Artemis 1 is about to finally launch. It will go to the moon, orbit it and come home. It is the test launch for sending Man back to the Moon.
We landed on the Moon in 1969, I was 8yrs old. Our last manned trip to the moon was in 1972, just 3 years after the first.
The Space program is the single most important venture mankind has ever undertaken. It has benefitted mankind more than anything else that humans have accomplished. Our world would be completely different without it, No PC’s, No Cell Phones, No GPS, No Solar Power, No Artificial Limbs, No Insulin Pumps, No CAT scans, No Baby Formula, even Athletic shoes (sneakers) use products developed for space. Our whole modern world stems directly from things invented to use in space, or are byproducts of technology used to go into outer space.
The moon project started as a one upsman competition between the U.S. & the U.S.S.R. mainly to refine both nations nuclear weapons delivery systems. The race for better weapons of war. Instead of ever being used to deliver those weapons (so far) the space program to this day continues to improve life on the planet with over 2000 direct inventions, and millions of spinoff uses of products that can be directly traced back to something invented for the space program.
The Moon program was shutdown in 1972 led by Democrat Senator and later Vice President Walter Mondale. Mondale’s scree was that not a dime should be spent on space it should instead be spent on Johnsons “New Deal” poverty programs. He started his attack with the Apollo 1 Fire and didn’t let up until the Moon Program was shuttered.
Looking at the two Programs, the Moon Program and the New Deal. The moon program even after being shuttered continued to improve life for all of mankind, while the New Deal did nothing to better the life of the poor. The same percentage of people are in poverty today as when the program started. Almost every dime spent on Johnson’s programs and those that stemmed from it changed nothing. While the benefits of the space program continue to improve our lives, and save lives everyday.
Mondale however was not a one off, still today we are rife with politicians and bureaucrats who look at exploration of space as a waste of money. Just this week NASA’s inspector general predicted that the first four missions will cost $4.1 billion and told Congress that price “strikes us as unsustainable.” He also projected that NASA will have spent $93 billion on the Artemis program by 2025.
The U.S. has spent 54 Billion this past year alone on Ukraine. Supporting a war we have no stake in, but may lead us into a Nuclear War with Russia. The Politicians and bureaucrats have no problem wasting our money to kill, but expanding our knowledge and bettering humanity’s existence on Earth to use the IG’s words “strikes us as unsustainable.”
Well to put it simply…. Screw that. Let’s Boldly Go Where No One has Gone Before…..
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