OT: Apollo 11 40th Aniversary

[pmulcahy11b]

A few years later as Apollo / Skylab wound down I read a book called "The High Frontier" by Gerrard K O'Neill about building habitats in space - it was pretty visionary for it's time - and for the last 40 years when I've been standing around waiting for the dog to do his business at night I've looked up at the moon. And wondered how it happened that our dreams got so small.

I remember the big dreams that came after Apollo, with most people not even realizing there were supposed to be three more flights to the moon extending into 1975, then there were supposed to be bases, a space station, go to Mars, etc. The Space Shuttle that eventually flew was only a shadow of what it was envisioned to be. Robert Kennedy's assassination, Martin Luther King's assassination, Vietnam, and the Nixon administration knocked the wind out of this country, and when we got up again, we were all a lot more cynical.

I don't know that our global civilization will make it without a big, aggressive manned space program. And it's probably too late anyway. There's not enough room on the Earth for all of us already -- by 2050, there will be 10 billion of us human pests on this planet and its possible that because of global climate change the Earth will only be able to support 2 billion.

[Mohoender]

I don't know that our global civilization will make it without a big, aggressive manned space program. And it's probably too late anyway. There's not enough room on the Earth for all of us already -- by 2050, there will be 10 billion of us human pests on this planet and its possible that because of global climate change the Earth will only be able to support 2 billion.

I'm not an ecologyst at all (I don't have much respect for these people who want to bring us back to the stone age and advocate that we should save the planet, what is probably way beyond our reach) but if we continue as we do today, I doubt that we could last very long. If you are right (IMO there is a good chance that you are), the human species will simply fade away (kind of a computer reset) and that's fine with me. Also, I truly whish (but doubt it) that we could be smart enough to find some other ways. Strangely, I know plenty of them but just lack the money to make the needed changes. Not to talk about legal limitations.

If Alien archeologist ever come to earth they might find out that humanity went extinct simply because we thought that the investment wasn't worth it, Oops!!

A funny assesment came from the large technolgical/scientific park (Futuroscope) we have in France next to Poitier. They advertise people to come and discover annimals from the future. However, what they don't say in the advertisement is that their scientists came up with the conclusion that mankind will be among the first species to disappear. I love that one.

Sorry for that small digression, Paul made me feel the urge to say it.

[pmulcahy11b]

Those who have been on this board and its predecessor at RPGNet know that I think the world is heading into a real-life T2K situation. The bump in the road is around 2025-2030 (that's one place the T2K13 got it wrong; it should have been T2K30 or so). In short, if we haven't dramatically invested and deployed alternate energy and made some substantial efforts to reduce our carbon footprint, as well as fixed the global economy and found a way to increase our food yield by then, the car that is our civilization is going off a huge cliff and will explode at the bottom. There will be increasingly violent skirmishes starting around 2015 around resources, and by 2025-2030, the entire planet will be fighting over resources, arable and inhabitable land, and what technology is left. Our politicians (worldwide) think only about expansion of industry and special interests; most of them can see only as far ahead as the next election. Our grandchildren will fighting over what's left of civilization and cursing us.

[pmulcahy11b]

You know, I don't understand why big business isn't chomping at the bit about global climate change and green energy. Ever since the first civilizations appeared, every problem mankind has ever faced has come with a business opportunity. There's a lot of money to be made from the solution to this crisis, especially in the green energy field. It doesn't make sense to me -- business and people don't respond well to dire warnings, but they do generally respond to being able to make a buck.

[Mohoender]

You know, I don't understand why big business isn't chomping at the bit about global climate change and green energy. Ever since the first civilizations appeared, every problem mankind has ever faced has come with a business opportunity. There's a lot of money to be made from the solution to this crisis, especially in the green energy field. It doesn't make sense to me -- business and people don't respond well to dire warnings, but they do generally respond to being able to make a buck.

Not that sure anymore. Actually yes but they are now looking at short term gains. In addition they are all getting too old and way too few go in retirement. A few month ago, when one of the french bank director was fired (he was 65), the board president came on TV: he was about 80 and could barely walk. I don't expect most of these people to encourage creativity.

A few month before the crisis (whatever you call it), one of these guys came up to me stating that I should understand two things: Money is the engine of the world and the only goal you should have is to make money. I didn't say a word (he could have had a heart seasure) but I don't agree. Human Creativity is the engine, money is only the fuel (therefore, I consider it fine to make money as long as you invest it to fuel the creativity). You can switch fuel almost with ease but don't go very far without engine. IMO, if we can switch from profit to benefit, we might stand a chance.

