On Going to The Moon and Beyond

"The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the Human Race to keep all it's eggs in", Robert Heinlein.

Woo Hoo, stopped snowing, but along with the no snow comes the -30c weather, sucks. In between the snow and clouds I got some clear skies. I was able to get some images the other day of a pretty crescent Moon and added a cool oil painting effect.


In my observing down times I have been watching "From The Earth to The Moon" on HBO, an interesting show about our adventure to the Moon. Also been watching for the like gazillionth time "In The Shadow Of the Moon", and... and I've been reading, "The Last Man On the Moon" an excellent book about the Apollo missions from the standpoint of an actual astronaut Gene Cernan. You may have noticed an underlining theme to all the above, I love the Moon, but most importantly, the fact we made it there, hopefully to return one day.


Well maybe not so much. I've also been reading a paper that was just released out of Rice University.

Rice University and NASA go back a long way. Rice University back in 1962 donated a lot of land for NASA's Manned Spacecraft center, later named the Johnson Space Center. The donation prompted Kennedy to make a famous speech from Rice Stadium where he states;

"We chose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard".

The report is directed to the new Obama administration and details the direction NASA should be heading, basically it states NASA should focus more on Earth centric projects like energy and the environment and put a hold on going to the Moon and Mars. They do have some good recommendations in the 15 page report, that is except for one, not going to the Moon and Mars, if it were up to me we'd be on Mars 30 years ago. We are in a galactic shooting gallery, we need to start thinking off planet for our survival, because it is a matter of "when" not "if" we get hit by a mass extinction asteroid/comet.

I know you're probably thinking like everyone else I talk to is, it's just not the right time to be spending money on such costly ventures with the economy the way it is, seriously I feel like I'm part of a bad Sci-Fi B movie, you know the type, you have a crazy scientist yelling the sky is falling, the sky is falling, we're all going to die unless something is done, and everybody writes him off as a crack pot, till near the end of the show when everybody sees he was right, implements his master plan and avoids destruction, and they all live happily ever after, and everyone's not dead. I'm kind of the star in my own movie, trying to warn people of the possible catastrophic impact event to come, and everybody has written me off, but you know it's not a matter of if I'm right, it's all a matter of when I'll be right.

For now it looks like we are going to have to depend on China and India, both have stated their intentions on getting a Man on the Moon by 2020. but you know,

"Any one Nation can get to the Moon, it will take the human and financial resources of many to go beyond, where we need to be, to ensure the survival of our species"........... me.

See now that I am a star in my own make believe crazy B movie I'll have to start to italicise more of my musings.

One last thing, look to the West tomorrow night, Friday the 27, just after Sunset to see a pretty gathering of the Crescent Moon and Venus, should make for a great pic.