I'll never forget watching three Apollo rockets launching from across the schoolyard when I was kid living in Orlando, Florida. It was one of those things that even as a kid made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
I just felt it again as I watched two side boosters land perfectly in tandem on their intended pads after launching Falcon Heavy into space.
It's astounding what we as a species have achieved in our short existence on the calendar of time and yet, we still can't come to grips with all of the little, petty bullshit between us.
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Apollo's Saturn V is still the king, biggest and baddest.. Only the SLS and BFR will surpass it. That must have had an incredible influence on you, or at least I know it did for me and I was only watching it on TV
RobCampbell
Level 7
Feb 7, 2018
1
I even saw it lift off live all the way down here in the bottom of the world, New Zealand. But I couldn't help thinking about how many starving children on this planet could be fed by what that cost.
NZVee
Level 4
Feb 6, 2018
4
Varn:
I’d been thinking the same … until listening to the exuberance and exploration capabilities it’s sparked. Like the ‘manned missions’ before it, anything that makes humanity see ourselves ‘as one’ is good. Expensive.. but good ~
The human cost/benefit ratio is insane. We have so many homeless, hungry, unemployed people. 90 Million per launch? We have our priorities up our asses (I'm sure this comment will be deleted, too.) Science is great but it shouldn't be our replacement god either.
Duke:
@NZVee , @Varn and @Hope4Zoe I think it bears saying that we can solve the world's hunger problem right now even if we deduct the cost of this space mission and not even blink. We just choose, as a society, to not make that a priority. It's a false dichotomy to pit these two things against each other. We tend to do the same thing when we worry about whether we should help our homeless veterans or deal with refugees. We have more than enough money take care of both problems. We are somehow going to find $20 billion to spend on a border wall and we have nearly $700 billion for a defense budget so, let's not misplace our condescension on a $90 million space shot.
Hopefully you got to see the launch today of Elon Musk's car into space.
Dwight
Level 7
Feb 6, 2018
0
What's the point of a car in space?
@Hope4Zoe Elon Musk is a bit of a card, and a wild one at that. He's been breaking the 'it can't be done rules' consistently. So it's kind of a joke (a big thumb nose to detroit) to put a car that couldn't be built in deep space, it's also just a marketing trick - get some attention.
I was at primary school when Armstrong walked on the moon, they piled us all into a hall with a television. Those who remember know there were quite some delays, so they let us out to stretch our legs. I walked into the playground and looked up at the moon, I was overwhelmed to think there were some guys up there and soon I would be watching one walk around. I must have been about 11.
Rugglesby
Level 8
Feb 6, 2018
6
Varn:
...think I was around the same age.. But it was summer up here 
When they landed, I was at ‘the Portland Drags!’ They stopped the ‘drag racing’ to play the landing on the PA … magnificent! I’d been hooked on everything Apollo..
And when you consider that your telephone probably has far more computing power than the had back then ... both in space and at mission control ...
In fact that was probably about the time my acquaintance was arguing with New Zealand farmers that glass bottles would cease to be used for milk containers!
@FrayedBear yep, the Apollo 11 had about the same computing power as a commodore 64. It had 2kb ram and 32 kb of storage running at a little over 1 mhz. My phone has a quadcore 1.2ghz processor, and it is nowhere near a powerful phone.
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