If the same kind of people had been in power a century ago we would still be riding on horseback. We had a discussion on inventions a few time ago. Targan was the only one that could come up with one thing invented after 1970. Everything else we could thought of had been invented before that date and often developped only recently.

[Nowhere Man 1966]

This might be TMI (too much information) but I was conceived on the night of the Apollo 11 moon landing. It therefore holds a doubly special place in my heart.

I turned three years old a few weeks prior to the Moon Landing. My parents had the chance to be able to be at the launch for our vacation that year but we turned it down. Bummer, I could have been there when history was made. My uncle worked for NASA.

At work, you should hear the lively debates we get into about the Moon Landing where a few of my co-workers thought it was faked and 1969 technology could not do that.

I do have the Grundig G6 Aviator shortwave radio, Buzz Aldrin edition.

Chuck

[Nowhere Man 1966]

Pfft. I was born a year too late but grew up with stories of humanity colonizing the entire universe (star trek, star wars, cosmos 1999, galactica...). Then, nowadays, the best and safest space vehicle still in service (at least, if you want to go to the moon) remain the Russian rocket designed by Korolev in the early 1950's. When did everything went wrong

Well, there were plans to go up to at least Apollo 20 and beyond, but President Nixon cut the budget for the space program and even told Gene Cernan, the last man on the Moon in December of 1972, "you will be the last human to walk on the Moon in the 20th Century." Cernan, among other astronauts, were very upset at that.

A side note, in my campaign worlds, sometimes I let the program go up to at least Apollo 18 (early 1973) as a background for an old astronaut in my games.

We are "spinning our wheels" and even slipped backwards in some cases. It's interesting the Russians are still using a 1950's era rocket and a 1960's era Soyuz to remain in space. We should have kept Apollo at least.

Chuck

[Nowhere Man 1966]

Some friends and I went to an open meeting in Barcelona F2rum about the future european-japanese-usa-russian space projects. The four agencies are now working closely together and even we could see american astronauts using Russian space vehicles in the inpasse beetween the retreat from service of the Shuttles and the the entering into service of the new Ares/Orion. After the conference we went to our mandatory pub chat and we concluded that, most probably the Chineses would play an important role in two ways: Embarking themselves in more ambitous objectives and (indirectly) acting as a revulsive for the other space agencies. The government of China is wishing to sell his country as the new leader in the space career and they are trying to transmit this hope to their people in the same way that USA and the Soviet Union did during the Cold War.

The arrival to the moon in 1969 using a computer with less memory than one of our present day washing machines could seem a miracle. From my point of view, money, inventiveness, ambition, illusion and true valour were important parts in the formula. Some of these parts are at low-level when talking about our western governments and their interest in the space. But democratic governments are the desire of the people (or it must be in this way). And sadly, a lot of people prefer conspiracy theories instead to believe that we are able to do amazing things too.

I get into fights about that too. I keep hearing the argument, "look how backwards the cars of 1969 are compared to today." Well, yeah, you have those engine control computers, but sometimes they are more of a problem IMHO. Most of these are from people who were born after the Moon landings, some from the late 1970's and beyond.

I think the reason could be is that they grew up with all these hi-tech items like computers, I-Pods and so on and just cannot see 1960's technology being able to accomplish that. In some way, the old tech is better, due to the limits of the computer technology, you had to find ways to fit programs in the small ROMs at the time as well as run with the small RAM memories. I work with an old timer who was in IT in those days and he had to write programs that would run in 2K or 4K of RAM. Even in the early 1980's, we had computers that had only 16K of RAM and we had to watch how much of it we were using and find ways to fit more into less space. when we had 48K to 64K, it was like a gift from God but even so, there were times we reached the limit and had to find alternate means. Think of the old Atari games, they were written for 2K to 4K of ROM, the early ones, and used 128 BYTES, not K, BYTES of RAM. I like Adventure, it was so basic but given that it was stored in 4K of ROM and made in 1978, it was amazing. Same with Superman, 4K of RAM, yet, you even see a semi-realistic, blocky looking Superman in the game.

I think had you had the rocket thrust, you could get to the Moon with 1950's or even 1930's technology.

Chuck

[Nowhere Man 1966]

I'm not an ecologyst at all (I don't have much respect for these people who want to bring us back to the stone age and advocate that we should save the planet, what is probably way beyond our reach) but if we continue as we do today, I doubt that we could last very long. If you are right (IMO there is a good chance that you are), the human species will simply fade away (kind of a computer reset) and that's fine with me. Also, I truly whish (but doubt it) that we could be smart enough to find some other ways. Strangely, I know plenty of them but just lack the money to make the needed changes. Not to talk about legal limitations.

