My first interpretation was “Nobody’s going to get excited about it since we already did it 50 years ago.”
(Wait a second while I get my head around that… fifty years ago…)
But Arlo’s also mentioning a permanent base, which is a pretty new thing and still quite science fictiony and therefore something people probably would get excited about.
Comics I Don't Understand 
If you listen to the clip of JFK making the promise / challenge, check if you also hear him putting the stress (“accent”) on the second syllable of “deCADE”. That was apparently standard for some people, but I don’t know what geographic or social groups.
I’m guessing Jimmy is implying that the promise of space excited and inspired the public 50 years ago but today it is nearly impossible to capture the American public’s attention for more than one or two news cycles.
Just ’cause it’s science-fictiony doesn’t meant it can’t happen, or won’t happen. This actually has been proposed, but then, so has a Space Force, so what do *I* know? I sure wish we could solve problems on Earth before going elsewhere to create more.
The brass probably want to slow-walk it until He Who Must Not Be Named is out of the picture.
“Permanent Moon base” makes me think of both Space: 1999 and UFO. The latter, maybe…hopefully not the former!
I agree with Daniel. There is absolutely no scientific, engineering, or geopolitical reason to hurry. The only reason to get NASA to rush the landing is to try to make it happen before January 20th, 2025.
I’m pretty sure that Arlo does mean that it’s impossible to recreate the excitement of 1969. He doesn’t mention the idea of a permanent base, which might change that assessment.
There is a significant audience for manned space exploration, so a return to the moon probably would generate significant excitement, even if not at Apollo levels. This in spite of the fact that the accomplishments of manned space exploration have been modest, and there is no reason to think that this is likely to change in the short term. In contrast, unmanned satellites have come to be far more important than anyone imagined when the space age began. Our contemporary civilization just wouldn’t work the way we want it to without modern telecommunications, to say nothing of satellite mapping, satellite photography, and GPS. But unmanned spacecraft just don’t generate the same excitement.
P.S. @ Mitch4 – People from “Bahston” and who went to “Hahvad College” speak a little differently from the rest of the nation.
And just THINK what the flatearthers will do with this . . . they’re already convinced we never went to the moon the first time, and that space itself/gravity/International Space Station are all hoaxes perpetrated by NASA. I’ve asked and asked . . . WHY WOULD THEY? But . . . crickets is all I’ve heard.
I must have been the ONLY person not glued to tv to watch the landing; I thought it pretty useless then (altho as has been shown, we have garnered some beneficial knowledge that’s been useful), and I still think so. Too much money for too little useful results. Would that we could solve hunger, diseases, misogyny, etc., etc. first. (This is, again and still, the old hippie speaking.)
Andréa, I feel the same way about climbing mountains – why?
But the return on investment in the space program has been estimated at 5 to 1 (also at 2.5 to 1, and probably a lot more estimates.) IOW, for every dollar spent on the space program, the economy was boosted by a multiple of that dollar.
I wonder if ‘the band’ Arlo is talking about in the first panel is the group of men and women who put us on the moon the first time. NASA has an aging problem – the average age of its engineers is 47. It was 28 in 1969.
Hmm, sounds as if NASA has an aging solution if they have engineers who were 28 in 1969 and 47 today… but yes, Chak, I assume that’s what “get the band back together” refers to.
No, he’s speaking metaphorically, as in re-uniting the Beatles.
“sounds as if NASA has an aging solution if they have engineers who were 28 in 1969 and 47 today”
I realize you are making a joke but surely you see that Chak’s statement “the average age of its engineers is 47. It was 28 in 1969” says nothing of the sort.
After all if you made the same joke about the average age of workers during the industrial revolution and the average age of workers today it’d be …. weird.
My question is why is an average age of 47 a “problem”.
I really like the dog in this one, is he a regular?
I don’t really think it’s possible to re-ignite the public’s interest in space travel. Not when they can see it, and attendant battles with soaring music, at the local megaplex or streaming online.
Personal synch: just finished a book, and picked up the next to read: ‘Voodoo histories : the role of the conspiracy theory in shaping modern history’ by Aaronovitch, David. Written in 2010, so the past nine years aren’t covered, but a great history and background of conspiracy theories. And what’s the first one to be discussed? That we never landed on the moon and literally thousands of people were and still are involved in this hoax.
