Hey,idiots, one of my friends knows the answer. Nobody knows couse you aren’t allowed to know but we all know something about that alien that hit in Roswell and Truman shook Stalin’s hand and then something was slipped into Uncle Joe’s tea and my friend told me it’s the alien lying in area 51 who told us all this but I dare not reveal the secr—
I agree that’s amazing.
Also, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, transportation was limited to the speed at which a horse could run (or the wind could blow). Machinery was also, for the most part, dependent on muscle power. That had not changed in thousands of years. At the end of the nineteenth century, railroads were crossing continents. Steamships were crossing oceans. Factories were producing goods in ways unheard of earlier.
That’s the funny part: at the turn of the 20th century, with explorers like Shackleton able to bring civilisation to Antarctica (the camp his team built still stands), it’s easy to see how Westerners could feel like their society had already reached a technological pinnacle. But there was still so much to come within a young person’s lifetime, as you say.
My grandmother used to tell the story of the first time she saw an automobile. She also got to watch an automobile on the moon. She lived long enough to see the first space shuttle as well.
Don’t insult other posters outside of the Pit.
OTOH, cold fusion is taking a little longer, as is also a vaccine or cure for AIDS.
ETA: Make that any kind of controlled fusion is taking a little longer.
I think that the difference is that most of what’s being discussed in this thread were engineering problems, whereas things like an aids vaccine or controlled fusion with a net energy gain require new science.
Those Roswell aliens gave our technology a tremendous boost. We went from vacuum tubes to integrated IC chips in 30 years. The Model T to a lunar rover in a generation. The telegraph to radio, then tv and now streaming video.
It’s more than just the deadline. It was the competition, and more so because we were behind. We didn’t want to go to bed each night by the light of a communist moon.
IMNSHO, it’s a national disgrace that we do not have a functioning base on the Moon today.
I blame the Russians. They cancelled their moon programme just as it might have bourne fruit. They could have done a lunar flyby even before Apollo 8. But, once the U.S. got going then just said, fuck it.
Of course as it turned out, they did win the space race ultimately, so there is that.
I’m guessing another factor was a less robust bureaucracy back in those days. Can you imagine how we’d have stalled if those in charge of the funding were pandering to a fundy constituency?
Maybe I’m too cynical, but I feel like we’d be doing more in space in a different political atmosphere, and I don’t mean “beat the Commies to the moon.”
Sorry, didn’t mean harm. I got a little too carried away.
There were plenty of fundies back then, but everything took a back seat to the cold war. For the most part, the fundies were happy to see us one-up the Soviet’s in any way possible. They certainly didn’t want a bunch of commie atheists on the Moon.
Not a problem - you were just in touch with your inner alien.
So instead we got Buzz Aldrin breaking bread and drinking wine when he landed in the Sea of Tranquility.
Obligatory (if slightly depressing) XKCD reference.
Also, since the Concorde was brought up, here’s a nice nostalgic piece about the Concorde’s 27 years of service.
Didn’t they have a very large booster explode on the pad a short while before the launch of Apollo 11?
The Saturn V with the Apollo capsule and escape tower on it was longer than the Wright brother’s first flight.
They had a few in-flight blowups around that time, but the pre-launch disaster you’re probably thinking of is the Nedelin Catastrophe, which happened in 1960.
The Soviet manned lunar program sort of cancelled itself, what with all four N-1 boosters exploding during test flights (and some having barely left the launch pad).
But going to the OT, I don’t think it’s fair to count just the years from Sputnik to Apollo 11. Von Braun started serious design on the A-4 (V-2) in 1938/9. And Goddard launched the first liquid fueled rocket in 1926.
Just sayin’. :o