEN:
A clergyman should adopt the same procedure as a burial at sea, commending their souls to “the deepest of the deep,” concluding with the Lord’s Prayer.