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Sunday, April 22, 2012

Back to the Moon - for Science or Leisure

I grew up on the manned space program and was fortunate enough to see the first moon landing by Apollo 11. My parents made sure me and my sisters witnessed history as Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon. Within a couple years of that historic walk this country was done visiting the moon. What a shame. I remember Skylab, but my greatest memory of that program was it's fiery crash over Australia. Now the Space Shuttle program is over and from what I've read there's nothing ready to take it's place, but there has been talk of returning to the moon. That would be something. Until that time, I'll have to keep my longing for manned space exploration to all this country has available right now - the International Space Station. Here's a pretty cool NASA time lapse video from the International Space Station. Now and then during a full moon I take my binoculars and look at it. Two things always cross my mind. One, we should still be there, and two, we should go back there. As a kid, eating Food Sticks and drinking Tang, I wanted to be an Astronaut. Now I would be happy to be a tourist, but at this pace and with my resources it isn't going to happen. Perhaps my grandchildren will take their kids for a vacation to the Lunar Hilton . . . just maybe.

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