Sunday, July 21, 2019

Grandpa Rambles On About the Moon Landing

"Pay attention to this," my first grade teacher, Mrs. Hedgecock scolded. "You can tell your grandchildren that you remember when man first walked on the moon."

Grandchildren? As a seven year old, I was more struck by the idea of having grandchildren than I was about the moon landing. The most I aspired to being in those days was a clown or maybe a teenager. Mrs. H was, however, mostly right. Ok, I don't have grandchildren, but I'm old enough to corner my nieces' and nephew's kids and tell them that a thing or two happened before they were born.

50 years ago, almost beyond comprehension, an insurmountable barrier was broken and actual earthbound beings traveled to that other world in the sky and came back to tell the tale.

Not only did "man" go to the moon, but the unexpected byproducts added much to our lives. For one thing, we got expressions such as, "They can send a man to the moon, but they can't (make a toaster that works right, build a toilet that doesn't run, synchronize the traffic light at Eighth and Colorado, or just fill in the blank with your own technological frustration)."

We also got Tang. Until I was in high school, I thought the breakfast drink made from dark yellow powder was the same as orange juice. It was advertised, actually, to have more vitamin C than orange juice. For sure it had more sugar. Or has. Is Tang still a thing? I recently read that we probably would have had Tang even if astronauts hadn't consumed it in space. I wonder if they really did drink Tang. Has 60 Minutes done an investigation about this?

So what have we done since 50 years ago? I'm sure everyone thought we would have colonized Mars by now, or at least have settlements on that same now accessible moon.

I'd hate to disappoint the people of 1969, but no one has made it to Mars. We did send machines to Mars to dig holes and get stuck in craters. We had a Shuttle program come and go, and we participate in the International Space Station. Our robots photograph the rings of Saturn up close and fly by places as distant as Pluto, the dwarf formerly known as a planet. Voyager I, launched in the 70s, now hurdles beyond our solar system towards a  star called AC +79 3888 which it will reach in about 40,000 years. We've actually recorded the image of a real black hole.

But we should have accomplished more since 1969. The American obsession with cutting taxes has left us with a shell of the space program we once had. Taxpayers fail to support education resulting in our nation ranking below half the others in STEM education.

In case you don't know, STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and math.

We take technology for granted with no idea where it came from. Our smart phones have more technology than Apollo 11 and what do we do with them? We send each other emojis and settle trivial arguments by googling things.

I doubt if old Mrs. Hedgecock is still around, but if she were, what would she think about my not having grandchildren?