Apollo 13
 

I hope nobody disputes the relevance of this topic to General Travel Talk.

Having just finished viewing Apollo 13 on television, it's hard to imagine that the events depicted occurred nearly 30 years ago. I remember them as if they had happened yesterday, just as I remember the first two space shuttle launches, which I was privileged to attend, while working, nearly 20 years ago.

Equally hard to imagine is that neither we, nor anyone else, has any plan to resume the exploration of space in any comparable manner. Was the confluence of political will, technological advancement, and economic ability that began with JFK's pledge a one-time fluke? I hope not.


[This message has been edited by RichG (edited 10-16-1999).]

Disputes about relevance on FT? Since when has relevance been a posting requirement? Not since around May of this year I would guess... http://talk.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Raeban and I "did the Cape" over Labor Day weekend -- in many ways we were quite simply awe-struck at engineering feats of 30 years ago... I too remember the Apollo days as being "recent" events and remember the excitement of yet another voyage into the abyss of space.

I think you've hit the nail on the head, RichG -- it was a confluence of events that brought those heady times to us. I think Marx called it a correlation of forces...

Sadly, I see nothing of that in our near future.

Onefreeman, exits soapbox...

There can be NO dispute that it is "General Travel"!

The cost of getting to orbit, while still prohibitively high, is slowly getting lower every year. If NASA's X33/X44 program is successful and single-stage to orbit becomes a reality, the cost of launching stuff into space will dramatically decrease (or so NASA says) Anyway, I think that in 10-15 years the government will finally afford to send people back to the moon or Mars, and private companies will be able to profit from space tourism.

If we can't talk about Space in General Travel Talk - where can we talk about it? It's the ultimate travel!

I don't think our nation - or any other - has decreased space travel efforts. Having come from a DOD background and worked on several contracts that involved space surveillance and such, I think our efforts are more concentrated on seeing what is beyond our current reach. Another space mission like Apollo would be exciting, though I don't suspect we will be risking lives up front as technology has allowed us to plant mechanical adventure seekers on the front lines. We can dream though!