Image not showing up. :(

d.m.f.
(Old enough to remember the second-to-last Lunar mission that was Apollo 16...)

I think that should fix it.

Yep, working now. :)

Just a nitpick, and 36 years after the fact, the Greek form of "Apollo" is misspelled- should be "Apollon"- Not like you'd've ever knowen any differently, and much too late to ever correct it. :) BTW, good tribute to the Lunar missions of the day, and here's hoping for a return while I'm still alive. :)

d.m.f.

At the time, I wouldn't have known Greek forms from Maidenforms... but it begs the question whether this is really Greek or English using Greek letters. And a nit you failed to pick was the use of Roman numerals. The Greeks used a different system of letters to represent numbers, I believe.

We may yet see men on the moon again. And a barbed wire fence around it saying, "Property of the People's Republic of China -- everyone else stay out except in Olympic years". The US says it will go back to the moon... who knows. If it looks like the Chinese mean it, then maybe the US will feel forced to put its foot on the moon again, to save face.

I wouldn't mind both failing miserable, while Canada invents the Pre-Warp Drive or something, and reaches not only the Moon but Mars first. Enough of American and other Great Power pride. I wanna stick up for my own relatively unimportant country for once.

I learned at NTN trivia the other night that Canada was the third nation, after the U.S. and USSR, to launch a satellite (the Alouette 1 in 1962).

BTW, Apollo 16 was launched in April 1972.

Apollo 17, the last manned mission to the moon, must have been in '73 then. And then Apollo/Soyuz in '75 or '76. Yeah, that sounds like a more plausible timeline.

It's been a while.

I still remember standing outside a small house on a dirt road north of the city, looking up at the moon just before dark, and realizing men were on it for the first time. then watching Neil Armstrong step out on the surface on TV, late that night. But dates and calendars? The've become a little vague.

It explains why I drew Apollo 16 though.

As I understand it, the Apollo program originally was scheduled to run through Apollo 20. The last three missions were cancelled, ostensibly because of shrinking budgets and a desire to shift to other priorities like Skylab and the Space Shuttle. A lot of people believe the real reason is that the whole project was Cold War posturing, and as soon as the Soviet Union announced it had resigned the game and wouldn’t attempt to land men on the moon, Apollo got the chop indecently quickly.

One of the last Saturn rockets intended for one of these last three missions is parked a couple of miles from here at the Johnson Space Center - it used to be outside where you could see it driving by, but they got tired of cleaning owl nests out of it and built a huge building around it. The building is pretty impressive, too.

As to the project itself, all of the tools and forms used to build the Saturn were scrapped, all of the blueprints were pulped and all of the personnel were cleared out - transferred or fired outright. It was almost as if they wanted to make sure the US could never go into space again, and in a way they succeeded. ;_;

Yeah, they were pretty thoroughgoing about it. I’m not one for conspiracy theories, so I doubt they did it on purpose—but it doesn’t matter if a thousand middle managers all decide on “cost-saving measures” if the end result is the same. “We don’t have room to store that; scrap it.” “Those engineers are surplus to requirements.” “That other program needs some more administrative personnel.” And so on.

Reminds me of how the explorations of Chinese mariner Cheng Ho were finshed once an for all around 1420 when the junks were junked, the plans were burned, and the very ports closed!

Let's hope the US doesn't end up a backwater for 600 years too!

It was also Kennedy's brainchild. Nixon was happy to have a reason to dump it, and congress never cared about much besides beating the Russians. There were more important things to do with money, like kill people in Southeast Asian. I think the final straw was that the intelligentsia saw nothing beyond the end of their noses, and wanted the money spent on schools, welfare, and foreign aid. To them the whole space program was tinged with Werner von Braun and lingering nazism.

Well, really, beating the Soviets was what it was all about. I can’t say I am (or was) entirely unsympathetic to that aim—what I resent is that it apparently was the only aim in the minds of the politicians. Schools are certainly a worthwhile place to spend money; the others are arguable either way. And anyone who grew up during the Second World War certainly had reason to be wary of anyone possibly connected with the Third Reich.

As for Southeast Asia, it’s becoming increasingly clear that France managed to get the US entangled in that by loudly talking about how the US would abandon its allies at the least provocation. When France managed to screw up French Indochina badly enough, the US had to step in or risk “proving” that France was right. Declassified records mention that Lyndon Johnson knew from the outset that the war could end up being a tar baby, but he felt he had no choice. International politics is and always has been a dirty unpleasant game.

