December 19, 2022 will mark a half century since Man last set foot on our Moon. If I had told people back in 72 that this is what would happen to our Moon program, they would have regarded me as mad. Pining for past glories is always a feature at the beginning of a Dark Age. Dark Ages are a recurrent feature in history and it would be sheer hubris to assume that the failure of spirit, the folly of our leaders, the increasing moral nihilism about us and ever spreading ignorance and arrogance may all not be signs of a civilization wide societal break. Pessimistic musings, but as the Bard notes our fates are in our hands and not in our stars.
A Half Century
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
My sons have often commented that we are on the waning days of the age of invention. While we are tweaking and expanding on things that already exist, there are no real big breakthroughs. We may do more with digital this or that or some new technological leap forward, but it isn’t the same as a world where man can’t fly and then a world where man can fly. Or a world without television and now a world with television, or without automobiles and now there are automobiles. Why that is they don’t pretend to know. But among them and their peers, they don’t have that ‘someday and the moon colonies!’ optimism that was around even when I was a kid. If we go to Mars, they know it will cost trillions and be a case where a couple people spend a day or two and then come back until it happens again in a dozen or so years. Which is far removed from the general optimism of years gone by.
We’re driving around Mars looking at stuff right now. Less pizazz than if we were there, but also way cheaper and longer-term.
I don’t know if this is a crackpot position, but I’ve heard the argument that we should be deploying a refueling station to Mars. A rocket’s weight is mostly fuel, and most of that fuel is used to propel the weight of the rocket. The ability to refuel on Mars could reduce the size and cost of a rocket by something like 70%.
The smart phone revolutionised the world and was a big shift in the way we live and interact with each other. Not sure it has been an entirely good thing. And yes, It does feel like mankind is approaching a bad period in time.
We’ve made great strides in entertainment technology though … never before has mankind been able to so immediately and thoroughly distract itself!
Ezabelle, they mention that. They point out that we already had portable computers, televisions, phones. They just found a way to combine them and improve upon them. Yes, it was a movement forward, but not necessarily new. It was not the same as ‘there are no ways for man to fly, now we can fly’ level of leaps forward. Just like Mars. At best in a few decades we might, after endless zillions, be able to get a couple of folks there for a time. But that’s far from the assumption people and, even in my memory, that we’d have colonies on the moon flying to and fro like going from Columbus to New York. That’s their point, and I think they’re right. Like it or no, we’re on the waning days of that age of explosive discovery and advancement. The Golden Age is most likely already behind us. And not just in tech stuff.
There are commercial space companies like SpaceX, and Rocket Lab and the like are injecting money and innovative ways to build and fly rockets. SpaceX has demonstrated reuse of orbital class boosters. They are currently working on Starship Super Heavy for space heavy lift capability. There are space websites and YouTube channels that cover the current goings on in the space industry. Increasingly space has a growing commercial sector. Elon Musk wants to go to Mars. From what I’ve read he sounds like he has a serious interest in space colonization. I’m not sure what to make of Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin. He’s been talking about a New Glenn orbital class reusable booster for some time now but the work appears to be going very slowly.
It is the Age of Decay. Go to any Midwest small city and larger and the rot and decay of the core housing stock, manufacturing, industrial and civil infrastructure, etc is astounding. We used to have faster than sound international flights. No more. The environmentalists are banning the internal combustion engines and ALL of the vehicles and tools which use them in exchange for electrical equipment with 25% the range and very limited charging ability for a huge percentage of the country. The encouragement of lawlessness, illegal “immigrants”, homeless and the acceptance and promotion of immoral and obscene behaviors at all levels of society and IN THE Church. I also have spoken to my adult children and my younger co-workers, none seem to have any lofty goals and seem to live in the eternal now. These are all sure signs that we are in the Age of Decay. The only question is how low will it need to go? The Western Roman Empire took several hundred years to self destruct. I don’t think they have that much time.
I understand that we are pushing toward Mars. My sons get that, too. As they said, in some years a couple will go there, and over decades and trillions of dollars maybe more. But it will only be with tech we already have. There is a universe of difference between ‘no such thing as automobiles, now there are automobiles; or no such thing as telephones, now there are telephones, or no planes, planes, etc.’ That’s their point. We’ll get to Mars, of that they are sure. But so far, with nothing other than improvements on what we already have. The age of ‘wow, something that never existed suddenly exists!’ seems to have slipped into the past. .
DAVE G The SpaceX Starship Super Heavy is intended to go to Mars. He wants to build a large number of them and send serious amounts of cargo and numbers of people to Mars to settle the planet. Once in operation it promises to revolutionize space access. He is thinking big. He appears to have very good engineering instincts so far.
Addendum. The he in my posting is Elon Musk.