I Want To Do Apollo Again...

This makes a hell of a lot of sense...



The point is, there are cheaper, easier ways to get back to the moon, without having to recreate the entire, monsterously expensive Apollo program all over again.  "The Ol'man" (my father, designed space suits and later life support systems for the Air Force & NASA) always maintained that we made  a mistake make the huge leap straight to the moon.  He used to talk about what many in the Air  Force in the 1950's and 1960's had planned upon...

1. Reach Low Earth Orbit...to build an interim temporary (several years duration) space station
2. Use that as a steping stone to build a high earth orbit permanent station.  A station that used "spin" or centrivical force to maintain at least 1/2 G (gravity).
3. Only then, make the leap to the Moon...but not as a short term only days long duration...but to plant permanet colonies and infrastructure/factories to build much larger (it's vastly cheaper to launch from the Moon's surface than from Earth's) vehicles in which to explore first the solar system, then beyond...

But that was tossed aside for the great "leap" to the Moon.  But it was a great political stunt...and got America to the Moon first...

H/T on the video from Instapundit.

Moon Landing Denier Gets A Reward

Here's video of retired Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the 2nd man to walk on the moon being confronted by an asshat named Bart Sibrel who calls him a "coward, a liar and a thief."  It's great stuff.



Here's a longer video of the same thing...which show's Mr. Sibrel as a genuine asshat who deserves more than just getting clocked, Buzz should have beaten the crap out of him!



My father Dr. Edwin G. Vail, Ph.D., USAF (ret) was a "rocket scientist" in the 50's and 60's.  He was part of the team the developed the first partial pressure suits and then went on to make the first full pressure suits that were then, with slight modifications used by NASA.  There are two near life-size photographs of him in the "space suit room" of the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC.

In the mid 1960's where we lived many of the kids parents I went to school with were working in space related industries.  But, because most of that work was highly classified, we didn't know what they were doing, myself included.  A common question that fell out of favour was "what does your daddy do?"  because the answer  most often was "I don't know, he can't tell us."  As a reward, after the first moon landings, NASA sent the Apollo astronauts around to the various companies to meet the workers, but more importantly, to be seen by the families at company picnics and such.

At one point, I had personally autographed pictures of all the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts.  Unfortunately, they disappeared in marital break up...big sigh...

My father maintained to his dying day that by going straight to the moon instead of building a permanent space station in a geosyncrinous orbit (approx 28k miles up) that we made a huge mistake.  His point was that by failing to take the smaller steps, we lost the chance to begin colonization and exploitation of the Moon and asteriod belt for the forseable future.  Events of the past 40 years have proven him right.

His take was that by building a pernament station, with gravity (1/2 a G would have been sufficient) to use as a way point, we missed the ability to build, in space, vehicles that could have been used to travel within the solar system.  Additionally, by maintaining a government monopoly, we strangled any possible benefits that could have been derived from such intra-solar craft. 

It's well past time to remove the hurdles that our government has laid down to discourage civilian space craft.  We must, not only encourage private companies, it's the only way to get off the ground at this point, since NASA has long since stopped being in the "space" business and has become yet another government "jobs" program...

Hat Tip: Instapundit