If the Apollo program had continued

[DavidDvorkin]

We would have been able to watch a TV broadcast of tonight's eclipse from the moon's point of view.

[SheilaT]

1. Many years ago, on NPR,

someone said that if Christopher Columbus had had people filming his voyage, we would still be looking at those films, all these hundreds of years later.

I still cannot completely get over the fact that we got to watch the moon landing live, as well as that first moon walk.

And yes, how amazing would it be to watch the eclipse of the moon from a station there. Someday, someday.

[DavidDvorkin]

2. I found artists' conceptions of that view online

They're nice to look at, but the real thing would have been so much ... Well, realer.

[SheilaT]

3. Yep. Wouldn't it have been amazing?

I console myself with the thought that future generations will have actual video of things like the moon landing.

In a related note: My sons are young enough that they will likely be around for the Tricentennial, in 2076. They'll be 93 and 89, and especially on their father's side, those people live forever, so they should still be around. Anyway, I've told them both that if they're still around then, they must go to Washington DC, and go down to the Mall on July 4th, and tell every single person they see, "Our parents were here 100 years ago today."

I was there, as was their father, although we wouldn't meet for a couple more years. I really hope both sons live that long, and get to do that. Imagine how amazing it would be to meet someone who could say, "My parents were here 100 years ago today."

The closest I've come was when Halley's Comet made it's most recent appearance. We made sure oldest son saw it, and a week or so later were having dinner with one of his elderly uncles, and so of course we encouraged our son to tell the uncle what he's seen. And just as I'd hoped, the uncle said, "When I was your age I saw Halley's Comet the last time around."

I love such connections.

[JackRiddler]

5. Would the 1492 media have filmed massacres of the indigenous?

[SheilaT]

9. Maybe.

The story had to do with the ships sailing off into the horizon, and landing on a then unknown shore.

[JackRiddler]

10. Unknown to whom?

European mariners and educated classes knew the world was round. Columbus sold the Spanish crown on the financing by claiming it was a lot smaller than anyone else thought. He was wrong, but had the luck of running into this shore of an "unknown" continent.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

4. One of my professors had boxes and boxes of papers on an Apollo Venus orbit mission

And he insisted it wasn't considered crazy or far fetched when they were working on it.

[Warren DeMontague]

8. Yeah, one of the proposed Apollo Applications Missions was a Venus flyby.

An actual orbit mission would probably be a tougher nut to crack, in terms of hardware--- due to the additional fuel requirements, I suspect.

I like reading this shit, when I'm bored. I'm funny that way.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Venus_Flyby

https://falsesteps.wordpress.com/2012/07/21/manned-venus-flyby/

I think it might have been a stretch to keep astronauts alive through that with 1970 hardware, but we could likely do it now.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

14. He said the human concern was insanity or drug dependence

from the drugs that might have kept them sane. There were also potential hygiene and disease issues, the moon men were pretty funky come splashdown.

[A HERETIC I AM]

6. If 1970's battery technology was better..

As in being able to last 40 years OR they had left solar panels to power them, there are color video cameras still sitting at most of the Apollo landing sites.

[byronius]

7. Oddly, my daughter and I just watched the Dr. Who episode about it tonight.

'Day Of the Moon'. Great episode, with a British actor playing an almost-benevolent Richard Nixon. Creepy story line, double episode, I love this stuff.

[Baclava]

11. I don't think it would have continued - they were too afraid of leaving dead bodies up there

It would have ruined all their successes

Apollo 11 speech that was never used...


"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 their 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 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."

[Facility Inspector]

12. epic men of flesh and blood

the type of men who built the eiffel tower, out of metal and . . . brawn.

[edhopper]

13. like this