Looking Forward
In the past week there must have been a hundred stories written celebrating the 45th anniversary of Apollo 11. Here’s just a small sampling:
- Moon landing 45 years ago brought us together
- 45th Anniversary of The Flight of the Eagle
- The excitement of Apollo 11 lingers in Pensacola area
- Apollo 11 anniversary: The day America landed on the moon
- From the Earth to the Moon to the Earth
- ‘ONE GIANT LEAP’ Apollo 11’s historic trip to the moon marks its 45th anniversary
These articles try to cover the topic from all angles. Some looked at the wonders of the achievement. Others extolled the newspaper’s local community and their contribution. Some used the event to demand the U.S. do it again.
None of this interests me much. Though I passionately want humans, preferable Americans, back on the Moon exploring and settling it, this fetish with celebrating Apollo is to me becoming quite tiresome.
Instead, I spend my time trolling the internet, looking for news that describes actual work going on today that will make it possible to return to the Moon. Rather than dwell endlessly on this past great achievement (of which by the way I wrote an entire book about), I prefer to read about and report on the effort of modern engineers to get us back there.
It is today’s work that counts, not the great accomplishments of the past. We need to stop looking back at what previous generations did and strive to do something grand for ourselves.
Or to put it another way, wouldn’t it be far better to celebrate Apollo on the Moon itself?
When that happens, the landing of Apollo will finally begin to mean something.
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Maybe the age of the surviving Apollo astronauts is driving media people who wants to do interviews?
Btw, if average life expectancy for men is 76 years now, I note that the 12 moon walking Apollo astronauts born 1923-1935 are on average 2 years older. And counting for the 8 still alive. Radiation and lunar dust and whatever they were exposed to during training doesn’t seem to have been very unhealthy.
I wrote a little ditty on the event (http://bkivey.wordpress.com/2014/07/20/the-ballad-of-apollo-11/) celebrating the event, while noting the lack of progress since then.