A long strange road from wielding a tree branch to bouncing gaily on the lunar surface, but at least we could tell the other animals on earth "Hey dudes, we finally did it. We made it off this rock. Terrestrial mammilian life has gone ON TOUR."

Oh, we can go to other stars, fuck yeah we can, we've got our imagination, we've already figured out that's where we should go. No good reason we won't find a way. The Light of Humanity isn't dead yet; sputtering is NOT dead. Red Giant Sol is still a LOOOONG way off, barring any nasty shit that hits the planet before then.

We still have hope, don't we? Don't you? Oh please, tell me you aren't fatalistic about Earth and our brainy monkey selves, Syd; I don't want to know if you really think Homo Sapiens has an expiration date, even if it's a vague time in the future.

Why can't whatever descends from mankind NOT end up spreading and living generation upon generation, on geologic timescales, in every corner of space not occupied?

I hope they will. I'm not optimistic about us making it that far, but at least we have a fighting chance. This was the first step.

I don't think we'll be around much longer, but even if we aren't, we made it to another world. We stood upright on a world not our own. If we ever survive, ever spread.. it all started there. One small step, one giant leap.

I'd not give good odds on us going any further, but if we DO.. how great is it to be alive at the same time as people who walked on another world. I'm not as hopeful as you, but we share the same genuine sense of awe. May we travel further!

As they say Syd, "Stay Tuned."

Eventually, we're gonna find a way to just fucking tear the fabric of reality apart if we have to, if only to get further away from this Crib/Rock/Star.

It's gonna suck like moving away from Mom, but it's gotta be done. Now enough of that.

</Dr. Breen>

Oh I'd have been totally on his side if he'd given that speech instead of "Lets all just not have sex for a while, for EVOLUTION."

FAKE.

"It's always you Tyson; it's always you." ™

I think they were willing to die. Nixon had a whole speech, in his pocket, to read if they died in the landing. It's a fucking tearjerker.

I think we lost that crazy edge.. NASA gets so little funding, and a 1% failure rate is terrifying.

Makes me think about some news article where Russia proposed a manned Mars mission that could be done now with the NASA budget. Their idea is to make it a 1-way mission, which trims off 90% of the cost and complexity. Cosmonauts and astronauts all say "Hell yeah I'd do it", but that's just unacceptable.

My Dad said that back in the 60s, you KNEW the astronauts by name. They were a select few, they were heroes, they risked their lives and sometimes died because that was their job. They lined up for 50/50 death missions. We don't have those anymore. It's expected to become safe and routine.. no "Col. Smith will get launched to Mars to die, because real explorers are that badass!" or "We'll put 10 people on the moon, we expect 5 to die, but the other 5 will be motherfucking colonists."

We don't NOT do this because the astronauts are unwilling. It's all the rest of us who are scared.

ps. Nixon's speech, if they had died:

"These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice. These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding. They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by the nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.

In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man. In ancient days, men looked at the stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood. Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts. For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind."

Imagining Nixon delivering this on TV just.. tears me up. Odds were in favor of that happening.

Holy fuck Syd. Source something next time you do that, I want to see it too.

He never GAVE that speech of course, but he had it handy, because he didn't expect them to make it back. Really, the odds were against them.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/390634.stm

If they'd crashed, landed awkwardly, died, whatever.. he'd have gone before the world on live TV and delivered that speech. In private I'm sure he'd say "Those sons of bitches dying up there was the best thing to happen to the Presidency", but Nixon soberly delivering that speech would have been a moment that the whole world would remember forever. Maybe the greatest US presidential moment ever.

Heh, Neil and Buzz sure knew it was a possibility. In leaving the lander someone broke a crucial engine switch with their foot. When they were doing the final liftoff checkout, Buzz noticed that there was no knob left on a vital switch. He and Neil looked at each other, and exchanged a novel full of thoughts in one look.. then Buzz pulled apart a pen and used it as a replacement switch.. it worked fine. But he and Neil had that one moment where they thought.. nahh, astronauts are not trained to think about death, they're trained to solve problems. But they did both for a moment.

It says a lot that the most historic achievement in human exploration is not believed by many people, maybe even most. It's just that in-fucking-credible.

Yes, but humanity's always had to face death in the name of exploration. You don't sail across an ocean in a rickety wooden ship and expect to be home for tea. You don't go off to map Antarctica thinking the breeze may be a bit chilly. People who do these things know it may cost them their lives but they do it anyway to advance knowledge.

What we're going through right now is just a bubble. In the long run, I think this sort of spirit will emerge again.

Let's pray you're right, Desi.

I'm reminded of the old Mountain Climber's cliche.

"So why did you do it?"

"BECAUSE IT WAS THERE."

Psychosis doesn't count. Anyone can do that. Hell, I've been to other universes on DXM. Doing that kinda shit for REAL.. now that takes the kinda guts you can't fake or chemically induce.

Sorry you can't comprehend triumph. And good luck with that AIDS.

BUZZ ALDRIN IS GOING TO COME TO YOUR DOORSTEP AND PUNCH YOU IN YOUR MEWLING LITTLE FAGGOTY MOUTH. SEVEN DAYS.

Fuck country, it makes me proud of my species.

and my species.

