Neil Armstrong was no Christopher Columbus.
In most respects, he was better. Unlike the famous fifteenth century seafarer, Armstrong knew where he landed. He also spent his time in public service, not in jail, and his passing was marked by world-wide encomiums. He ended his days as a celebrated explorer rather than a royal inconvenience.
Exploration was once a dirty, nasty and dangerous business. Consider some of Columbus' contemporaries, headliners in the early years of the Age of Discovery. Ferdinand Magellan's globe-girdling venture killed a large number of people, including the bulk of his crew and countless natives who got in the way. Magellan himself was cut down in an ill-conceived battle he instigated with a native chief in the Philippines. One, and only one of his ships hobbled back to Spain.
Then there was Vasco Nunez de Balboa, who in 1513 became the first European to see the Pacific from its eastern shores. Balboa was more efficient at exterminating Panamanian natives than your average tropical disease. In the end, he was decapitated by axe for insubordination.
As contemporary explorer Robin Hanbury-Tenison noted to Nick Smith, a journalist, these early probers of the unknown were "the most ghastly people who ever lived. They were as cruel, vicious, and greedy as you could get."
Exploration's still dangerous, but not so dirty and nasty. In the last 250 years, it has attracted a better class of people, such as the enlightened Captain James Cook, who probed the Pacific for new islands, or the gentlemanly explorers who raced to be first at the South Pole.
Neil Armstrong was cut from this better cloth, and indeed, the best cloth. His fellow astronauts on Apollo 11, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, are frequently in the public eye. Armstrong, in contrast, was famously private -- an archetype of the American hero. He did his job with competence, and with stunning calm.
Five hundred years from now, few will know that. But just as every child today has heard of Columbus, their descendants a half-millennium from now will have heard of Armstrong, a point recently made by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.
What our descendants won't recall is the visceral experience of stepping onto a new world for the first time. Five centuries from now -- barring unimaginable catastrophe -- the moon will be developed real estate. There's economic incentive to exploit the moon -- the helium-3 will be useful in powering fusion reactors, and the rare earth elements could supplant the limited terrestrial supply of these materials. The moon also offers special opportunities for science. Optical astronomers will revel in a place where the sky is always dark and the troubling atmosphere non-existent. Radio astronomers can take refuge on the moon's back side -- a locale that's permanently shielded from all the interfering radio chatter of Earth.
These are only the simplest and most obvious of future lunar activities. We can no better imagine what will be happening on the moon 500 years from now than Columbus could imagine contemporary Manhattan. Except to say that it will be a place familiar to billions of people.
But it wasn't familiar to anyone until Neil Armstrong went there. When he gingerly stepped down the Lunar Module's ladder and dropped onto the moon's powdered, pulverized surface, he beheld a landscape that no one had ever seen. A landscape worse than dead, for it was never alive. The science-fiction films had been wrong: there were no rough-hewn mountains sitting in the stark glare of a brittle sun. Instead, the mountains were heaving mounds, unsculpted by weather, their flanks beaten into gentle shape by four billion years of meteor impacts, and carpeted with the impactors' gritty remains.
It was a place where the quiet was complete, and where nothing ever changed.
Except that on that day, July 20, 1969, for the first time in billions of years, something did change. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin dropped out of the sky, and made their marks on an untouched panorama.
A tree fell in the forest, but this time everyone heard it.
We will also be on McGraw Millhaven's show (KTRS 550 in St. Louis) on Wednesday morning at 7:50am.
As we said, last week we were featured on the front page of Wired.com with this story, and was there for three days: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/09/why-exploration-deserves-a-holiday/
Also Rhett Allain from Wired.com did the following story: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/09/exploration-day/
Popular free thinking blogger PZ Myers picked up on the effort as well: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/09/07/columbus-day-is-a-terrible-holiday/
We have a September 27th deadline for 25,000 signatures. Once we get the signatures, it's in the hands of the Obama administration, guaranteed. The ball really started rolling today. It took 10 days to get 62 signatures, which is what we had this morning. As of 7:47am today, we have 1039.
visit www.ExplorationDayUSA.org
If you have a network of people to share with, a mailing list, or if you can suggest a contact, that would be great.
We are looking for supporters and guest bloggers to help us in our efforts to rededicate Columbus Day to Exploration Day in honor of Neil Armstrong.
" We propose that Columbus Day be re-dedicated as Exploration Day, for the true American spirit is about achieving the impossible through exploration, scientific research, innovation and creativity. America continues to inspire the dreamers, the courageous, the adventurers and the resolute to reach farther, to build greater and to strive to make America that more perfect union."
