When I was a kid, reading the SF digests and Ace Doubles, I believed there'd be a colony on the moon by now. I thought for sure I'd get to vacation there. Well, it's not gonna happen, so I'm sending my name, instead.
Send Your Name to the Moon: "Sign up to send your name to the moon. Names will be collected and placed onboard the LRO spacecraft for its historic mission bringing NASA back to the moon. You will also receive a certificate showcasing your support of the mission.
The deadline is July 25, 2008 for the submission of names.
LRO's objectives are to find safe landing sites, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment, and demonstrate new technology."
4 comments:
Bill, I'm right there with you. I too thought I would be traveling back and forth to a moon colony by now.
Now I'm lucky if I can afford to drive into Houston.
I sent my name and my five year-old nephew's name as well.
There's a line in From Teh Earth To The Moon (I think) where one of the astronauts says that they stopped going to the moon just when they had started getting good at it. I think that the whole thing goes deeper. It seems like no one at NASA had a coherent idea of "what next" while the Apollo program was being developed. What's next should have been a viable space station - instead they cobbled together Skylab - followed by a longer term lunar missions. But there wasn't the political will and as a result the moon missions ceased to be a building block and became a stunt. Or maybe that's all it ever was.
Thanks for the link, Bill. All cynicism aside about the space program, this is still pretty darn neat. ~ Ron Clinton
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