I always thought it was hard to place the French in that affair. While the government might well have been trying to pass a ticking bomb onto someone else, I think French who were there were actually warning the Americans *not* to get involved, that in the long run it would wear them out too.

Johnson may have been the worst person to have to deal with Vietnam. There's a little evidence that Kennedy would have bowed out with some face saving gesture or other before matters got too far out of hand. (Though this is far from clear.) Johnson was too macho for that, and also too insecure in his role as president. He didn't feel able to back down or weasel out of issues the way Kennedy might have been able to. And then that liar Nixon, could easily reassure Americans he was seeking a peacheful solution, while in fact rampinp up for years more fighting he himself said in private couldn't be won. It didn't matter. All he had to win was his next election... and saying he was getting out of Vietnam and staying in Vietnam to different audiences was how he did it. (One of the ways.)

In any case, it was an enormously costly war which could harly have benefited the US much even if it had been a victory, and there was that much less money for luxury items (in congress's mind and most of the public's) as "pure science."

Today, I think the public has more acceptance of science as a necessary engine for future development.

If I understand correctly, it was de Gaulle, who was not at all bashful about being loudly anti-American, making a lot of the “they’ll cut and run when the going gets tough” noise. Politically he was effectively impossible to ignore. It’s easy to imagine the warnings of serving officers and middle-level diplomats being drowned out in that kind of environment—assuming anyone was bothering to listen.

Yeah, in retrospect it all looks pretty ugly (and it was, no mistake about that), but that’s the benefit of hindsight. Johnson had to do a damned hard job at a damned hard time and had a damned hard act to follow. The Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bay of Pigs, and Kennedy’s assassination (and effective martyrdom) all were relatively fresh in people’s minds, and of course the president never works in a vacuum.

Making tough decisions, with everyone screaming contradictory demands in one’s ear, on the basis of information that is not and cannot be complete is why, as the old saying goes, a four-year presidential term ages the man serving it by ten years, even during the most peaceful times. Did Johnson make mistakes? Probably, but the counter-question is, could someone else have done better, based on the information available and the political climate involved? I’m not convinced the sainted Kennedy could have. Well, I’m not sure anyone could have.

Politicians talking out of both sides of their mouths is business as usual throughout history. Nixon might have been a particularly oily example of the breed, but it’s hard to get too worked up any more over what is pretty much normal operating procedure regardless of nation or century—especially considering his deserved downfall in the end. The Vietnam War killed a bunch of folks, yes . . . but talk to Russian historians about the Great Patriotic War and their suspicion that in order to bleed both Germany and the Soviet Union white Churchill stonewalled, for months, plans to open a second front.

There was a genuine fear that allowing countries to fall to the Communist sphere, as in a game of go, eventually would hem in and threaten the US itself. Paranoid? Maybe, but so were the Soviets. The Cold War didn’t turn out that way, but it could be argued that’s because other moves were more successful, limiting the damage. Personally, I’m not dissatisfied with the outcome, imperfect as it was, especially considering that the US came out stronger, not weaker, even with all that economic parasitic drag.

Yes, okay, errors and screw-ups abound, and the US certainly is guilty of its share. (My personal favorite of modern history is abandoning the mujihaddin abruptly as soon as the Soviets left off their invasion of Afghanistan, creating a pool of angry, disenchanted men trained and equipped to fight guerrilla war. Now we’re dealing with the consequences.) But that has to be balanced against more positive achievements, of which there also are a great many. A world without a strong United States would not be a utopia.

I’ve seen some strongly worded laments about how much more difficult it is these days to get funding for scientific research, so there’s at least a perception in the scientific community that governments and the public have little interest. (Hard to say how new that is, though; complaining about funding appears to be another time-honored constant.) Of course, the whole idea of government being heavily involved in science is pretty recent, arising out of the “wizard war” of the Second World War. Before that it was almost entirely a private affair, funded mostly by universities.

I always thought Johnson got blamed for more than his fare share of fuck ups and dragging his heels. In fact, for an old fashiloned, routinely corrupt, Texas politician, he was something of an idealist, who really meant to bring the nation "The Great Society". And he was completely committed to Kennedy's mission to explore space. Unfortunately he ran into a rather bumptuous chapter of American social history, where the insurgent baby boomers would have rejected any president who didn't immediately grant them every desire. End racism now. End the war this minute. Legalize drugs or else. I doubt a lot of boomers knew just what they wanted... but Johnson wasn't it.