We need 25,000 signatures in 25 days. We are meeting with a major columnist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Wednesday, so we think that will be our tipping point. However, we can use all of the help we can get. Here is the petition: http://goo.gl/8IIuq - Here is our blog - www.explorationdayusa.org - and our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/ExplorationDa... - Time is of the essence! :)
Please let us know if you would like to assist us in our efforts with guest blogging, promotion on your own blog, and communicating with your social networks, etc. Also, any contacts that you can provide to help us move this effort along would be great.
Karl Frank Jr.
314-375-6167
Tom Diehl
tdiehl@charter.net
Dr. Rod Wright
rwright@unicomarc.com
P.S. Problems reported filling out the petition using Safari browser.
I jumped anyway.
I had the knowledge that thousands had preceded me, and accidents were incredibly rare. My photographer who jumped alongside me, had been on over 10,000 jumps. Surely, his number would be up before mine.
Neil Armstrong had no such assurance before he blasted off, before he landed on the moon's surface, before he opened that door, before he stepped out, before he jumped.
Thank you, Mr. Armstrong, for jumping anyway.
It was a lovely Northern Ontario night; clear sky, hot but not humid, no wind, not much noise except for the occasional night chirrup of crickets. I watched as Armstrong and Aldrin descended the ladder; watched as the galloped stiffly about, trying to get used to the lighter gravity. I was just a kid, so I grew tired. I went outside, sat on the porch and looked up at that bright, bright orb, and tried as best I could to imagine that RIGHT NOW, even as I was sitting, looking up, Armstrong and Aldrin were up there, looking down.
I remember thinking that I would love to follow them; even though Canada at that time was not (as far as I know) that much "into" the space race. I still would; alas, unless I become a billionaire, it won't happen.
I firmly believe that humanity could, should -- and must! -- continue into space. We have just dipped our collective toes in the cosmic ocean; for the health and prosperity of our species, we should sail that starry sea as best we can.
To paraphrase: "Humanity's reach must exceed its grasp, else what's heaven for?"
Tomorrow's full Blue Moon, amazingly represents Mr. Armstrong's journey and spirit. This Pisces Blue Moon signifies: letting go of earthly attachments, shifting into the intuitive and imaginative realms, and connecting to the transcendent where all life is perceived as Spirit. This Blue Moon signifies a time for creative inspiration and is a particularly social moon to be honored with others. Universal Synchronicity strikes again: Neil Armstrong's funeral and death journey beyond this world creative spirit) to be honored and celerated.
July 20, 1969, age 16, sitting in front of black&white tv, tears falling as I watched Neil Armstrong's first steps on our moon, "That's one small step for [a] man; one giant leap for mankind." A single thought came to me -- anything is possible.
Humbled by his courageous spirit from that day forward, I cannot imagine a more inspirational, intuitive, imaginative and transcendant Spirit Journeyman to honor this day. One of America's greatest heroes. Enjoy your journey back to the moon you touched and may your spirit soar the universe beyond our own.......
Reality check: 50% rate for landing plus 50% rate on return means 25% probability of success. So, in 10 missions only 2 or 3 would succeed, however, there were 17 Apollo missions and six moon landings, only the Apollo 1 and 13 did fail.
So, success rate is actually 88% and not 25%
Thanks to all the brave mans who walked on the Moon and to the scientists and engineers who made it possible.
Thanks to Armstrong, but he was just one in the team. He is not better than Aldrin, Collins, Shepard, Lovell, Grissom, just to mention a few.
The national economy crisis requires the expansion of NASA space exploration, that includes the priority of the industrialization of the Moon as national economic policy. Tell/contact your political representation that the Obama Administration's take-down of NASA, however justified by monetary 'reason', is absolutely unacceptable.
The marvel of Curiosity's success must be appreciated by every citizen in terms of recognizing the power of the mind of man. Instead of accepting austerity measures, NASA space exploration, that puts the Solar System in control of man, creating the new perception, the new dimension "our sea", that Columbus could not even imagine, is the vehicle of hope for humanity, the immediate matter of the US national security.
As he could actually see whence he was going.
“only one of his ships hobbled back”
Victoria 13
“Five centuries from now -- barring unimaginable catastrophe -- the moon will be developed real estate.”
Poised to experience its regular Lunatic Street inspired property downturn.
“A tree fell in the forest”
With a resonance, similar to that of a spacecraft impacting an unseen mass of dark matter.