You forgot "communist gangster computer god frankenstein radio earphone slavery."

How could a flag unfurl in a vacuum? Obviously it has ripples, so it must be fake etc etc.. Youtube comments are unusually depressing here.

You can't beat stupid. That's like trying to outbark a dog. The great thing about science is that you don't have to believe in it, it is still there.

"No moon landing" kooks are great, because there's no way you can disbelieve that and not have several other severe forms of retardation. It's tough to believe, true, which is why it's so amazing. Any "moon hoax" site is no more than 2 clicks away from "PURITY OF ESSENCE".

One of my all-time favorite moon-landing-was-a-hoax arguments that I hear alot of conspiracy-ists is the thing about "THE MOON ROVER COULDN'T POSSIBLY HAVE BEEN TRANSPORTED UP THERE. IT'S TOO BIG!! WHERE DID IT COME FROM!"
When, all you have to do is read the most basic, shitty document/article about the moon rover to learn that it folds up to about the size of a large suitcase and attaches to the bottom of the capsule.

Holy Crap.. my dad helped manufacture a part for the lunar rover. Some axle part, they had 5 different tool & die makers make 5 of them to exacting standards.

Dad was scared shitless when they took it out for a spin, as there was a slim but real chance that it could bust an axle and you'd have dead astronauts, and history would say "It was the fault of that one asshole who made the axle". He never knew if it was HIS part on the rover, but he could not relax until they got done using it and blasted off, because if that part busted.. well..

Not much point, but thats about his best story from his career as a tool & die maker.

Among the conspiracy theorists I have known, a couple of them were Moon hoax folks, the folks whose primary hobby horse is Moon Hoax nonsense, as opposed to flying saucers or JFK or Truthers...one was a bitter old man who had the room next to mine in a small town apartment building where I lived for eight months. He always had one of his Moon Hoax theory books tucked under his arm and called NASA a bunch of "space gangsters and cheats".

There aren't enough of Buzz Aldrin's fists in the world to punch these people in the face with.

"communist gangster computer god frankenstein radio earphone slavery."

Where is this from? Tis an easter egg piece of dialogue in a game I love dearly (Myth II: Soulblighter), but where is it from originally? (dont say google I like hearing you talk j lzrd)

:D I AM GLAD YOU ASKED MR. BOOGA! ALLOW ME TO LINK YOU TO THE MOST AWESOME LIVE RADIO-READING OF A NEW YORK CITY SCHITZOFRENIC'S FLYERS POSTED ON TELEPHONE POLES!

FRANCIS E. DEC, ESQUIRE!!

http://www.bentoandstarchky.com/dec/intro.htm

THE RANTS ARE HERE!!

http://www.ubu.com/sound/dec.html

That's the kinda story I want to hear. Post it on Poe News please.. we need greybeards to tell us just how it felt for the world to watch a human step onto the Moon.

The fucking MOON. Jesus Christ. And in 1960-fucking-9 no less.. theres a lot of pointless LJ that will get laughed at, but I swear to God, describing what it was like to watch the moon landing with your family will NOT be laughed at, unless it's some real high class comedy.

Were you old enough to realize that they'd probably die? Or young enough to just be stunned by your family's awe? Holy crap make with the Apollo stories on P_N for all us young'uns.

What Syd said, good sir.

There's a way to access your own account, and add to a forum which consists exclusively of people's usernames.

If you ever feel like telling us about childhood before VCRs and cellphones, or what it was like watching CNN in 1991 as an adult instead of an 11 year old who didn't know what night vision or tracer rounds were. Do those steath jetplanes still amaze you with their geometry, like veritable human-made flying saucers?

Well, I suppose technically we visited the moon in peace more times than we nuked Japan in anger...

Also, I prefer the terms "zenith" and "nadir"

God bless the 20th Century:

From Steam to Petrol, Giant Fucking Fires and Earthquakes in 'Frisco, the Dissemination of Jazz, the Attempt at Prohibition, the Rise and Eventual Decline and Fall of Organized Crime, the Dust Bowl, the Roaring 20's, Black Tuesday, the Depression, the Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, Pearl Harbor, the Lusitania, Submarines, Vietnam, Korea, the USSR, the Cold War, Cuba, J.F.K, M.L.K, the Simpsons, Brittany Spears, 9/11...

Lord only knows what this next century will do to us, besides making 20th Century Fox into a historic footnote.

What Rafiki, no shout-out for me?

I think our species has a lot of stuff to be damn proud of. We developed writing and then the press and now the Internet. We figured out shelter and turned it into buildings. We figured out modern medicine. Modern plumbing. Electricity. Refrigeration. Music. Abstract mathematics and geometry. We got people into space. We got people on the moon. Fuck, we produced somebody as badass as Buzz Aldrin.

That, in a nutshell, is my reason for hating conspiracy theorists on topics such as pyramids and the moon landing and alien breeding. How dare they be so stupid as to belittle us like that? What a shame for our self-worth.

We made it off of this dirtball planet. Even if it was temporary, we did that. That's amazing. That's bigtime. We can nuke ourselves and die or whatever, but damn.. no dinosaur, Bible Hero, or virus managed to purposefully visit another world then come home.

That's cool, man. Plus they did it with vacuum tubes and shit.