I was too young to know this existed in 1967--when it first aired. I saw it in re-runs later, when my parents made a habit of watching it. There has never been a decade in my living memory when I was without this Science Fiction TV show. No matter where I have lived, I've always been able to find it on the TV schedule at least one day a week. I owe some of what I am today to the performances of those actors, and the imagination of the show's creator.
Justin Oldham, author and commentator. Observations and opinions about anything and everything.
Showing posts with label Space. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Space. Show all posts
53rd Anniversary of Star Trek
I just wanted to take a quick moment to briefly acknowledge the occasion of this historic observance. 53 years ago today, the original Star Trek television series was broadcast to American audiences who saw it on small cathode ray picture tubes. Many of them saw it in black-and-white, because they did not yet have a color television set.
I was too young to know this existed in 1967--when it first aired. I saw it in re-runs later, when my parents made a habit of watching it. There has never been a decade in my living memory when I was without this Science Fiction TV show. No matter where I have lived, I've always been able to find it on the TV schedule at least one day a week. I owe some of what I am today to the performances of those actors, and the imagination of the show's creator.
I was too young to know this existed in 1967--when it first aired. I saw it in re-runs later, when my parents made a habit of watching it. There has never been a decade in my living memory when I was without this Science Fiction TV show. No matter where I have lived, I've always been able to find it on the TV schedule at least one day a week. I owe some of what I am today to the performances of those actors, and the imagination of the show's creator.
49th Anniversary Apollo Moon Landing
49 years ago today, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Astronaut Neil Armstrong exited the landing module and walked on the lunar surface. "Buzz" Aldrin--who is still alive today--followed him. Millions of us watched this happened in black-and-white on July 20th, 1969. It was a unique moment in human history, I don't mind saying that it left an impression on me.
It's been said that the more things change, the more they remain the same. Neil Armstrong is quoted as saying, "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind..." when he first set foot on the moon. I don't think I have ever seen anything more inspiring, it's a simple truth that makes our present-day situation seem like a step backward. All I want to say to inquisitive future historians who read this is: we forgot the lessons of our past. That's why we are repeating what looks and sounds like a chapter from the Cold War.
There's a lot going on that we here-and-now can't easily evaluate/process in the heat of this moment. It's a form of information overload, 21st Century social media and the internet as a whole overwhelm us in ways that no society has experienced before. As much as these resources encourage us to learn, they also cater to our prurient interests. It's hard to look away when so many things actively tempt us to think the worst. To be our better selves, we need to understand what's already happned and why some of it was never a good idea.
2019 marks the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11's lunar landing. Then as now, Russia is our adversary and today's elected leaders openly flirt with authoritarianism because they want to appear "strong." The old guard dies hard, we are witnessing the death of prejudices that have no place in a world where we can plan to visit Mars or go beyond our solar system. Intelligent minds and capable hands come in all shapes and sizes. Race, color, gender, and/or religion do not permit or prevent genius. For better or worse, we are what we choose to be.
It's been said that the more things change, the more they remain the same. Neil Armstrong is quoted as saying, "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind..." when he first set foot on the moon. I don't think I have ever seen anything more inspiring, it's a simple truth that makes our present-day situation seem like a step backward. All I want to say to inquisitive future historians who read this is: we forgot the lessons of our past. That's why we are repeating what looks and sounds like a chapter from the Cold War.
There's a lot going on that we here-and-now can't easily evaluate/process in the heat of this moment. It's a form of information overload, 21st Century social media and the internet as a whole overwhelm us in ways that no society has experienced before. As much as these resources encourage us to learn, they also cater to our prurient interests. It's hard to look away when so many things actively tempt us to think the worst. To be our better selves, we need to understand what's already happned and why some of it was never a good idea.
2019 marks the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11's lunar landing. Then as now, Russia is our adversary and today's elected leaders openly flirt with authoritarianism because they want to appear "strong." The old guard dies hard, we are witnessing the death of prejudices that have no place in a world where we can plan to visit Mars or go beyond our solar system. Intelligent minds and capable hands come in all shapes and sizes. Race, color, gender, and/or religion do not permit or prevent genius. For better or worse, we are what we choose to be.
5th Anniversary, Curiosity on Mars
I can't think of anything more inspiration than to see history in the making. Knowing you are there, seeing something happen that will be a big deal in books and movies for years to come is...well, it fascinates me. NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars during August 5-6 of 2012. I was eyeballing it like everyone else. Later on, I talked about it:
As I write this in the middle of August 5, 2017: there is no media real coverage of this anniversary. You can look at it as no big deal--or--a sign that we've gotten used to this sort of thing. In my own way, for my own reasons, this was and still is one of those events that motivates me to write.
A part of me wants to believe that someday, in our distant future, 23rd Century people will wonder what took us so long to colonize Mars, or build a permanent installation on the moon. It's going to be hard for them to see this from our point of view, world politics will be so much different that we're going to seem backward or lazy. All I can say to those future skeptics is: somebody had to do it first.
History is full of "firsts" that happen by accident, or came out of nowhere because the majority of us were not expect it (whatever it was). Because little things make a big thing, we should remember that space travel is going to be a lot of little things that have to work properly. That's why so much of what I tend to write deals with accidents and the risks associated with complex technology.
With all that in mind, I mark this date with my own minor insignificant blog post. Somewhere on this planet--right now--thousands of engineers and scientists are working hard to figure this out. They'll give us space flight and we'll still be ungrateful for it, even in the future.
As I write this in the middle of August 5, 2017: there is no media real coverage of this anniversary. You can look at it as no big deal--or--a sign that we've gotten used to this sort of thing. In my own way, for my own reasons, this was and still is one of those events that motivates me to write.
A part of me wants to believe that someday, in our distant future, 23rd Century people will wonder what took us so long to colonize Mars, or build a permanent installation on the moon. It's going to be hard for them to see this from our point of view, world politics will be so much different that we're going to seem backward or lazy. All I can say to those future skeptics is: somebody had to do it first.
History is full of "firsts" that happen by accident, or came out of nowhere because the majority of us were not expect it (whatever it was). Because little things make a big thing, we should remember that space travel is going to be a lot of little things that have to work properly. That's why so much of what I tend to write deals with accidents and the risks associated with complex technology.
With all that in mind, I mark this date with my own minor insignificant blog post. Somewhere on this planet--right now--thousands of engineers and scientists are working hard to figure this out. They'll give us space flight and we'll still be ungrateful for it, even in the future.
48th Anniversary, Apollo 11
"One small step for man, one giant leap for Mankind..."
The space race of the 1960's was like no other event in human history. As one of our better "firsts," USA competed with USSR to be the first nation in space, or on the Moon. Cosmonaut vs. Astronaut inspired an entire generation of subject matter experts to go beyond what they believed or knew to be "possible." The events of July 20th, 1969 played their own role in defining what I now believe to be possible. I saw that moon landing with my own eyes, on a black-and-white television.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (i.e., NASA) was a media sensation before anyone knew the names of those people who had "the right stuff." America's fascination with what it would mean to put a human in space--or on the moon--was so intense that it shaped what we saw on TV or reading in Science Fiction novels.
Forty-eight years later, we don't see much on television about anniversaries like this. They'll make a big deal out of it during the 50th Anniversary, but--for now--this part of our past is mostly forgotten by the mainstream media. As I write this, the lest of the Apollo astronauts died in 2016 after a long and prosperous life. He and most of his peers lived long enough to see the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. In the next few years, 21st Century viewers will watch the Chinese land on the moon. Will that start a new space race?
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