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My earliest and most vivid memories of elementary school were when we would gather together in a single classroom and watch a rocket take off with a man aboard. I grew up with the Mercury Seven Astronauts, the Gemini program and eventually the Apollo Missions that culminated on July 20 1969 when Neil Armstrong stepped off a ladder onto the moon.
With all the turmoil of the sixties, Viet Nam and the civil rights movement, the space program stood as a unifying effort. American’s still say “When WE went to the moon…”.
Our history as a nation was marked by a succession of great engineering projects. The transcontinental railroad, Hoover Dam, the Brooklyn and later the Golden Gate Bridges, TVA and the Interstate Highway System come to mind. I am sure that those who went before me saw these projects as American accomplishments; things that WE did.
I once watched a program on the building of the Panama Canal. Another project that WE built. They showed pictures of laborers in a steel mill in Pittsburgh standing in front of a completed set of lock doors ready for shipment. It spoke of the pride these men felt, obvious from their stance and demeanor in the picture, in being part of such a momentous effort.
We have not engaged as a nation in a project of this magnitude since Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. The space program continued with the shuttle program, remembered by many of us more for its failures than its successes, while the space program was increasingly seen as too expensive and an easy target for budget cutting.
The program most likely to advance the frontiers of scientific knowledge, the SCSC, was shut down before it even got started ceding the next generation of advances in physics to the Swiss.
I think it is notable in this political season that neither party speaks of what we could or should build. We hear only of what should be torn down or done away with. The great civilizations of the past that we study in school, the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans are remembered for what they have built and the knowledge they have left behind.
Today we celebrate the life and heroism of Neil Armstrong even as we mourn his passing and I am left to wonder if his will be the last face of our collective accomplishment.
30 Comments
wow
tweeted and recommended with thanks coach. congrats on making the fdl front page. this is a wonderful diary. i too remember when we were building and growing and developing projects that we could be proud of.
you are right — now it is all tearing down and planned obsolescence. how forking sad for all of us
Suz,
I have been pondering this idea for a while. Tying it to Armstrong seemed to pull it together a little bit.
Daniel Burnham
Marvelously written. Sadly the “I got mine, fuck you” attitude pervades society now. Hint: look up “commonwealth”.
From the telegraph and telephone to spark gap wireless, radio, television and now the internet and cell phones.
But now all make are are toys.
We are now Amusing ourselves to death.
The government may have acted as the General Contractor for most of the projects I mentioned but they were all a boon to private industry and an engine of employment.
Oh am I glad you wrote this. We think nothing of “it takes money to make money,” that’s pretty accepted. But when it is a bit more roundabout, like investing via taxes in schools, early childhood nutrition, infrastructure and so on, it’s harder for some people to grasp.
We Make more than toys. We have expanded from the infinitely large to the infinitely small.
Lest you think an object like a cpu is a toy, well remember that a computer(s) figured into his trip and by 1969, solid state devices were beginning to be plentiful.
The huge problem is to wean ourselves away from the bottom line as THE measure of our worth and our success.
Toy makers will always be making toys. Some of them actually inspire.
Another toy.
You are speaking to someone who has been in computers and netwoking for 30 years. (Now retired)
An radio and electronics since he got his ham license at 10 years of age.
Good diary. Recommended.
I miss the drive to create things other than math tricks and scams created by quants and sold to chumps by vampire Squids.
I got my 11st class Commercial Radiotelephone when I was 16.
Been around the block also. I still do work for Intel. Occasionally these days.
1st Class, not 11 Class!
Our challenge now is survival of our species and our planet.
The transformation of energy systems, feeding billions of people, using resources with an enlightened sense of purpose to give to future generations, these are the great tasks we face today.
Having humanity united to achieve these things would be wonderful.
And it may be our only hope.
WE will build again, but now is the time for tearing down and regrouping. After the Revolution, WE built our way across a continent, then suffered the rendering of our nation in Civil War. After the Civil War, we united again and built the Transcontinental Railroad and industry that transformed us. Then we tore much of it down again before building Hoover Dam and other great projects begun during the Depression. Four wars and much strife later, we sent Neil Armstrong on his first trip to the heavens. What keeps me going right now is the firm belief that IF we can survive this age as a culture, our children/grandchildren may build starships.
excellent essay and comments. Thank you to all.
A national renewable energy initiative offers some white space for American ingenuity and leadership. A functional, affordable, energy-efficient, super-fast interstate public transportation infrastructure would be nice too. Those doors have been closing on us for some time, but that will change once Jill Stein assumes office.
Oh, right.
Meanwhile, the Powers have been pushing scale as a cheap substitute for imagination. Watching the Freedom Tower go up in downtown Manhattan reminds me of the possible urban legend of the schoolchild who said that the terrorists had knocked out America’s Two Front Teeth. Now we’re replacing them with what I call America’s Giant Middle Finger. Somehow I rather doubt we have enough bond traders to fill the thing.
These accomplishments were wonders in their day. They were especially difficult to do then, and Americans were the only ones with the resources to undertake massive new innovative projects.
Now the old wonders seem plebian and dated, except for those who are old enough to remember, and can still muster up that thrill of yore.
Successors as potential new wonders seem out of reach — manned flight to Mars for example. No money, no hubris that way anymore.
Everything’s changed.
For a moment I thought maybe we could go the other direction, away from big stuff taking up a lot of space, and focus on the tiniest. But the Higgs Boson got away from us, too.
Well said.
We Can’t afford Progress–We’ve got Banksters to the Bail. Austerity/Human Want/Degradation Calls–We Must Answer.
It’s The Night on The Living Dead.
Safe Journey Voyager, You Have Passed the Torch to Curiosity.
http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/armstrong/index.html
“We Can’t afford Progress.”
That’s what they keep telling us but the truth is that we can’t afford NOT to progress. There is no way out of our climate change dilemma without substantial technological innovation. The need for energy is not going to diminish.
And as we stand around debating nonsense, our infrastructure crumbles around us.
Keep on pushing the risk society — and doom is what you’ll get.
Yes, that’s where the effort has to be now.
No more candy like the Apollo program. Now it’s about having to fend off a direct threat, climate change, which isn’t nearly as fun to do.
Nice Post Coach. Your musings reminded me of James Burke’s TV series Connections. From the most obscure events trace great ideas, endeavors, and inventions. Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon was the culmination of many advances technical and social all tied together. I hadn’t thought of his achievement within the context of a web of interconnectedness and interdependencies, but there you are. To paraphase Newton: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Equally so, the singularly spectacular achievement of Apollo 12 and those events that led to it, a metaphor for what WE can do.
I loved “Connections“, wonderful program.
And in a curious synchronicity, I was pondering the Newton quote just yesterday as well.
Thank you for a great post, Coach Bill. I highly recommend it to all to read and study.
Jerry Brown once said in 1992 at a rally in Connecticut; I was in attendance. I paraphrase what he said that evening:
“We have homeless people; and we have all these vacant buildings in New York City. Don’t tell me we cannot solve the problem of homelessness.”
I voted for Jerry Brown in the ’92 primary and was a Brown delegate to the district convention. Admittedly, that was only because nobody else showed up at the precinct caucus that wanted to go!
This ia Great CB and some Great Comments. spocko right on and how sad for this nation and it’s citizens on Main Street.
BA that must have been another JB because now he is into selling out Main Street.
Back BBQ and wine
is, what happened to edit for dummies like me?
Nice post, reminds me of this youtube of Neil deGrasse Tyson on Bill Maher’s show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_F3pw5F_Pc