JTP
New Member
After the Apollo 11 through 17 moon landings (minus #13), and those excellent Skylab missions, NASA had one Apollo shot left. Instead of another Skylab mission, the last Apollo went into Earth orbit to dock with a Soyuz. It was an excercise in Political Science, to the detriment of Space Science.
At the time it was hyped as a great demonstration of detente, a relaxing of the tension of the crossbow string that was the Cold War. In a way, it was a good idea- to have Astronauts and Cosmonauts and all the planet-lubber scientists and engineers work together to bring off a rendezvous in orbit. The Space Race ended on a concillatory note there. It also showed up the ridiculous nature of the Cold War and the Space Race.
The Soviets launched the first orbital satellite; put the first mammals (canine, and male and female humans) in orbit; the first lunar, solar, and planetary probes, and did the first extra-vehicular activity in space. They also performed the first docking of spacecraft in orbit. The Soviet Space program killed a lot of their own people, but they had a hard-headed commonsense approach that you can't help but admire. One of my favorite (perhaps apocryphal) tales of the Space Race: The U.S. spent millions on a zero-gravity ink pen. The Cosmonauts just used a pencil!
The United States played catch-up until Apollo, and put the first humans on the moon. This was an amazing enough technological achievement on it's own, but even more so when we remember that the nation was going through a violent social upheaval, and committing huge amounts of talent, blood and dollars to the conflict in Vietnam.
The Apollo moon landings were much more than planting a flag and winning a race. Scientific research and development was boosted to a level that we haven't seen before or since, with most of the benefits falling into the peaceful category. We shared most of our discoveries instead of keeping them secret. Once again, the citizens of the USA could be as proud as we were of Ben Franklin, who shared his lightning rod without patent or profit for the benefit of the world. Unfortunately, that wasn't to last. There was a transparency and open trade of data from Apollo that didn't carry over to the Space Shuttle era. A lot of those 1980's and 1990's shuttle missions were top-secret spy satellite, Star Wars "James Bond- kinda stuff". Sure kept us "safe" in 2001, didn't it?
The selfish, port-hungry, paranoid Soviet establishment is as much to blame as anyone. Their brave and competent Cosmonauts were world-class heroes, as much so as any of our Astronauts. Their scientists and engineers accomplished feats just as great as any others on Planet Earth. Unfortunately, their political leaders were stuck on 1946, as were many of ours. Imagine what heights humankind could have acheived if, instead of a "Space Race", with all it's competitive, wasteful redundancy, we could have had a cooperative GOAL, with all the pooled resources of earth, all the brainpower working together, to gather data and advance knowledege, instead of trying to prove who is first and best. The ISS is great, but a bit too little, much too late. Planet Earth still backs up the toilet wherever we go.
Apollo- Soyuz was lip-service. It was a failure, but just as much, it was a symptom of the whole disease.
At the time it was hyped as a great demonstration of detente, a relaxing of the tension of the crossbow string that was the Cold War. In a way, it was a good idea- to have Astronauts and Cosmonauts and all the planet-lubber scientists and engineers work together to bring off a rendezvous in orbit. The Space Race ended on a concillatory note there. It also showed up the ridiculous nature of the Cold War and the Space Race.
The Soviets launched the first orbital satellite; put the first mammals (canine, and male and female humans) in orbit; the first lunar, solar, and planetary probes, and did the first extra-vehicular activity in space. They also performed the first docking of spacecraft in orbit. The Soviet Space program killed a lot of their own people, but they had a hard-headed commonsense approach that you can't help but admire. One of my favorite (perhaps apocryphal) tales of the Space Race: The U.S. spent millions on a zero-gravity ink pen. The Cosmonauts just used a pencil!
The United States played catch-up until Apollo, and put the first humans on the moon. This was an amazing enough technological achievement on it's own, but even more so when we remember that the nation was going through a violent social upheaval, and committing huge amounts of talent, blood and dollars to the conflict in Vietnam.
The Apollo moon landings were much more than planting a flag and winning a race. Scientific research and development was boosted to a level that we haven't seen before or since, with most of the benefits falling into the peaceful category. We shared most of our discoveries instead of keeping them secret. Once again, the citizens of the USA could be as proud as we were of Ben Franklin, who shared his lightning rod without patent or profit for the benefit of the world. Unfortunately, that wasn't to last. There was a transparency and open trade of data from Apollo that didn't carry over to the Space Shuttle era. A lot of those 1980's and 1990's shuttle missions were top-secret spy satellite, Star Wars "James Bond- kinda stuff". Sure kept us "safe" in 2001, didn't it?
The selfish, port-hungry, paranoid Soviet establishment is as much to blame as anyone. Their brave and competent Cosmonauts were world-class heroes, as much so as any of our Astronauts. Their scientists and engineers accomplished feats just as great as any others on Planet Earth. Unfortunately, their political leaders were stuck on 1946, as were many of ours. Imagine what heights humankind could have acheived if, instead of a "Space Race", with all it's competitive, wasteful redundancy, we could have had a cooperative GOAL, with all the pooled resources of earth, all the brainpower working together, to gather data and advance knowledege, instead of trying to prove who is first and best. The ISS is great, but a bit too little, much too late. Planet Earth still backs up the toilet wherever we go.
Apollo- Soyuz was lip-service. It was a failure, but just as much, it was a symptom of the whole disease.
