"Some of this we may live to see!"
Does the name “Harrison “Jack” Schmitt” sound familiar? I’m sad to say that, up until an hour ago, I was unaware of the name. Turns out, Schmitt was the last man to walk on the moon.
Up until now I thought Gene Cernan was the last moonwalker, however, Cernan was the 11th person to vacate the moon surface. Harrison Schmitt was with Cernan at the time, and was the last to climb back aboard Apollo 17’s Lunar Module. So, Schmidt has the distinction of being the last man on the moon, and, yet, I didn’t even know he ever visited the place.
There were two other moonwalkers whose names never registered with me. Edgar Mitchell (the sixth man on the moon and now deceased) and Charles M. Duke, Jr. (10th man). Of the 12 who moon hopped, only seven are still living.
In December of 1972 the Apollo program came to a halt. We haven’t sent anyone near the moon since. In fact, in 45 years we haven’t “seriously” considered sending humans to any other large chunk of space land. Let’s face it, there is no way on God’s green earth Congress will ever raise taxes enough to fund any planetary mission. The headlines would have to read “Terrorists in Space” before we’d try something like that. And, taxes would not be raised to pay for the mission, so we’d likely sell all of our National Parks.
From what I’ve been reading, it appears NASA is not going to play that big of a role in future space travel. Did you read anything about SpaceX, a space travel corporation, delivering a large package to the International Space Station last week? Another corporation, “United Launch Alliance” paid for the delivery of the package that contained an inflatable space habitat that is to be attached to the space station. http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/29/spacex-is-launching-an-inflatable-space-habitat/
The giant space domicile is covered in a “kevlar-like” substance and is to be tested for its practicality in a plan to commercialize space. If all goes well, there will be, in the not too distant future, some hotels and factories in space. Such a venture will take a whale of an investment. A pod of whales, even.
This brings up the subject of banks. Banks in outer-space will likely be even harder to monitor than those in the Caymans. I don’t see how a stellar bank could fall under any regulation by the SEC. And, OSHA, the EPA the FTC, ICC, EEOC and the LMNOP would not be pestering the factory owners. It will be like a cruise ship that never docks; just motors around in International waters. Talk about an incentive for corporate relocation!
As fascinating as all of this sounds, the ideas about future space travel is pure wonderment. Astrophysicist, Stephen Hawking, has joined Russian billionaire, Yuri Milner, in constructing multiple “nanocraft,” weighing just a few grams, to travel to the nearest star system, Alpha Centaurus. Once they get there, they’ll scout the whole area out for “habitable conditions.” Maybe take some “in-focus” snapshots of extraterrestrials.
These nanocraft will be like itty bitty ships with tiny sails. Their propulsion will be caused by light particles provided by giant space lasers hitting their sails. The speed of light is around 670 million mph. Hawking believes the nanocraft will travel at about 100 million mph. I guess there’s some kind of dark matter drag on tiny space ships, or else they’d be going as fast as light.
Each ship will have a computer that weighs a gram. The computer will allow the ships to record data and send it back by way of the laser beam. From the moment the mega-laser is switched on, it will take about 100 years to send and receive info on the “Spaceshot” mission.
The big holdup at the moment is the fact that the technology does not exist to create a one-gram computer or a big enough laser or even a single nano-craft. But, Hawking believes that, at the current rate of technological growth, the capability should be reached in a couple of years. (I don’t know if you’ve picked up on this, but Hawking is the brains of the operations, while Yuri handles the money side of things.)
None of us will live to see the project reach fruition… unless Einstein was wrong in his theory that faster-than-light travel is impossible. If man learns to travel at warp speed, then these little “impossible to build” ships could reach Alpha Centaurus in about six years.
To me, the most encouraging thing about all this, is not the possibility for success. It is the technology that will have been developed from the mere effort. Forget photos of aliens and casinos in space. Wise and learned people could actually use some of this technology to solve some of the problems down here.
Without question, technological advancements were the best thing to come out of the Apollo program. At this very moment, methods and instrumentation is being thought up that could bring about great change even in my screwball life. Regardless, none of it will affect the moment of “now.”
I recently ran across some words written by American novelist Jonathan Foer. He wrote: “My greatest regret was how much I believed in the future.” -- Me, I place little confidence in my thoughts of the future. But, I can’t stop wondering about it. Who can?
end
mark@rooftopwriter.com
Does the name “Harrison “Jack” Schmitt” sound familiar? I’m sad to say that, up until an hour ago, I was unaware of the name. Turns out, Schmitt was the last man to walk on the moon.
