posted 09-19-2005 03:32 PM               

This site lists "electrification" as the greatest achievement of the 20th Century: http://www.greatachievements.org/

This page puts spaceflight at the top of the list, based (funnily enough) on a public survey: http://people-press.org/reports/print.php3?PageID=282

It comes down to whether you want to rank a single achievement in the term of an event or rank an achievement as something that has had a longterm change/benefit for society as a whole. The moon landing is probably the single greatest acheivement of the century in event-based terms. Electrification is probably the greatest achievement towards changing the way we live.

Then there are a whole bunch in intangibles that cannot be measured...for instance, the Apollo program allow humans to finally see the Earth as it truly is...one tiny sphere in the vast ocean of space. It's one thing to know that...and another thing to be able to actually see it in a photograph. (I'd be curious is anyone ever envisioned what an Earthrise would look like before Borman, Anders, and Lovell saw it for themselves.)It's a much more romantic achievement than say, every home in technological societies now has electricity and can therefore toast their bread in 2 minutes while they check their e-mail.

posted 09-19-2005 04:03 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by mjanovec:
I'd be curious is anyone ever envisioned what an Earthrise would look like before Borman, Anders, and Lovell saw it for themselves.

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A widely-distributed image of Earthrise over the moon was made by an automated probe in 1966:
http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~ipswich/Miscellaneous/Intro_to_Solar_System/Solar_System.htm

and:
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/expmoon/orbiter/orbiter-images.html

and while it generated a good deal of attention at the time, it did not have the power of the clearer Apollo 8 image, nor of course did it come with the accompanying words of people who could describe the view.