(02-20-2018 09:11 PM)SoMs Eagle Wrote:  We did it. We had two more Saturn 5 rockets built and ready to go. Some say the risk had gotten to large for the return. Chances are somebody would die or be stranded. That would be a disaster after all the success.
Another factor many don’t want to discuss is that LBJs great society was cranking up and biting out more and more of the federal budget for social programs. Not to mention the Viet Nam war cost.
One strange thing about the moon trips is the lost film. 700 rolls of processed film and motion picture film was lost for almost 50 years. This was very high quality film shot on the surface of the moon. It was just recently found in a storage room in Australia. They, to my knowledge, have not released any of it to the public yet. Would love to see it.

We shifted focus to the space station. It was really JFK's program. Nixon wasn't as interested. Détente occurred. It was the fear of the Russians that drove us to the moon in the first place. So are the Democrats going to propose another moon shot?

(02-20-2018 10:45 PM)58-56 Wrote:  

(02-20-2018 09:57 PM)ericsrevenge76 Wrote:  I haven't had tang in 30 years, but it seems like I liked it if memory serves.

The orange stuff anyways. I didn't even know there was a purple tang.

It looked like this:



Apparently they still make it. I had no idea:

Tang was ok.

I don't know if they had dried space ice cream, but they sell it in every space related or natural science museum out there. Its not bad.

(02-21-2018 07:20 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(02-20-2018 09:11 PM)SoMs Eagle Wrote:  We did it. We had two more Saturn 5 rockets built and ready to go. Some say the risk had gotten to large for the return. Chances are somebody would die or be stranded. That would be a disaster after all the success.
Another factor many don’t want to discuss is that LBJs great society was cranking up and biting out more and more of the federal budget for social programs. Not to mention the Viet Nam war cost.
One strange thing about the moon trips is the lost film. 700 rolls of processed film and motion picture film was lost for almost 50 years. This was very high quality film shot on the surface of the moon. It was just recently found in a storage room in Australia. They, to my knowledge, have not released any of it to the public yet. Would love to see it.

We shifted focus to the space station. It was really JFK's program. Nixon wasn't as interested. Détente occurred. It was the fear of the Russians that drove us to the moon in the first place. So are the Democrats going to propose another moon shot?

Well, with their sudden interest and fear/anger of all things “Russia” now,

I’d expect we plop down on the moon again within 3 months or so.


Funny, they haven’t given a schit, and all but embraced them Bernie style, for the last 40 yrs.

Now? Auuuughhhhh!!!

Hair on fire!!!

(02-20-2018 06:09 PM)Bull_Is_Back Wrote:  

(02-20-2018 04:36 PM)I45owl Wrote:  We didn't spend that kind of money for a PR stunt... the US spent that kind of money because the same rockets that you use to send men on joy rides to the moon are the rockets that you use to send ICBMs to Moscow.

Ummmm no..
Using the Saturn 5 rocket to target Moscow would be like using a Abrams tank to play bumpercars... Too much money, and it would not be very good at it.
I'll grant you that the space program as a whole had that purpose but once Mercury happened we had all the tech we needed for ICBMs.
The RTV-A-2 Hiroc was our first ICBM. It was designed in 1946 and led to the SM-65 Atlas, the first practical ICBM in 1959. It's also the rocket that put a man in orbit.
No missle like the Saturn 5 was ever used as a weapons platform. It was specifically designed for one function, to put a person on the moon.

Quote:The purpose of the space program was primarily military...

Up to 1960, yes, yes it was.

Quote:Why do you think that Iran and North Korea are the countries with the fastest developing space programs at this point in time?

Once again "Space program" does not equal "put someone on the moon" Please go back and read my post. The *MOON* was a PR stunt and, perhaps, a way for the military industrial complex to stay fat.

No doubt that I overstated my case by a few orders of magnitude.

I agree with all of your points, including your original one (I was mainly responding to the idea that we should send people to the moon ), but especially the one that follows...

(02-20-2018 02:03 AM)Bull_Is_Back Wrote:  There is zero practical benefit to putting a man on the moon right now, so we send unmanned probes there.

I asked one of my physics professors whether he supported the manned program, and (aside from the fact that he expected to fly on the shuttle until the Challenger accident) his response was yes, because without it, there probably wouldn't be funding for the unmanned program. But, it was clear that what he was really interested in was being able to send telescopes, satellites, and probes, and saw little point in funding the manned program on its own. I generally don't have much patience for suggestions that we need to send men to Mars or Jupiter or ... there is no compelling reason to do so. It's nice to imagine it, and if Elon Musk wants to pay for it, fine, but I'll pass.

(02-20-2018 01:24 AM)ericsrevenge76 Wrote:  

(02-20-2018 01:21 AM)geosnooker2000 Wrote:  

(02-20-2018 01:19 AM)ericsrevenge76 Wrote:  Sitting here 46 years out from the last mission to the moon, and its getting harder to accept the fact that we went.

Why have we not returned in 46 years? Why did they go for 3 years and just stop cold forever?

They barely even had created a rocket capable of entering orbit in 1969, our cell phones are a million times more powerful than the computers they were using. We have advanced in ways that are hard to even describe since 1972.

I think its possible we went, but every year now my doubts are growing. Not only have we not returned to the moon, we haven't once left earth orbit with a manned mission.

It just doesn't add up as the years and decades continue to pile up.

It makes sense if you factor money into it. There became no benefit to it. No benefit beyond normal Earth orbit.

Sounds like a great excuse, but the money has been available for a long time. Both privately and publically. Not only here but other nations around the world.

NASA's overall budget the last 50 years is microscopic compared to other government-funded programs.

46 years and we are to believe the money was never there for one single trip back in the modern era? That doesn't pass the smell test imo.

We landed on the moon. I was fortunate to be born just down the road from NASA down in the bay area. My family had picnics under the large Saturn V rocket in what I call the front yard of the Space Center. We would tour the museum and I would always go sit in the actual space capsule they had on display (I believe it was the Faith 7 from the Mercury 9 Mission... not child safe, but very fun). We would even go to the cafeteria and get some of the dehydrated ice cream, and see the astronauts eating lunch. Gene Kranz, the former Flight Director at Mission Control during the Apollo missions still lives in my home town. In fact, they are opening a new junior high this year and it will be named after him. I have a friend that worked on the Apollo missions. He was charged with designing tools for repairing the lunar rover, and the pole structure for the American flag that was planted on the moon. So again, we went to the moon. You can rest easy tonight.

I can't remember where I read/heard/saw that the astronauts left a gizmo where we on earth could point to it with some kind of laser to measure distance from the moon to earth exactly. Has anyone heard this too?

(02-21-2018 10:19 PM)olliebaba Wrote:  I can't remember where I read/heard/saw that the astronauts left a gizmo where we on earth could point to it with some kind of laser to measure distance from the moon to earth exactly. Has anyone heard this too?

Yes reflector panels.

(02-21-2018 10:19 PM)olliebaba Wrote:  I can't remember where I read/heard/saw that the astronauts left a gizmo where we on earth could point to it with some kind of laser to measure distance from the moon to earth exactly. Has anyone heard this too?

Yes they did that. It was use to measure our distance from the moon. It is very, very, slowly drifting away from the earth.