Apollo 11 took off, arrived at the Moon and returned to Earth more than two years before I was born.
In fact, I was born 14 months before Apollo 17, the final Apollo Manned Mission to the Moon. I was born within the window of manned missions to the Moon, but only by that margin. My younger brother Michael was born after we had stopped going to the Moon entirely.
A damned shame. I am aware of the costs, dangers, and the technical problems with "sending monkeys into space". Yes, many of the things in space can be done more cheaply and easily with robots than humans.
Still the emotional content matters. And a human can do things no robot can. A human can show judgment and do things off of the mission plan. Notice things. Discover things.
"Man's destiny lies in the Stars" --Arthur Clarke.
And, to quote Jodie Foster in Contact, if we never went back, it would be an awful waste of Space.
Posted by Jvstin at July 20, 2009 4:22 PM