If Alien archeologist ever come to earth they might find out that humanity went extinct simply because we thought that the investment wasn't worth it, Oops!!

A funny assesment came from the large technolgical/scientific park (Futuroscope) we have in France next to Poitier. They advertise people to come and discover annimals from the future. However, what they don't say in the advertisement is that their scientists came up with the conclusion that mankind will be among the first species to disappear. I love that one.

Sorry for that small digression, Paul made me feel the urge to say it.

I really don't buy much into the doom and gloom myself, this is the only thing I'm going to say about it, my view is that God is in control we are along for the ride. I just don't think it is as bad as some say, that's my final comment on that, all responses on this topic will fall on deaf ears since it could end up as a hot debate. I'm more worried about the economy and the effect thereof.

Still, I think there will always be ways to tackle the future's problems, but we must wait for the future to develop them. I'm more worried about the interdependency if our economic systems taking us all down and then a Twilight War erupts from that and we get knocked back. On the Other Hand, perhaps we wimper out and retard to some point and start again. I favor the Atlantis Theories myself, maybe we had a technical civilization once, twice or a few times before ours, somebody does something stupid or we collapse under our own weight and start over again.

I like to think when we reach a certain tech level, it is a race for us to colonize space or we will go through some sort of retardation process and reboot civilization. That is my pet theory.

Chuck

[Nowhere Man 1966]

You know, I don't understand why big business isn't chomping at the bit about global climate change and green energy. Ever since the first civilizations appeared, every problem mankind has ever faced has come with a business opportunity. There's a lot of money to be made from the solution to this crisis, especially in the green energy field. It doesn't make sense to me -- business and people don't respond well to dire warnings, but they do generally respond to being able to make a buck.

Well, the only thing I'll say is in any economic situation, the demand has to be there for the supply side to gear up and make it in an economic way.

Chuck, the resident Alex P. Keaton.

[Nowhere Man 1966]

Not that sure anymore. Actually yes but they are now looking at short term gains. In addition they are all getting too old and way too few go in retirement. A few month ago, when one of the french bank director was fired (he was 65), the board president came on TV: he was about 80 and could barely walk. I don't expect most of these people to encourage creativity.

A few month before the crisis (whatever you call it), one of these guys came up to me stating that I should understand two things: Money is the engine of the world and the only goal you should have is to make money. I didn't say a word (he could have had a heart seasure) but I don't agree. Human Creativity is the engine, money is only the fuel (therefore, I consider it fine to make money as long as you invest it to fuel the creativity). You can switch fuel almost with ease but don't go very far without engine. IMO, if we can switch from profit to benefit, we might stand a chance.

If the same kind of people had been in power a century ago we would still be riding on horseback. We had a discussion on inventions a few time ago. Targan was the only one that could come up with one thing invented after 1970. Everything else we could thought of had been invented before that date and often developped only recently.

We are delving deep into various philosophies here.

Humans are selfish creatures, sometimes to the point of pathological behaviour where they would do anything to harm another. Maybe I'm delving too much into Ayn Rand here, but yes, we are all selfish to one degree or another. We do need some of that for our survival and benefit. Money is the medium of exchange to obtain items for our survival as well as a tool to acquire so we can continue the process. It's not perfect, but sometimes barter doesn't work very well and it is more moral an ethical to use than beating someone else over the head for what you want or need.

Even if someone donates time and effort to a charity, there is a degree of selfishness there where the person receives the pleasure of doing good for someone else. I've read Ayn Rand form time to time and even though I'm not an Objectivist and there are a few flaws even in that thinking at times, but she does make a good point for 90% of her beliefs and case.

Things invented after 1970 Well, I believe we are living much the same as we did then except for having a computer (and video games, but I count those as "computers" as well) in the house. We have air conditioning now, we had it then. Color TV, we have now, well, it took us until 1971 to get our first color set. Our current set is a 1982 Zenith we got in early 1983, still in use today. I think overall with the exception of biotech and computers, we have plateaued.

We talked about this at work again, the changes from 1900 to 2000 or even 1900 to 1970 was remarkable and the fastest technology rise we have seen. We went from horseless carriages and the Wright Flyer to the Moon landing. The second place winner would be 1800 to 1900, we went from horseback to steam engines and horseless carriages.

Chuck