Apollo Day

[jeriendhal]

Forty-seven years ago on this day mankind set foot upon another world for the first time in history. A feat not repeated in the last 44 years, since the landing of Apollo 17.

Sigh. I know probes are safer, and can provide much the same data, and are much less expensive, but still...

Comments

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

That said, the coming decade looks like being pretty good fun, with Chinese ambitions riding high, and international collaborations between JAXA, ESA, and NASA, not to mention SpaceX, likely to bear some manned missions in addition to some extraordinary probes, like exploring just what's going on down below on Europa.

And then, probably a bit further out, we've got the promise of the revolutionary SABRE engine making the fully reusable SSTO Skylon possible, and with it, the prospect of getting space station/colony materials on their way for far lower cost than currently possible. (I wonder who'll actually wind up building Skylon on a production basis? Conceivably, they could keep it in house, though it'd seem logical to see if a consortium like Airbus wants to get involved)

We've had the teasers. I'd say the feature presentation is yet to come. ^_^