I'd go further about Nixon and saying he was only a more-then-usually slimey example of a career politician. He did begin a tradition of eroding the rule of law, congressional power, and the constitution, though perhaps less due to a desire to establish a presidential-monarchy than because he was an insecure and suspicious character. There seems no reason to re-has the life and career of Tricky Dick though. As you say... it was a long time ago, and there have been worse presidents (in some ways) since.

De Gaulle was an important figure to the French in those days, giving them a focus for their national identity and self-respect. He was also an ass, who was ungrateful to the allies who bled to free France. It wasn't as though the Anglo-American armies didn't go out of their way to salve French pride. He and his most natty troops were allowed to ride ahead of victorious American, english, and Canadian forces, and pretend to be part of the liberating army. (No doubt they had performed some small role in the liberation, but realistically they were of no importance at all.) But a Great Power -- and De Gaulle had no doubt France had never ceased to be a Great Power -- is beholden to no one. I doubt he ever missed a chance to rub his ex-allies noses in France's independence, and never showed gratitude that I know.

He managed to wear out his welcome in Canada in the early 60's on an official visit, when he spoke to Quebec crowd and announced "Vive, La Quebe Libre". This would be as if the PM of Britain visited Richmond in 1870 and declared "The South Shall Rise Again!". They ate it up in French Canada, but English Canada, which had lost sons and treasure in France to drive the Germans out, took it very ill that De Gaulle was formenting the break-up of our country.

Heh. This pretty much made me laugh out loud and nod in agreement all the way through. I hadn’t heard that particular anecdote about de Gaulle, though it did remind me that the man was an ass to everyone.

I suspect the tradition of erosion probably started with good old Andrew Jackson, really. Certain tribes won’t touch twenty-dollar bills because they have Jackson’s picture on them.

As for the Baby Boomers—yeah, I’m heartily sick of ’em. My generation gets blamed for a hell of a lot, but if one actually traces back the trends, one finds their roots with the boomers. Likewise, they take a lot of credit for the things they regard as good, but again if one traces those back, one finds their roots with the Silent Generation, the early voices of protest that arose with the “beat generation”.

When did things like Viagra appear? Just at the time boomers started reaching the age bracket that would need them. When did corporate misbehavior and executive compensation balloon into thyroid giants? Just at the time boomers started filling those offices in large numbers. Who’s driving the horrific intellectual property laws struggling to preserve outdated business models? The same executives.

Recently, apparently, there’s been gathering dismay among boomers that the world is reverting to the way it was before these shining saviors appeared to set things right. To tell the truth, I sincerely wonder if the alleged good they’ve done balances the damage they’ve wrought.

Technically I guess I'm a late boomer, but if so I never benefitted by it. I was a bit too late to take part in either protests or counter-culture. Also, all the cushy jobs full and scholarships had become hard to get by the time I was looking.

I"ll happily credit the boomers with rock music, a more relaxed attitude to dress and hair, looser manners, optional lifestyles, and even the introduction to a wider public of pot, (which I see as no more harmful than tobacco or alcohol, and has never in my experience led any of *my* friends t harder, addictive substances).

On the other hand, the counter-culture had no manifesto other than some vague, naive rubbish about "love". What exactly did they want to replace the materialism of their parents with? Who would heat their homes, stock the grocery shelves, weave their blue jeans, or press the Beatles for them if "work" was abolished? Few of them successfully adapted to a 19th. century, rural, utopian lifestyle. (I know one guy who tried pretty, but says it was just a pain in the butt, and nothing ever got done -- he's a pretty sensible guy these days.) KIf anything, the counter-culture was profoundly anti-intellectual, preferring to "feel" rasther than "think". If the boomers created fantastic music, a few theatrical pieces, some posters, and what-not, there is no seminal text, no literature to speak of, and few ideas that can be defended above a first grade level.

I don't think they should be despised for this mind you. A revolution does what it does. They can't all be philosophically rigorous, some are merely artistic or social.

If the boomers should be despised, perhaps its for turning out to be even *more* materialistic than their folks in the long run.

Y’know, there isn’t a lot I can add to that; perhaps I’m a little more bitter and willing to assign blame, but otherwise it pretty much sums up my feelings and experiences.

Very nice work.