Speaking of which (sorry for the thread drift, but it all ties in somehow), the previous book was ‘Black Death at the Golden Gate : the race to save America from the bubonic plague’, by David K. Randall.
Heck, I never even knew there was a bubonic plague in San Francisco, right before, during and after the earthquake of 1906. AND it shows that politics, cronyism, bigotry, conspiracy theories and lack of common sense have always been abundant in this country [as well as others, I realize, probably even worse (e.g., ‘Midnight in Chernobyl’], but still . . . ).
Thus endeth the book recommendations from your retired librarian.
Remember, this time when we send astronauts to the moon, they’ll be able to visit Mars on the same trip.
Yes, of course Chak’s statement was quite clear — I saw an arguably amusing twist on the idea. It is a good question what the ideal age distribution of an engineering team should be. I am not sure an average of either 28 or 47 is ideal. Big-team technical efforts like that really benefit from enthusiasm and youthful energy, but it’s always good to have people who’ve seen problems before and know how they can be solved…
From memory I can reel off the names of the crew members on all the US missions in order from the first Mercury to the first Shuttle, plus the first 10 or so CCCP cosmonauts, so I am a minor space nut and my judgment is not to be trusted!
However – not that there’s any proof – I like to think that the 1960s Space Race managed to absorb Cold War tensions that might easily have flared into bigger proxy wars and even nuclear exchanges, as a sort of massive displacement activity. JFK proposed committing to the moon project in May 1961 not long after the Bay of Pigs disaster, with the explicit aim of impressing the people of the world with the US way of doing things as opposed to the USSR in “the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny” as they determine “which road they should take.” Of course there were episodes like Cuba and the Prague Spring and Vietnam on the way from 1961 to the moon, but at least no catastrophic massive war broke out, and by 1975 there was a joint US-Russian space mission. Probably none would have broken out anyway, but who knows?
Whatever, people like von Braun and Korolev were originally more keen on human spaceflight than ballistic missiles, but the missile generals had all the money. It’s good they managed to put some of the rockets that were built at great expense to relatively peaceful exploratory use rather than trying them out on populations. Although human spaceflight alone might not have turned a profit, overall the space programmes of the world – weather and communications satellites for instance – lumped together have, as Chak points out, not been a complete money black hole. Although some of our political leaders are climate change deniers, in the long run space monitoring of the Earth’s and other planets’ climates (if it is still permitted in the short run) is going to be extremely useful for the future general good health of currently existing systems of earth life.
As for the space costs, Kennedy in his 1962 speech at Rice said “That budget now stands at $5,400 million a year–a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year.” The current Nasa budget of $21.5bn is still somewhat less than current US spending on cigarettes and cigars – 250bn cigarettes and 12bn cigars, apparently, meaning about $62.5bn on cigarettes alone even assuming only $5 a 20-pack of cigarettes. The US pet industry was $75bn in 2019.
Of course, these are things millions of people choose to do by themselves, and national space programmes are involuntarily imposed on them, as are wars. Personally, overall I would prefer people to spend money on interesting space programmes than on cigarettes and wars, but on the other hand I like a drink and would object to being denied that reasonably costly vice!
I can see that it looks a bit rude, at the very least, to spend a lot of money on human spaceflight when 800 kids a day are dying from dirty water, and similar issues. But then the human population is now about double what it was in 1969 when Apollo 11 took place (when I was11 myself), and the world is overall much richer. It’s hard to say that the world would be even richer without the various space programmes, even including Apollo (it seems unlikely), or that the population would be much bigger. One problem is that space programmes are obviously very high profile, and very obviously are “out-of-this-world”, thereby detaching themselves from immediate earthly relevance.
But I would maintain that there are a lot of more costly things being paid for on earth that I would prefer to see repurposed towards solving problems on earth before I see spaceflight shrivel up and die.
Maybe one inspiration for the current US interest in the moon is a new Cold War Space Race scenario, only this time involving China. Whatever the motives, I hope all sides manage to keep Space Forces and destructive Satellite Killers out of space as much as possible.
Andréa: “I thought it pretty useless. . . Too much money for too little useful results. Would that we could solve hunger, diseases, misogyny, etc., etc. first.”
I feel like this is an argument against almost any long-term scientific knowledge. A hundred years ago, who would have predicted all the value from studying quantum mechanics? If we just focus on short-term problems, we’ll never get long-term solutions.
Admittedly, it would have been nicer if the program had been driven more by a general desire for scientific advancement, than to beat the Russians. . .
