posted 07-20-2006 10:38 PM            

International Association of Astronomical Artists Listserver
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We lived to see a peak moment of Human attainment. it was a wild fancy of technological one-upmanship as well as a noble crusade to conquer human limitations. As Apollo recedes into history it will be celebrated by fewer numbers of aging aficionados who will take to the grave the living memory of looking up at the Moon and knowing there were people there.

As I see it the current plans to return to the Moon are faltering under the burdens of bad planning which has sown the seeds of its own failure. The hands of my 'return to the moon clock' are thus not advancing toward midnight but are being moved back a little, but as yet not much. There is still hope that we will live to see people on the Moon again, however it is increasingly becoming but a matter of faith. In a few decades the last of those who remember watching TV from the Moon will be regarded with the patient indulgence of the young for the ravings of the aged.

But as long as we live we will carry within us the sacred memories of the most privileged generation in history, that which combined the daring and abilities of an affluent post-war era to accomplish great things. Apollo has been compared to a technological 'Great Pyramid', a one time massive effort which overlooks the degenerating cultures living in its shadows who forget the civilization that built it.

Don Davis

[This message has been edited by Novaspace (edited July 20, 2006).]

posted 07-21-2006 03:32 AM               

Well I guess you'd call him a "glass half-empty guy" <LOL>
The analogy, which may not be his, is weak. Regardless of cynical views of "degenerating cultures" you cannot say that the civilization that built the pryramids is being forgotten, nor that Egyptian society was the peak of human development. What about the Minoans, the Greeks, the Romans, the Florentines, Venetians etc, etc? The pyramids were but a blip on the radar of human development - albeit a phenomenon of their time. IMHO in the same way Apollo was a phenomenon of its time, but one that will be seen by future generations as the foundation of space travel. The next moon mission will relight the touchpaper of human interest in space and Apollo will be remembered as the catalyst.