Our friend andastronaut bloggerLeroy Chiao was an pay for guest at theApollo 1140th Anniversary gala last night . Here he shares a few shots , his retentivity of the Eagle touchdown , and his view on the next moon military mission .
A Spam and earthnut butter ( chunky ) sandwich : That was what I had for lunch , forty years ago , just before find out along with the respite of the cosmos as Eagle advert down on the surface of the Moon .
It was a hot summer day in Danville , California . My family lived in a skillful menage , in a nice neighborhood . Nevertheless our home , like many build in that era , did n’t have melodic phrase conditioning . So , my sire actuate the kinfolk TV gear up ( 19″ black and white , lapin capitulum antenna ) out onto the part shaded back patio . He sprayed water onto the concrete , which helped make it surprisingly cooler .
My friends , two brothers Mike and Russ , were visiting . We had been friends for a long meter ( two age was recollective clip to an eight twelvemonth one-time ) . So , they had become accustomed to being served funny concoction at my menage , invented by my Dad . Spam and monkey nut butter sandwich was one of those . It was surprisingly , not too bad . I had try out once with a plain Spam sandwich . I quickly went back to including the chunky peanut butter .
I can think back like it was yesterday , watching that grainy pitch-black and ashen telecasting and listening in as Eagle approach the surface of the Moon and set ashore . Even as a young boy , I fuck that the world had just changed . I also bonk that I require to be like those guys on the Moon . I require to be an cosmonaut !
Twenty years later , I found myself in Houston , interview at NASA to be a member of the thirteenth astronaut group . What a heady time — President Bush ( 41 ) had just herald the Space Exploration Initiative ( SEI ) , call in for a return to the Moon to stay , followed by a crewed foreign mission to Mars . And , we had spaceman in cardinal NASA management situation , including the Administrator himself .
SEI fell flat , soon after the President die to win reelection . The $ 400 billion cost tag quoted by NASA might also have had something to do with it . Fifteen years after the SEI announcement , I find myself standing with a small mathematical group of fellow astronauts at NASA Headquarters , as President Bush ( 43 ) announced the Vision for Space Exploration ( VSE ) in the wake of the Space Shuttle Columbia accident . The Vision call in for , among other thing , a crew retort to the Moon by 2020 , and a crew mission to Mars , on an indefinite docket .
The Constellation program , which grew out of the VSE , was described by then - NASA Administrator Mike Griffin as “ Apollo on Steroids . ” Indeed , it called for the creation of a capsule space vehicle ( albeit , much larger ) . Five years into Constellation , the nation stands at a crossroads . The program has had its plowshare of challenge and disceptation and the budget is universally agreed to be poor . Newly inaugurated President Obama has ordered a review and a report , outlining a set of option for NASA and the agency ’s new Administrator . ( I am a extremity of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Committee . )
Today , on the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11Moon landing , our return to the Moon is tenuous , at considerably . Who , in 1969 , could have imagined that we would not have regular travel to and from Moon bases by the twentieth day of remembrance of Apollo 11 ? The proclamation of the SEI in 1989 gave us hope that we would be back on the Moon to stay , within another twenty years . Those twenty years have now top .
Tonight , I was an invited guest at the fortieth Apollo anniversary festivity at the National Air and Space Museum . Everything was arrant : The Apollo 11 crew — Neil Armstrong , Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were graceful and stately against the backdrop of historic air and space vehicle . Other Apollo - geological era astronauts , like my friend Walt Cunningham , were also shining honorees . They were all a part of it !
It was a admonisher of onetime times , of the past splendor and wonderment of the Apollo era . The time when we , as a Carry Amelia Moore Nation , felt like nothing was unacceptable ! A time , when Spam and peanut butter ( chunky ) , tasted better than almost anything .
Should we look back at the last forty age and be disappoint ? I believe that would be a error . Skylab was a resounding success . Despite the challenge , the Space Shuttle and ISS are marvellous fly machines . We go down the road of international cooperation with the Apollo - Soyuz Test Project , and led the formation and maturement of the current , highly successful outside partnership . We have not had the big place run since Apollo , but we have made unfluctuating advancement .
Where will the next twenty age take us ? Against all betting odds , Spam is still going strong . lease ’s keep moving forward too .
Leroy Chiao , Ph.D. attend to as a NASA spaceman from 1990 - 2005 . During his 15 - year career , he flew four missions into space , three times on Space Shuttles and once as the co-pilot of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station . On that flight , he served as the commander of Expedition 10 , a six and a half month mission . Dr. Chiao has perform six spacewalks , in both US and Russian spacesuits , and has lumber nearly 230 days in place .
Dr. Chiao is Gizmodo ’s official spaceman ( and “ astroblogger “ ) . On affair , he still eat Spam and peanut butter ( chunky ) sandwiches .
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