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Forty Four Years Ago Today Neil And Buzz Set Foot On The Moon!
2013 Jul 19, 11:52pm 694 views 11 comments
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The US and its trickle down economics lifted alll boats. Many people were getting degrees in Science and Engineering. In the early 70s, living in Long Beach the smartest people I had met were working in Semiconductors, for Rockwell, Boeing, on the Space Shuttle. Most of the people with vision were into sciences. There was 1-2 Million people in SoCal and likely 2-3 Million people NorCal and working in jobs related to Technology. With these 4-5 Million people working at HP, Fairchild, Emerson, Maytag, Ford, the California economy was thriving - my friends parents had new Mustangs, LTDs, and Chevrolets.
A Chism in that the pot smokers were making fun of the visionaries, and the number of Pot smokers outnumbered the Scientists and Engineers, and ironically it was the Engineers that raised the standard of living in CA, the US and the World.
The Pot Smokers were telling me to not get into science, but they liked the Loudspeakers I built in High School.
At some point I chose Electronics Technician, and went in the Navy. Each of the Pot Smokers who continued turned into Democrats. Fortunately, after many of my friends suggested that I not go into engineering, and its for geeks, I did. I graduated and at the time many Asians were coming over, and they had the lowest drop out rate. Then Demming went to work for Honda and people in the Sciences tried to sound the Alarm, but it went unheeded.
Fortunatly for me, I got a internship job working for the Space Shuttle. The intelligence, and hard work of the Scientists working on the Shuttle were incredible. Its not chance that all but two of the flights of ;the reusable STS were sucessfull.
Now our schools are full of foreigners, and the US taxpayers are subsidizing other countries future. We have Lawyers running the country with short term fiascos that they then fix, and they convince people to vote for them.
The USA did and can do Space Travel, Science, Engineering. And the Ford Mustang was a good car for the time.
But NAFTA and the thinking behind NAFTA killed us. The lacked of US Scientists is like a guarantee of societal decline. Social Entitlements are the Anchor that assures the US that we cannot evaluate and generate solutions to financial crisses. And with Entitlements, we dont need Science anyhow. As one Democrat parent whose child was interested in Engineering told him "Science is for Asians". Democrat fais complete.
indigenous
2013 Jul 20, 3:25am
But NAFTA and the thinking behind NAFTA killed us
I hope your understanding of engineering is better than your understanding of economics.
The original post was great. Yours, not very much. This is so typical of a person with a one subject mindset. All pot smokers turned into Dems.
FYI, I know someone who dropped some serious amounts of acid in college. His college roommate dropped acid with him and died jumping through a dorm window because he thought he could fly.
That person is now a very hardcore Republican.
Therefore, I believe that all people that dropped acid during the 1970s are hardcore Republicans.
See how ridiculous that sounds?
Yes - its understandable that if you drop acid and see you friend die, then you shape up - because one realises the frailty.
On Economics - All men are create with certain rights, but you have to apply yourselves. People reap what they SOW. I am unsure about Bernankes leading the FED- with a PhD - whether he fully understands economics. If he is doing an experiment in economics, which if he believes that printing fiat money will help revive this economy, without spending more on key Jobs with ROI then I dont understand economics.
If we can outsource many manufacturing jobs, if we can have print money and we have a country where most countrymen have soft jobs in humanities, arts, and perform non productive based work, and we still can have a sustained revival I will admit to not understanding economics.
I would rather converse with people in the Sciences, Physics and Engineering. The people in the Science can think for themselves.
indigenous
2013 Jul 20, 3:49am
people in the Science can think for themselves
About science I agree, I see no scientific evidence they do when it comes to other fields
Rin
2013 Jul 20, 6:42am
What you've forgotten is that Americans who opt for studying engineering and the sciences, tend to later move into careers in business and finance, if not patent law or medicine. I'd studied applied chemistry/chemical engineering and today, I work for a hedge fund.
During the past decade, ~40% of MIT graduates (all levels) were recruited by management consulting and financial services firms, as opposed to tech.