Andréa, how would we use money to solve misogyny?
You’re right – money won’t solve misogyny itself. But outward aspects of it – unequal pay, unequal representation, unequal health care, domestic violence – THOSE could be solved by having money ‘thrown’ at them.
Yes, Andrea, we’ve seen lots of that, appoint a blue-ribbon panel full of old white men to study the problem. *cough*
Exchanging the NASA and Pentagon budgets would be an interesting exercise.
I’ve often wondered what the point is of getting out of bed. So warm and comfy.
And yet, I’m glad I get out of bed each day and learn something new.
That’s what exploration is about.
[Andréa: “I thought it pretty useless. . . Too much money for too little useful results. Would that we could solve hunger, diseases, misogyny, etc., etc. first.”]
How do you quantify “too little useful results” ? The technology developed for space exploration spins off in unexpected ways.
https://spinoff.nasa.gov/flyers/apollo.htm
Also this photo is credited with sparking the environmental movement:
“…The “Earthrise” image remains one of the most famous ever taken in space, and [astronaut] Anders says it forever changed the way people think about where we live.”
https://www.npr.org/2018/12/21/679282476/1968-when-apollo-8-first-orbited-the-moon-and-saw-the-earth-rise-in-space
Lastly, we should keep in mind that the future lunar mission is a step toward sending astronauts to Mars.
‘Lastly, we should keep in mind that the future lunar mission is a step toward sending astronauts to Mars.’
Why? Why go there, I mean, not why should we keep in mind.
Andréa, I think that was a reference to an unnamed person’s tweet in which he said that the moon and Mars were the same thing. Or the moon was part of Mars, or something.
Mentioning the space race and the Russians makes me think of how Alan Shepherd and John Glenn became national heros, but the two people I think of who REALLY beat the Russians at their own game were Bobby Fisher and Van Cliburn.
” Would that we could solve hunger, diseases, misogyny, etc., etc. first.”
How does not going to the moon do any of those things?
Heck, we can BEAT diseases, and then people will say “nah” and let them come right back.
” I never even knew there was a bubonic plague in San Francisco, right before, during and after the earthquake of 1906.”
There’s bubonic plague throughout the western wilderness. But, one minor change from the 1300’s… we now have antibiotics, and plague is readily treatable nowadays. So, the handful of cases that come about when people spend enough time in the wilderness to come into contact with an infected animal don’t lead to outbreaks any more.
Grawlix, there’s a French phrase I like: Je mourrai moins bête.
I will die less stupid.
Or alternately, Se coucher moins bête: to go to sleep less stupid.
They do sometimes lead to deaths, though. Treating the plague with antibiotics is useless if it’s progressed far enough, because what kills you is toxins released when Y. pestis dies.
Now this is my kind of thread. Start out with souffles, work in the Beatles, conspiracy theories, and the bubonic plague, and I’ve got at least 2 more books to add to my ever-growing list of what to read. (D-Day discussions with a friend just placed “The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919 ” on the list ahead of them)
Ah, yes . . . measles.
And I’ll put THAT book on my list for Hubby when he comes home – thanks!
Segue:
Speaking of vaccine conspiracy theories: Had I mentioned ‘Voodoo histories : the role of the conspiracy theory in shaping modern history’, by David Aaronovitch in this thread? If not, I recommend it, even tho it was written in 2010; maybe he’ll write a sequel covering the past 8-1/2 years.
Not only is space being weaponized, it’s being monetized . . . but why would memorabilia be delivered TO the moon? A new place for a U-Store franchise??
I am a bit unsettled with the monetization of space… The visions of “unspoiled” beaches (now with plastic), “remote” Himalayas (with garbage dumps and ‘traffic jams’), and “limitless” space (with satellite junk now and McDonald’s squeeze-tube burgers later) suggest mankind does not do well with open and unsupervised places :^)
Isn’t there already junk left on the moon from the previous landing(s)? You’re right to worry!
I’m one of those who are alert to anything we do in space. I get emails telling me when the ISS is going to be overhead, and I run out and watch it. (My father and husband were engineers who did things directly pertaining to space exploration, and our son’s job concerns maintaining/scheduling the ISS.) I remember watching Sputnik go across my backyard. When our son was 5 weeks old, we held him up in front of the TV so he could “watch” the moon landing. Every theory about black holes is immensely interesting. Everything about space is amazing to me.
