"Here is one way to conceptualize NASA's heroic era: in 1961, Kennedy gave his 'moon speech' to Congress, charging them to put an American on the moon 'before the decade is out.' In the eight years that unspooled between Kennedy's speech and Neil Armstrong's first historic bootprint, NASA, a newborn government agency, established sites and campuses in Texas, Florida, Alabama, California, Ohio, Maryland, Mississippi, Virginia, and the District of Columbia; awarded multi-million-dollar contracts and hired four hundred thousand workers; built a fully functioning moon port in a formerly uninhabited swamp; designed and constructed a moonfaring rocket, spacecraft, lunar lander, and space suits; sent astronauts repeatedly into orbit, where they ventured out of their spacecraft on umbilical tethers and practiced rendezvous techniques; sent astronauts to orbit the moon, where they mapped out the best landing sites; all culminating in the final, triumphant moment when they sent Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to step out of their lunar module and bounce about on the moon, perfectly safe within their space suits. All of this, start to finish, was accomplished in those eight years." -- Margaret Lazarus Dean, Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight
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karenthology!]
(no subject)
The Moon Speech was by JFK, who really believed in the Tomorrowland premise. So we got to the moon.
JFK was followed by LBJ, who believed in keeping oil industry profits in Democratic pockets. But NASA was still working under the mandate JFK had given them, so they ignored him.
LBJ was followed by Nixon. Everybody who wasn't actively trying to get him impeached ignored him.
Then came Ford, who was actively *trying* to be ignored.
Carter followed, and while he was one of the best *ex*-Presidents we've ever had, as President he was a complete fuck-up.
Then we got 1.5 years of Reagan, who was an incompetent dingleberry, but also a space buff. So things went reasonably well in 1981 and the first half of 1982. Then he lost the *rest* of his mind, and for 6.5 years the country was actually being run by Nancy Reagan's astrologer, Joan Quigley. She liked stars, but wasn't up to Jules Verne's level of technical sophistication, and so nothing useful got done in space or elsewhere before the end of his term.
That doesn't mean things got better. We then elected an ex-head of the CIA, who spent eight years in a determined effort to turn the US into a fascist dictatorship so he could rule it for life, and he got awful damn close. Space did not help him cement power, so it was ignored.
Bill Clinton has always been a con man, and has never been anything *more* than a con man. So he was happy to continue the selling-off of America, as long as he was getting his cut. If you can find leadership here, you have an excellent career ahead of you as a fantasy writer.
Then we get Bush II, who is like Bush I without the brains or expertise. First Reagan, then Bonzo.
Obama was at least not actively engaged in trying to destroy the country. As I put it at the time: "We elected a Chicago politician to the White House, and the bathrooms still have the fixtures in them. We're ahead of the game." He was also black, which made black voters feel a lot better, but didn't have much other apparent effect.
And now we live in a kleptocracy. Space is only good to the extent the Burglar In Chief can use it as an ego-prop. If I were working at NASA, I'd be demoralized too.
Come to think of it, I *don't* work at NASA and I'm still looking for the lifeboats.
best, such as it is,
Joel
(no subject)
It doesn't sound so grand to say we will put a robot on Mars and bring her safely home.
Significant point
The citation missed what to me is an important point.
What i find more important is that he charged them to also bring them back in good health. And they did so.