Tag: history

New analysis of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter images suggests that most of the American flags planted at the Apollo landing sites are still standing.

8:28 pm

New analysis of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter images appears to prove that most of the American flags planted at the Apollo landing sites are still standing.

Sadly, the analysis also seems to prove what Buzz Aldrin reported, that the Apollo 11 American flag was blown over by the exhaust from the ascent stage when the astronauts took off.

I wonder if anyone from the United States will ever have a chance to pick it up?

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The United States of winners

7:32 pm

“The United States of winners.”

We didn’t fight hard for our freedom on that summer day in 1776 so we could go ahead and be mediocre. We wanted it so badly because we had lofty goals to be a nation of winners, people who excelled at everything we tried. We wanted to become powerful and prosperous so that we wouldn’t have to rely on anyone else, ever again. And we knew that being prosperous would make us generous. We wanted to win at that, too.

And from there, we went on to win at all kinds of stuff, and we did it without apologizing. Charles Lindbergh didn’t land in Paris and apologize for getting there first. We didn’t have a space race with the Soviet Union to see who could get there last. Bruce Jenner doesn’t have an Olympic gold medal (and two inexplicable earrings) because he’s a loser.

Our desire to win has made us who we are.

And it is for this reason that, right now, the United States is about to develop multiple private companies capable of putting humans into space, while every other country in the world that has tried it can barely manage to come up with one option.

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Charting the relative economic strength of the world’s most powerful countries over the past 2000 years.

2:04 pm

Charting the relative economic strength of the world’s most powerful countries over the past 2000 years.

The article cites 1800 and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution as a key moment in this history. I would also note that 1800 is about the time that freedom and Adam Smith’s ideas of economic liberty took hold in both North American and Europe.

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A walk across the Brooklyn Bridge

6:01 pm

An evening pause: This is something every visitor to New York should try to do. The first time I did it was back in the mid-1970s during my college days. It was around 2 am in the morning when we started from Brooklyn. We crossed to Manhattan, had a meal at a 24 hour Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, then walked back, watching the sunrise over Brooklyn.

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Environmental activists have launched a petition drive to stop SpaceX from building a commercial spaceport in Brownsville, Texas.

1:45 pm

The wrong side of history: Environmental activists have launched a petition drive to stop SpaceX from building a commercial spaceport near Brownsville, Texas.

“I love the space program as much, if not more, than anyone,” said Environment Texas Director Luke Metzger. “But launching big, loud, smelly rockets from the middle of a wildlife refuge will scare the heck out of every creature within miles and sprays noxious chemicals all over the place. It’s a terrible idea and SpaceX needs to find another place for their spaceport.”

This guy obviously doesn’t know that almost all of the Kennedy Space Center is a wildlife refuge, and a successful one at that. But then, what do facts have to do with most environmental causes?

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What is the current state of the six American flags planted on the Moon by Apollo astronauts? One NASA engineer takes a look.

9:13 pm

What is the current state of the six American flags planted on the Moon by Apollo astronauts? One NASA engineer takes a look.

James Fincannon has been an important contributor here at Behind the Black, sending me some interesting tips from time to time that have resulted in some good posts, such as this one about caves on the Moon.

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A failed public works project — from the year 1350 AD

4:02 pm

Casa Grande

Yesterday my wife Diane and I took my 94-year-old mother on a sightseeing trip to see the Casa Grande ruins southeast of Phoenix, “the largest known structure left of the Ancestral People of the Sonoran Desert.”

This four story high structure was built around 1350 AD from bricks made of concrete-like caliche mud, with the floors and roofs supported by beams of pine, fir, and juniper brought from as far away as fifty miles. (The rooflike structure above the ruins was built by the National Park Service in order to protect it from rain.)

Though impressive, I must admit I’ve seen far more impressive American Indian ruins elsewhere. Casa Grande, which means “Great House” in Spanish, suffered as a tourist attraction from two faults:
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