Andréa, have you read Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire by Kurt Andersen? My husband read it, and it’s getting near the top of my stack of books to read. Sounds like a book you might enjoy, seeing the 2 you mentioned.
“Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire by Kurt Andersen?”
Yes, when it first came out; have recommended to many folks. Put it at the top of your reading stack.
Yes, ma’am!
I see I still have the ‘librarian’s voice’ ‘-)
[“Lastly, we should keep in mind that the future lunar mission is a step toward sending astronauts to Mars.”]
The recently-announced trip to the moon, as referenced by the comic at the start of this whole discussion is designed to pave the way to longer-distance manned flight beyond the moon, not just an excursion to the moon for its own sake.
Fantasyland was a lot more interesting than I’d expected it to be.
After reading ‘Fantasyland’, “Midnight in Chernobyl’, ‘Voodoo Histories’, and ‘Black Plague at the Golden Gate’, I think I need something light and uplifting to read . . . you know, like a good murder mystery.
Seriously, if you’re lookin’ for a good series, Ben Aaronovitch’s (I wonder if he’s related to David Aaronovitch, who wrote ‘Voodoo Histories’) ‘Rivers of London’ series is a nice bit of comic relief along with a bit of paranormality.
Maybe the Moon base would interest a wider audience if it were to be treated like Big Brother.
Aaaaand monetized it is . . .
I had to look up the Rivers of London series, and it does sound like a good series. I noticed you used the British title. So stupid that American publishers dumb down British books. I read The Philosopher’s Stone before The Sorceror’s Stone came out, then I ordered the rest of the series from Amazon.uk to get the British versions. Just can’t get the feel of British settings in American English!
There is a new TV series or miniseries adaptation soon of “His Dark Materials”. The first of the three books had differing US and UK titles (“The Golden Compass” and “Northern Lights”).
Under Ben Aaronovitch Wikipedia lists:
Relatives
Sam Aaronovitch (father)
Owen Aaronovitch (brother)
David Aaronovitch (brother)
I really liked the Snoopy reference, especially now that researchers think they know where it is!
Because I think it’s important to read series in order, this site is invaluable:
https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/
In ‘Voodoo Histories’, David A. makes a comment about the ‘children’s series, Dr. Who’. Ben A. is a writer for Dr. Who, and I seem to remember a comment that he ‘iinvented’ the Daleks. So . . . brotherly rivalry?
To paraphrase one of Dr. Seuss’ titles: ‘Oh, the Trivia You’ll Learn!’
I’m annoyed at the Arlo strip Andréa included. We didn’t go to the Moon because it was there. We went to the Moon because it looked like the USSR would otherwise get there first.
Both were lousy reasons, which is why we haven’t been back in so long. Going to the Moon should be a rational step in a long-term planned exploration.
Arthur, I don’t think the following was considered as a reason to go to the Moon, but it is the best reason of all:
One million years from now, there will be no evidence on the Earth that Man ever existed.
But one million years from now, that flag will still be there on the Moon.
@ MiB – When the space aliens come to visit, they may be puzzled why we went to all that trouble to erect six all-white “surrender” flags on the moon (solar radiation has long since bleached all the color out of them).
Speaking of space aliens (and note that HUMANKIND is still, mostly, MANKIND) . . .
Why do the aliens’ eyes change from solid grey to human white from panel 1 to panel 2. Is that supposed to mean something, or is it just a mistake?
But one million years from now, that flag will still be there on the Moon.
I read an SF story that featured the US on the decline, and Arab nations ascending. The latter considered the stuff left on the Moon to be some sort of affront and sent missions to “clean up”.
Shouldn’t this whole sequence have run next month? Seems odd to miss a 50-year anniversary by just a few weeks.
Uh, hey, Arlo? If you remember John Young, you’ll have someone from both groups…
And I would argue that everyone on the mission, whether they stayed in lunar orbit, or descended towards the surface, saw equal amounts of the moon. So really, you need to figure out who of the repeat visitors (Lovell, Young, and Cernan) saw the most. Without actually looking up mission times, I’d bet on Cernan, since he and Young both get equal lunar time for Apollo 10, and since Cernan’s Apollo 17 was after Young’s 16, it was probably a longer total mission. You might make something of the fact that Young got alone time in lunar orbit that Cernan never had, but I’m dubious about that being somehow more substantial.