Yes, this ignorance drives the Apollo Cargo Cult, who now want to do
Apollo to Mars. As I discuss in my new project, we can't do Apollo to
Mars, because we didn't really do the original Apollo, in the way they
imagine.
On 2015-12-29 12:44, Derek Lyons wrote:
On Dec 29, 2015 11:06 AM, "Henry Spencer" <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
that 1961-67 was the normal state of affairs, which we can aspire to
An amazing number of space enthusiasts still cling to the belief
return to if we find the right magic words. 1961-67 was an
astonishing political anomaly, inherently short-lived and
unrepeatable. The freak political consensus that supported it was
gone before the first manned Apollo.
It's much worse than that - an amazing number of space enthusiasts
don't even realize that '65-'67 even happened. They think Apollo was
going great guns until Nixon killed it in '72 and the Shuttle came out
of nowhere. They don't realize that Apollo was running on fumes by
July '69, and that NASA was signing Shuttle design and study contracts
while Apollo 11 was en route to the moon.
Some days it's very hard not to be depressed over how ill educated (or
at least willingly blind) the average space enthusiast, regardless of
intelligence, actually is.
D.