Sunday, July 20, 2014

45 years ago today, we were ALL in awe...

...watching two men, walk on the Moon.

As a kid of the 50's and 60's, I remember watching all the space stuff on TV.  And although I WAS interested, there was no other choice anyway.  We only had two and a half channels back then, WHAS and WAVE, WLKY was UHF, ergo, the half.  Three netwroks, and they all thought they had THE best coverage, so on they went.

But the networks all showed every minute of lead up to a launch.  The first two, Alan Shepard and John Glenn, went wire to wire, an hour or more before launch, and then an hour or so after as I recall.  My buds and I, being young boys, thought going into space was going to be for ALL of us by the time we grew up.  Most of our parents accepted that too as I recall.

Little did we know.

From May 5, 1961 to December 11,1972, in just 11 years, 7 months, 7 days, the American public went from being enamored, to being pissed off about the wasted money.  And now, 45 years after the 1st Moon landing, there's not a mention of the event in ANY media that isn't already Space or Aerospace aligned.

It's some sad shit, to me anyway, that it's not JUST the Leftists in the MSM who don't give a flying fig.  Fox News has it buried, The Blaze hasn't mentioned it at all that I can find.

I'm of the opinion that George Santayana was more of a prophet to OUR country than any other.
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Schteveo
 

5 comments:

alan said...

My school lunch box in 1st grade was one of those aluminum jobs with the glass thermos. Neil Armstrong and the earth silhouetted behind him were on the outside. I loved it.

as a 10 year old, going into space was an obsession. NASA was very accommodating in those days. I would write letters asking for pictures and information. I must have had a dozen pictures of skylab on my ceiling. In high school, we used TRS-80 computers to draw a picture....the SR-71 and space shuttle featured prominently in my assignment.

It is sad that something that was designed with a pencil and slide rule is almost forgotten by those who can't even come close to the same thing with a computer.

Hats off to those pioneers.

Unknown said...

alan,
you're a little younger than me, but ALL the guys them we're into space like that. It was accepted that we'd all eventually have access to LEO or the Moon. Kids now just don't have ANY dreams like that. H3ll, most of the ones I know just want a new phone to watch TV or some such sh1t!

And MY grandparents thought MY generation was worthless, hopeless and useless!!! God help us, these clowns have no future 'thoughts' at all.

[I'm making noises like an Old Fart again, ain't I?]

alan said...

I think the biggest reason that kids today don't have dreams like that is because their parents don't promote it.

2 years ago I took my 6 inch reflecting telescope to camp with my Boy Scouts (12-13 year olds). During the day they were obsessed with the pellet guns and .22 that I brought. If we didn't have anything else planned, that is what they wanted to do. After the first night that I had the telescope out, they wanted to spend all night looking at the moon, Jupiter and Saturn. Forget running around playing.

I think that when the kids are taught that sitting in front of the boob tube with an Wii is sufficient activity and that public indoctrination centers are sufficient mental gymnastics, they don't learn how to use their imagination. With that, they don't learn how to even think.

I had to chuckle a few weeks ago. My son (17 y/o) complains that don't let him spend enough time inside when it is over 100 degrees outside. I usually tell him to call his friends in get in the pool or something, just get outside.

I was being a good parent and snooping through his directory on the household computer. I discovered a novel that he had started WRITING. He had 5 or 6 chapters done! They read like a 17 year old wrote them, but it takes quote a bit of imagination to write 70 pages of activity and dialogue. I was so proud.

Unknown said...

alan,
I think you're right.

The other thing I see is either INACTIVITY or HEAVILY SCHEDULED ACTIVITY.

They never do anything on their own. And I don't count playing Doom online with 10 of their 'friends' as 'doing' anything. We used to go OUT the door at 8AM, right after gorging on breakfast [knowing it was unlikely we'd be around for lunch] and stay gone ALL day long. Unless we needed to change into swimming gear for pools or creeks, or we needed sports gear from baseball, football or something along those lines. We had to think for ourselves to find things to do. Our mother's were all too busy to create our childhoods! And ads were nonexistent from 6AM until 6PM, working or cutting grass or whatever dads did back then.

I think kids now have the ability to do these things, they just aren't REQUIRED to do them like we were! There is a word I do NOT remember using, unless it was the 3rd day of rain, or the President was on TV.

Bored.

We simply did NOT use that word. Unless we were building a tree house a fort or a skateBOARD.

alan said...

And the funny thing is...even as young as I am, once I turned 12, it was nothing to dissappear with my brothers & cousins, horses and .22's for a couple of days so long as we told granny when we would be back.

Now even the thought of entrusting a horse to an unsupervised 12 year old is tantamount to neglect, let alone letting him have a gun!!!

Is it me, or does it seem like before we had the high level of medical care and social invasive service organizations, we didn't need them nearly as much.