Up until now I thought Gene Cernan was the last moonwalker, however, Cernan was the 11th person to vacate the moon surface. Harrison Schmitt was with Cernan at the time, and was the last to climb back aboard Apollo 17’s Lunar Module. So, Schmidt has the distinction of being the last man on the moon, and, yet, I didn’t even know he ever visited the place.
There were two other moonwalkers whose names never registered with me. Edgar Mitchell (the sixth man on the moon and now deceased) and Charles M. Duke, Jr. (10th man). Of the 12 who moon hopped, only seven are still living.
In December of 1972 the Apollo program came to a halt. We haven’t sent anyone near the moon since. In fact, in 45 years we haven’t “seriously” considered sending humans to any other large chunk of space land. Let’s face it, there is no way on God’s green earth Congress will ever raise taxes enough to fund any planetary mission. The headlines would have to read “Terrorists in Space” before we’d try something like that. And, taxes would not be raised to pay for the mission, so we’d likely sell all of our National Parks.
From what I’ve been reading, it appears NASA is not going to play that big of a role in future space travel. Did you read anything about SpaceX, a space travel corporation, delivering a large package to the International Space Station last week? Another corporation, “United Launch Alliance” paid for the delivery of the package that contained an inflatable space habitat that is to be attached to the space station. http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/29/spacex-is-launching-an-inflatable-space-habitat/
The giant space domicile is covered in a “kevlar-like” substance and is to be tested for its practicality in a plan to commercialize space. If all goes well, there will be, in the not too distant future, some hotels and factories in space. Such a venture will take a whale of an investment. A pod of whales, even.
This brings up the subject of banks. Banks in outer-space will likely be even harder to monitor than those in the Caymans. I don’t see how a stellar bank could fall under any regulation by the SEC. And, OSHA, the EPA the FTC, ICC, EEOC and the LMNOP would not be pestering the factory owners. It will be like a cruise ship that never docks; just motors around in International waters. Talk about an incentive for corporate relocation!
As fascinating as all of this sounds, the ideas about future space travel is pure wonderment. Astrophysicist, Stephen Hawking, has joined Russian billionaire, Yuri Milner, in constructing multiple “nanocraft,” weighing just a few grams, to travel to the nearest star system, Alpha Centaurus. Once they get there, they’ll scout the whole area out for “habitable conditions.” Maybe take some “in-focus” snapshots of extraterrestrials.
These nanocraft will be like itty bitty ships with tiny sails. Their propulsion will be caused by light particles provided by giant space lasers hitting their sails. The speed of light is around 670 million mph. Hawking believes the nanocraft will travel at about 100 million mph. I guess there’s some kind of dark matter drag on tiny space ships, or else they’d be going as fast as light.
Each ship will have a computer that weighs a gram. The computer will allow the ships to record data and send it back by way of the laser beam. From the moment the mega-laser is switched on, it will take about 100 years to send and receive info on the “Spaceshot” mission.
The big holdup at the moment is the fact that the technology does not exist to create a one-gram computer or a big enough laser or even a single nano-craft. But, Hawking believes that, at the current rate of technological growth, the capability should be reached in a couple of years. (I don’t know if you’ve picked up on this, but Hawking is the brains of the operations, while Yuri handles the money side of things.)
None of us will live to see the project reach fruition… unless Einstein was wrong in his theory that faster-than-light travel is impossible. If man learns to travel at warp speed, then these little “impossible to build” ships could reach Alpha Centaurus in about six years.
To me, the most encouraging thing about all this, is not the possibility for success. It is the technology that will have been developed from the mere effort. Forget photos of aliens and casinos in space. Wise and learned people could actually use some of this technology to solve some of the problems down here.
Without question, technological advancements were the best thing to come out of the Apollo program. At this very moment, methods and instrumentation is being thought up that could bring about great change even in my screwball life. Regardless, none of it will affect the moment of “now.”
I recently ran across some words written by American novelist Jonathan Foer. He wrote: “My greatest regret was how much I believed in the future.” -- Me, I place little confidence in my thoughts of the future. But, I can’t stop wondering about it. Who can?
end
mark@rooftopwriter.com
No comments:
Post a Comment