Therefore, the ongoing trend has been to use engineering as a stepping stone for something else later. The only ppl who dream about working for NASA these days are ones who're out of touch with reality.
Bellingham Bill
2013 Jul 20, 6:45am
had issued an executive order making the next day a holiday for all Americans. We did not have to go to work
wat
Executive Order 11476
Prescribing the Manual for Courts-Martial, United States, 1969 (Revised edition)
Signed: June 19, 1969
Executive Order 11477
Authorizing the Atomic Energy Commission to make certain awards without the approval of the President
Signed: August 7, 1969
was that #11476 ½ ?
Bellingham Bill
2013 Jul 20, 6:51am
I was sure that this was the beginning of a true space age when humans would go to Mars, etc.
that's a romantic dream but the cold hard reality of space is that there's nothing all that economically viable up there.
The most inhospitable location on Earth is loads better than the least inhospitable location anywhere else in the solar system.
Probably even the bottom of the sea is more livable than the surface of Mars.
I'm all for unmanned exploration though, since that is a very useful R&D direction to throw brainpower at -- robots are immense wealth multipliers in the true capitalistic sense (creating wealth from wealth).
Dan8267
2013 Jul 20, 6:59am
My prediction: exactly six years from today the Google logo will reference the lunar landing. Can't wait. I bet it will be interactive.
Reality is all around us. The earth is surrounded and encased in the Periodic Table of Elements. Those who use this in the best manner live the best.
That getting degrees in Science leads to being a manager is like saying that vegetable come from the Grocery Store. Even sadder is a person who first understood sciences, and then becomes a bean counter.
Forty -four years ago man first set foot on the moon.
1969 was a surreal year. Most of us knew that the wild and liberated 1960's with all of its hope and revolution was fading. We did not know what was coming next. We believed that the Vietnam war would end soon. Right before the moon landing, Life Magazine ran a cover story about the 125 young men who died in Vietnam that week. They had a picture of each military person who died. I was in the US Navy and thankful that my picture was not there.
On that fateful Sunday my first wife and I decided to go for a ride from Houston to Beaumont on Hwy 90. As the afternoon rolled on, we listened to the progress of Apollo 11 as it headed for the moon. As the LEM got closer to the lunar surface, we pulled off into a rest area and stopped. We listened transfixed to the radio. Neil Armstrong was just like a great airline pilot who was so calm, reassuring, and competent that the passengers were not the least bit concerned. (Little did we know that he had a huge crisis on his hands with fuel very low and no good landing site detected. Neil literally had to "think outside the box" and come up with a wild lateral flight path that saved the day.) Our hearts beat fast and we were on the edge of our seats. Not a word was spoken. Finally we heard that the LEM had touched down and the motors had cut off. We were so relieved and sort of numb also. It had not sunk in yet what a great accomplishment we were witnessing. Later we listened as Neil stepped down from the LEM and put his feet on lunar soil.
We returned home after the landing. Ironically we lived in an apartment off of Waugh Drive in Houston. Our landlord was a very nice man named Larry Waldstrasse. He was an MIT graduate and worked at the Manned Spacecraft Center on the Apollo program.
My first wife decided to take a good nap after all of the excitement. I went to the offices of my employer at the time, Southwestern Bell Telephone Company. I joined my dear friend Ralph Wallace III and our supervisor Charles Weaver. We had a television on. We listened with great pride and fascination as President Nixon called Neil and Buzz from the White House and congratulated them on their incredible achievement. We all felt awed and proud. Later we got word that President Nixon had issued an executive order making the next day a holiday for all Americans. We did not have to go to work.
On Monday morning my first wife slept late. I got up early and got in our blue Mustang Mach One. I drove around the area where our apartment was for a long time. I felt so proud and happy. I was sure that this was the beginning of a true space age when humans would go to Mars, etc.
Sadly these great expectations were not realized. The Vietnam war went on for six more years. Some 21,000 more Americans would die. We had Watergate and a national crisis of confidence. Things never were the same.
I still feel incredible pride for that moment. It was one of the high points of my life.