Today, July 16, 2014, is the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing (assuming my math is correct). I reflect on this day every year since I watched live on TV as a child for it forever changed my life. This was the day I decided I wanted to be part of the US Manned Space Program, which became my sole purpose until I realized this goal and it became my career for 30 years. This is a harder than ever since we lost Neil Armstrong who was the first human to set foot on another celestial body, think of the implications! I didnt agree with much of what JFK did during his short presidency once I studied him but GOD bless him for Apollo. Only in hindsight can we really appreciate the bold move, an engineering feat the like of which I will never see again in my lifetime. A national commitment of billions of dollars and over 400K people to realize this goal. In in true US style, once achieved we just mothballed the engineering, destroyed the tooling and capability, preserving only what may be applicable the to burgeoning Space Shuttle Program. Now the same has happened to Shuttle and my beautiful space craft are museum pieces and in six years or less it is likely the same will happen to the Space Station in which we, the US tax payer, invested 30 Billion dollars to design and build, spending a good portion outside the US. Now we cant get their without given the Russians 70 millions bucks a seat for in a Space craft that has the fraction of the capability of the Apollo CSM. I remember we had to pay them to keep the Soyuz production line open, we payed to have their mission control rebuilt, we taught them about configuration control and fault trees, a whole host of safety and reliability improvement processes. Heck we even payed to keep the light on in the engineering facilities after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Russian begged NASA for desk top computers which they did not possess and could not afford to buy on their own. Though I rejoice in the glory days of Apollo and the direct impact that program had on my life, I weep for our future as a Nation in Space. Will we become the Portugal of space exploration and exploitation? Only time will tell. So, though I digressed into a historical diatribe with strong political overtones, I saw thank you to JFK, LBJ, Tricky Dick and the 400K engineers, draftsmen, technicians and administrative personnel for pulling off the greatest achievement of the 20th century, inspiring thousands of children like me to study math and science in order to change our world for the better begining in the late 70s and early 80s. Thanks to great minds like the Von Braun, Debus, Hugh Dryden and the Rocco Petrones of the world and to those less famous like the Walter Rivera, Jose Ruiz, Bud Antell, Harv Leblanc, Dan Brown, Tibor Farkas and Stan Barauskas, Neil Testor, Ed Smith and many more that I was very fortunate to work for and work with on Shuttle. The great minds might have had the vision but it was the lesser known foot soldiers who had the task of executing this incredible engineering challenge. Thank you one and all for changing our world forever!
Posted on: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 08:48:51 +0000
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