The Moon Still Beckons, But Does Anyone Care? By Andrew Chaikin

[mickw]

Forty years after the first manned moon landing on July 20, 1969, SPACE.com asked Apollo astronauts and leaders of the space community to ponder the past, present and future. The Apollo 11 mission launched toward the moon 40 years ago today, and noted Apollo author and historian Andrew Chaikin - co-author of the new book "Voices from the Moon" - wonders how Americans might view the historic flight if it was happening right now:

Here's a question: If Apollo 11 were happening right now, how long would we pay attention? Forty years ago, the TV networks - all three of them -followed every phase of the mission. On July 20, 1969 they went on the air with 30 straight hours of uninterrupted coverage of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's "giant leap for mankind."

More:  http://www.space.com/news/090716-apollo11-40th-chaikin.html

[Rocket Pooch]

Nope most people would watch big brother!

And if you think about it, it really was just a progression of what mankind could do if prompted, but where is the prompt now?

Would not happen now!

[mickw]

Yep, agree with that - sadly

Ithink it was mostly down to the threat of "those commies" being more advanced (or more of a threat) than/to the rest of the world (USA).

I wonder what scientific (space) advances we would have made if it weren't for Sputnik and Gagarin.
I suppose we owe most of the progress to the Russians, at least for the motivation.

[Rick]

Michael Crichton once wrote that if you told a physicist in 1899 that within a hundred years humankind would, among other wonders (nukes, commercial airlines), "travel to the moon, and then lose interest . . . the physicist would almost certainly pronounce you mad." In 2000, I quoted these lines expressing Crichton's incredulity at America's abandonment of the moon. It is now 2009 and the moon recedes ever further.

Next week marks the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing. We say we will return in 2020. But that promise was made by a previous president, and this president has defined himself as the antimatter to George Bush. Moreover, for all of Barack Obama's Kennedyesque qualities, he has expressed none of Kennedy's enthusiasm for human space exploration.

Read the rest: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/16/AR2009071603486.html

[Rick]

It's a temptation, watching many of the 40th Anniversary retrospectives, to think of the Apollo space program as a triumph of power and industrial might. The superpowers' space programs were, of course, political and chauvinistic, designed to showcase national wealth. But there's a better way of looking at the program, Dennis Wingo reminded me recently. Masses of money helped put man on the Moon of course, but the Moon program is really a tale of engineering improvisation and human organisation.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/22/destination_moon/