Neil Armstrong makes rare speech as NASA turns 50

[n2doc]

15:02 25 September 2008
NewScientist.com news service
David Shiga

In a rare public appearance, Neil Armstrong yesterday urged NASA to set its sights on developing new capabilities for future generations, with a goal of human settlement in the universe around us.

The first man on the moon, now 78 years old, was speaking at a celebration of NASA's 50th anniversary, hosted by the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

He praised NASA for what it has accomplished so far. "Our knowledge of the universe around us has increased a thousand fold and more," he said. "We learned that Homo sapiens was not forever imprisoned by the gravitational field of Earth ... We've seen deeply into our universe and looked backward nearly to the beginning of time."

According to Armstrong, NASA is carrying out one of the most important roles of government, which is to inspire its citizens "to love, to learn, to strive to participate in and contribute to societal progress", he said. "Our highest and most important hope is that the human race will improve its intelligence, its character, and its wisdom.”

But NASA ought now to be aiming to provide future generations with the means for living beyond Earth’s boundaries, Armstrong believes. It is about more than "just going faster and higher and further", he said. "Our goal – indeed our responsibility – is to develop new options for future generations: options in expanding human knowledge, exploration, human settlements and resource development, outside in the universe around us."

more:
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn14812-neil-armstrong-makes-rare-speech-as-nasa-turns-50.html?feedId=space_rss20

[BearSquirrel2]

1. There is no power scotty !!!!

Yes Neil, I respect you because you went to the moon. I am also told that you were a remarkable Aeronautical Engineer. But apparently, a physicist you ain't. We've got no power source to get us there and we're running out of oil.

So perhaps instead of building capsules to go to the Mars and Luna so people can live in hamster habitats there, we can develop new energy technologies so our existence on EARTH will not degrade.

[shireen]

2. i think the idea is to stimulate the imagination

many of the developments in space sciences have been adapted for earth-bound uses.

We need to dream big, and unleash our inner idealistic explorers. It encourages innovation and creative thinking. It's an intangible but powerful investment in the future.

[BearSquirrel2]

5. Oh shit ...

Oh shit, not the old fallacious Velcro and Tang Argument.

There are lots of things we can do to stimulate the imagination in education. The first would be to half the class load of teachers so they can actually interact with their students instead of giving lectures. We could diversify the curriculum and make it more relevant. Space ... it's just a moondoggle.

If manned space travel was necessary to inspire technological innovation, we would never have manned space travel. Manned space travel is just a waste of money.

[shireen]

7. yup, keep thinking inside your little box,

and you'll stay there.

[BearSquirrel2]

8. Correction ...

I think it's the NASA astronauts who are thinking literally inside their little boxes. They were thinking about how cool it was to be there. And they are thinking since they were there, it must be VERY, VERY important.

It isn't. It's made for TV bullshit.

In the 60s, during the cold war, it was a geo-political mandate to demonstrate technological superiority over the Soviet Union. This was the point. Had they let the Soviet Union do all the cool looking bullshit on TV, so many nations would have thought that the Russians would reign fire on them from outer space if they didn't go along.

I talked to a crystallographer talking about the difficulty of getting research money during the 80s. All he needed was a small amount of money to support a small laboratory. But this was not available. However, if he could design an shuttle based experiment costing 100 times as much, then he could get funding.

Space travel is a solution looking for a problem. Terra Firma is our home. Get used to it. Until the point when physicists figure out a way to brake the general theory of relativity and find a way to construct a sustained fusion reactor that works with plain old hydrogen, we're stuck here.

If you want mankind to survive an asteroid strike, dig an underground cavern and fill it with clean water and a nuclear reactor. If you can't make it work on Earth you haven't a prayer of making it work on Mars. For that matter, if you'd like to colonize someplace ... colonize Antarctica. It has a milder climate (compared to Luna and Mars), abundant water supplies and a breathable atmosphere. Less solar access, but hey when you don't have to send something a couple billion miles, you can afford to splurge on fuel.

MOONDOGGLE!!! Save the planet, you're not getting another one!!!

[edhopper]

16. Personal Computers

are a reality because of Nasa's development of the silicon chip. Not exactly Tang!

[Posteritatis]

4. Because humanity can only do one or the other, right? (nt)

[BearSquirrel2]

6. Because one is obscenly expensive ...

Because one is obscenely expensive and leaves little in the way of value for human existence beyond those who are directly employed in it's pursuit.

I'd rather build lots of bridges. It would reduce fuel requirements and provide a timesaving value to Americans. Heck, I'd say the Bridge to Nowhere would be more beneficial in our economy than a moonshot.

