Over the years, I have had the opportunity to work on a number of very interesting projects. Better still, I worked with some interesting and knowledgeable people. Some of what they taught me actually stuck.
While working on one particularly ambitious project, one of these people explained supergalactic motherships to me.
Kennedy first declared the goal of putting a man on the moon on May 25, 1961. Tasked with that goal and a deadline (the end of the decade), NASA had a lot of work to do. Alan Shepard had become the first American in space on May 5, but it was on a short suborbital flight (the Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin had orbited the Earth on April 12).
The way you get to the moon is this: first, you figure out how to launch unmanned rockets. Then you test them using animals. If that works, you put a man into space. Project Mercury was followed by Project Gemini, and involved putting two men into space for longer durations, practicing rendezvous and docking maneuvers, and perfecting methods of reentry and landing. The Apollo Program included many other tests. Apollo 1 was being tested on the launchpad prior to a flight when a fire broke out, killing astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee. Apollo 4, 5, and 6 were unmanned flights. Apollo 7 was a manned Earth-orbital mission. Apollo 8 went to the moon, orbited it, and came back with three astronauts on board. Apollo 9 stayed in low Earth orbit and practiced docking with the lunar landing module. Apollo 10 tested the lunar module in orbit around the moon.
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. Apollo 11 was followed by five more landings. These are considered by some to be the greatest achievement in human history.
That is how NASA put men on the moon. They didn’t set out on day one to build a supergalactic mothership. To get anywhere, to accomplish anything great, takes tiny steps. If you try to build a supergalactic mothership from scratch, you’ll fail.
But if you start small, and keep at it, you can do great things.
Wow! Great post! You are right, tiny steps but we are far behind in the alternative energy race.
Back to the supergalaticmothership. I find all this so interesting and starting to get some of the information now back from Mars is absolutely fantastic. I remember being a young kid when Armstrong and Aldrin stepped on the moon. It gave me the chills and the realization that anything is possible in this country.
I do wish though we spent as much money on research for alternative energy as we spend on out of this world exploration. Maybe that’s part of the plan. Find another planet to rape after this one is all used up.
Really though, I don’t mean to be so negative because when you look at all we have accomplished as a nation, as a people…we are awesome!
I can’t believe you actually think we landed on the moon!
And Shepard was not the first American in space, just the first American human.