Space, The Final Frontier! #193
By Hank Silverberg
On July 20th, 1969, I sat in front of a small black and white TV, in a Connecticut living room with my 71 year-old Grandma Francis and the rest of my family, watching the most amazing scientific advancement of the 20th century, or so we thought.
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| (Neil Armstrong on the moon in 1969, Courtesy of NASA) |
For me as a 14 year-old, it opened so many possibilities for the future, it was mind boggling.
Apollo 11 and the space missions that followed dramatically in the next few years brought promise of "strange new worlds, new life and new civilizations." After all, Star Trek's Captain Kirk had been telling us that for a few years, so why not?
The space program of the 1960's and 70's was about science and exploration and yes, the Cold War. It was "one giant leap for mankind," as Armstrong told us on July 20 as he put his footprint on the lunar surface. Twelve men eventually walked on the moon in six NASA missions over a 41 month span between1969-1972. More than 400,000 Americans were involved in the missions. We went there as John F. Kennedy had promised a decade earlier, "not because it is easy, but because it is hard."
The space program led to advances in computers, digital flight controls, medicine, astronomy, food safety, rechargeable hearing aids, earthquake proofing and fashion (Velcro). Oh, and yes, even breakfast drinks (Tang). But despite 135 missions by five space shuttles including satellite deployments and International Space Station construction, we have not yet been to Mars or built a moon base that seemed feasible in 1969.
New Survey Suggests 10% of Americans Believe the Moon Landing Was Fake | SatelliteInternet.com
I thought about all this in the past week as I watched William Shatner get his ten minute ride on the Blue Origin Shepard rocket, basically as a tourist.
Back in the 60's they looked at the space program as a new frontier. We would go into space the same way 19th century pioneers had conquered a continent. If you continue the analogy today, we haven't yet reached the Appalachian Mountains and are still looking for the Cumberland Gap.
Yes, there have been more important missions to conquer here on Earth, like poverty, racism, and as we have been reminded a great deal in the last year, incurable diseases. But somehow the promise of those first space missions seems to have faded into history.
A poll done in 2019 actually found 10% of the American population doubting the six moon landings ever took place, and that they were all actually staged.
New Survey Suggests 10% of Americans Believe the Moon Landing Was Fake | SatelliteInternet.com
Why People Believe the Moon Landing was Fake - Bing video
The non-believers are highest (18%) among those between 18 and 34, suggesting the era of fake news is having a big impact on more than just politics.
There is some good news here though. A poll taken in 2019 on the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing shows a record high 64% of Americans thought the costs of the American space program were justifiable.
It is a bit disheartening to see billionaires getting all the hype on missions that are dedicated to profit and showmanship instead of pure science. But with the Space Shuttle in moth balls, we can hope that Space X, Blue Origin and NASA's unmanned Mars exploration missions, will keep enough interest in the Final Frontier until NASA can move along with plans to put humans back on the Moon during this decade, and send manned spacecraft to Mars sometime in the 2030's. I am hoping that I can stand in a living room with my teenage grandsons in front of a flat-screen HD TV and watch one big leap for mankind on the Martian surface. Unlike my grandmother, I will believe it. I have been waiting for it for more than 50 years.
On The Radio
Since we've been talking about outer space a lot this past week, here's one interesting tidbit you may have missed. Astronomers have detected mysterious radio waves coming from the center of our galaxy, commonly called the Milky Way. A new study published in the Astrophysical Journal says the signal, which has been named
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(The center of the Milky Way, Courtesy NASA, JPL-Caltech, Susan Stolovy (SSC/Caltech) et al.)
ASKAPJ173608.2-321365 (its coordinates), is unique because it started out invisible, then turned bright and then faded away, and it doesn't fit a currently understood patterned radio source.
Mysterious radio waves coming from the heart of the Milky Way baffle astronomers - CBS News
In recent months, NASA has traced the source of mysterious radio blasts that are sending signals to Earth. The scientists have never seen anything like this one before. In a way, they are going boldly where no human has gone before.
Consider The Source!
You may know about Fox News and its obvious right-wing slant on just about everything. But it's not the worst pretend news organization in the country. One America News (OAN) went on cable systems a few years ago as a right-wing
Here are just two wacky things some "guests" on OAN have said in the last few months:
1) That the "COVID-19 VACCINES have killed 10 to 12 thousand people and they can make you magnetic."
2) That the participants in the attack on the Capitol on January 6th were actually victims of a "set-up".
Just two examples of the complete nonsense this "network" puts on the air.
So, who finances this garbage? None other than AT&T, the world's largest communications company. Reuters found court records to prove the role AT&T played in creating OAN, and continues to partially fund it because they wanted a conservative alternative to Fox. AT&T's U.S. television subscribers fell from 26 million to 15.4 million in August and hopefully will fall even more now that people know why it was created.
Jim Greer, a spokesman for the company which also owns Warner Media, CNN and HBO, told Reuters, "We have always sought to provide a wide variety of content and programs that would be of interest to our customers and do not dictate or control programming on the channels we carry."
OAN openly promotes Donald Trump and his agenda along with other extreme right-wing causes, and Trump has told his supporters to watch it.
Let it be clear. OAN follows none of the traditional ethics guidelines of journalism, and can be described as none other than a right-wing propaganda network. There's no doubt about it.
Special Report: How AT&T helped build far-right One America News (reuters.com)
If I had stock in AT&T, I would sell it. If AT&T was my cable system or if I had Direct TV, I would dump it. Their "do not dictate or control programming" comment is nonsense, since they created OAN to get another conservative view on TV. Sorry, AT&T. Your credibility is now gone.
Dumbest Quote of The Week
There is a tie this week.
First there is Scott Pio, a Trump-backed candidate for State Delegate in Virginia.
Here's the quote and his thoughts on rising sea levels from climate change:
“I’m curious, do you think the sea level would lower, if we just took all the boats out of the water? Just a thought, not a statement."
That, of course, got quick laughs and criticism from Democrats all over the place, to which Mr. Pio responded on Twitter:
"When you take things out of the bath water, the bath water decreases, does it not? Got a lot of hate from your group for asking a question about taking things out of the water. Curious when you stopped believing in pure physics. I guess you don't believe in science experiments."
Where does the GOP get their ignorant candidates?
Just in case you are wondering, someone actually did the math. All the tonnage of ships in the water add up to 1.5 billion tons, or 4.5 billon cubic meters in replacement volume. The world's oceans have 1.3 billion cubic KILOMETERS, so there would be no noticeable change. A fifth grader with good math skills could figure this out.
The other dumb quote comes from someone who should have political savvy, but can still screw things up.
U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who has accepted Donald Trump's recent endorsement of a Grassely re-election bid, which he acknowledged at a Trump rally at the Iowa State Fair last week:
"I was born at night, but not last night...So if I didn’t accept the endorsement of a person that’s got 91% of the Republican voters in Iowa, I wouldn’t be too smart. I’m smart enough to accept that endorsement."
Political savvy, maybe. Integrity, no way. Grassley
had previously called Trump's false narrative on the 2020 election "extreme, aggressive and irresponsible."
Maybe Chuck needs to go on OAN now.
Chuck Grassley defends appearance with Donald Trump, looks to 2022 (usatoday.com)
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