Tom Wolfe & Stephen Hawking on the Apollo Moon Landing

[n2doc]

The race to the moon was simply a Cold War battle; once Armstrong took that "one small step for a man," and we'd vanquished the Russians, there was little national stomach for making the massive investment necessary to fulfill Werner Von Braun's vision of a mission to Mars, says Tom Wolfe on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Wolfe, the icon of New Journalism and author of The Right Stuff. writing in today's New York Times, argues that Neil Armstrong's step onto the moon was "One Giant Leap to Nowhere:"


"Well, let’s see now ... That was a small step for Neil Armstrong, a giant leap for mankind and a real knee in the groin for NASA.

"The American space program, the greatest, grandest, most Promethean — O.K. if I add 'godlike'? — quest in the history of the world, died in infancy at 10:56 p.m. New York time on July 20, 1969, the moment the foot of Apollo 11’s Commander Armstrong touched the surface of the Moon.

"It was no ordinary dead-and-be-done-with-it death. It was full-blown purgatory, purgatory being the holding pen for recently deceased but still restless souls awaiting judgment by a Higher Authority.

"Like many another youngster at that time, or maybe retro-youngster in my case, I was fascinated by the astronauts after Apollo 11. I even dared to dream of writing a book about them someday. If anyone had told me in July 1969 that the sound of Neil Armstrong’s small step plus mankind’s big one was the shuffle of pallbearers at graveside, I would have averted my eyes and shaken my head in pity. Poor guy’s bucket’s got a hole in it."

more:

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/how-the-right-stuff-went-wrong-tom-wolfe-stephen-hawking-on-the-apollo-moon-landing.html

[Xipe Totec]

1. Let's see... which planets has Tom Wolfe stepped on besides Terra?...

None?

Bingo!

Tom, until you get some extraterrestrial experience, STFU!

[Orsino]

2. I think Wolfe is wrong to assume that NASA's "hiring a corps of philosophers"...

...would have made a goddamned difference. America lost interest in the race to the moon almost as soon as we "won" it, and never had had a whole lot of interest in science-y stuff.

Keeping a manned space flight program moving ever outward would take a fundamental change in American education, and perhaps in human nature.