40 Years Since the Moon – And What Do We Have to Show For It?

So, today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. 40 years ago today – back in 1969, for crying out loud! – a human being set foot on the moon, a place some 238,857 miles (on average) away.

But somehow, it makes me sad that during my lifetime no human being has ventured beyond low Earth orbit, to say nothing of returning to the moon or other places in space.

Imagine if Christopher Columbus had come back from the new world and everyone back in Europe just said “meh… it’s so far away, and getting there is a hassle and is too expensive, so we’ll just stay around home instead.”

You’d think that with 40 years of technological advances, going to the moon (or even just space) would be no-sweat for us now. But it seems like we put our energy into other things during that time… kind of sad, in a way.

4 Responses

  1. Angela July 22, 2009 / 12:11 am

    you are soooo correct on this one.

    We could have done so much more in the intervening years, but the governemtne decided instead to write rules and regulations for every facet of life instead.

  2. Keithius July 22, 2009 / 9:21 am

    It’s hard for governments like ours to spend large amounts of money on things that are:

    a) very expensive
    b) out in the public view
    c) not exciting in some way

    Which, sadly, our space program was all 3. (If there had been a military need to set up a base on the moon, it would already be there of course – though few people would know about it, because it’d totally be “top secret” and it’d be hidden in the budget as extra toilet paper for naval bases or some such nonsense.)

  3. Sljiva August 15, 2009 / 6:33 am

    but does you are people sure that they was on the moon ?

  4. Keithius August 15, 2009 / 9:01 am

    Yes. Yes I’m sure.

    And in this day and age, I shouldn’t need to explain why I’m sure.

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