[Book Lover]

12. The Mars Pathfinder project cost only $280 million

As a contrast, the City and County of San Francisco will spend $1.5 billion on healthcare during fiscal 08-09.

Show me the obscene expense in putting a robot on Mars, because I can't find it.

[Ready4Change]

17. I both agree and strongly disagree

We need to make things work here on this one planet, no doubt. We're dirtying things up no end at the moment, a mistake for which we WILL be paying a high price in the future. Our species is largely cursed with short vision. Most people can't think beyond next week, most businesses can't think beyond next quarter, most governments are mired in the next decade at most.

So I agree we need to think more broadly. How do we power ourselves for the next 100 years, the next thousand years? How do we keep our population from exceeding our means of power? How do we keep from poisoning our planet with whatever lifestyle we can manage?

But here's where I strongly disagree. Living here on this one planet isn't enough. It's a temporary gig. With our astronomical eyes we can see into the universe, and although much of that universe is empty and/or peaceful, a great deal of it should alarm us. Why?

We see stars being ripped apart. Star clusters die. Whole galaxies in collisions. There are forces out there that are incomprehensible in anything but a mathematical sense. Forces we will never, EVER be able to build a bunker against. Forces we can only survive by outrunning them, by expanding so that, should part of our species get wiped out, there will be still more of us out there to continue the human story.

So yes, we should learn to live sustainably here. Call that a thousand year plan. But we should never kid ourselves. That is not, ultimately, a sustainable position. We MUST move into the stars, or we will die here on this single planet, as a species. Guaranteed.

[NNadir]

3. I've always been disatisfied with this guy.

His mission took billions of dollars of taxpayer money.

It's not like he was Charles Lindberg accomplishing something on his own initiative.

Therefore I believe NASA should have selected someone - Jim Lovell comes to mind - who was voluble and outgoing, who was willing to share his experience with the people who financed it. There were a lot of people who could have performed that task. They chose the wrong one, I think.

[tinrobot]

13. NASA simply chose the best man for the job at the time.

Neil Armstrong was arguably the best astronaut NASA had in 1969. He didn't have an ego, which made him very focused and calm during the stresses of spaceflight. He proved his calmness and good judgment under pressure multiple times, particularly during Gemini 8, when the spacecraft went out of control and he saved the mission.

Armstrong was the best man for the job he was assigned - test piloting and landing an untested spacecraft. His lack of ego doesn't make for good documentaries today, but it did make him the best choice back then.

Besides, Buzz Aldrin's ego more than makes up for both of them. He's freaking everywhere.

[LunaSea]

9. Okay, you pissy flatlanders....

Nobody argues against manned flight better than Shubber Ali
http://spacecynic.wordpress.com/

(Both sides need a better argument than the old "teflon and tang" or "our nature to explore" or "it's just tooo expensive" horseshit.)

On the other hand, I just got back from the the Idea Festival in Louisville, where this presentation got me considering some rather cold equations about our collective future-
http://ideafestival.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/09/making-a-basket.html

And as for the "fix it down here before we try to expand elsewhere" crowd, I wonder, historically, when has that approach ever reflected human nature?
I don't see it as the way we've ever done anything crucial to our survival.

Including the resources (including energy) of the inner solar system might be the thing that saves us.

(I'd recommend this further reading(-
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/205/1

And the fact that a privately built, liquid fueled vehicle made orbit yesterday, is a promising sign of things to come.

And this certainly isn't the first private venture either, what might have been the grandest business plan ever way shot down by our own state department just a few years back.
http://www.orphansofapollo.com/

The Titanic did have a few lifeboats, we collectively, have zilch.
Get onboard, or simply add your name to the long, loooong list of species that this planet produced in it's history that aren't around anymore.



Ad Astra, per sulum opes necesse
We have about 40 to 50 years to do so.

[Phoonzang]

10. Thankfully, anti-spaceflight people are in the minority. n/t

[LunaSea]

11. It seems even some of our own are coming around-

http://www.spacedemocrats.org/

[Duppers]

14. "40 to 50 years to do so" - please explain

I'm not anti-technology, anti-space exploration, nor anti-NASA, quite the opposite. In fact, a NASA salary supports this family and my hubby worked with Leland Melvin before he went into the astronaut program.
However I've a question: for the most part, can robots not do the work assigned to the manned flights? I.e., why are MANNED flights necessary at this point in time? We don't even come close to having the technology, etc. to survive long periods off this planet -
at this time.

Thanks for all the info in your post.

[Duppers]

15. To the moon and beyond -- Just much, much later ! (Cute toon)