The Moon Landings: No bucks, no Buck Rogers

I recently posted on Emily Callandrelli and her Science show Xploration Outer Space HERE.
Well, she has an excellent episode on the past and proposed moon landings: Journey to the Moon.

The line from the “Right Stuff” says it all: No bucks, No Buck Rogers.
And here’s an excerpt from the original Buck Rogers 1939 film series, which I saw later in the late 50’s and early 60’s as a kid on TV! (I ain’t that fucking old to have seen it at the theatre).
Check it out!!

I’ll never forget the corny flying rockets with the sputtering bottle rocket/sparkler exhaust. Remember this is 1939 BEFORE real rockets (the V2 in WWII is a few years off) and this was state of the art special effects science fiction.

Well the moon landings, despite retarded conspiracy theorists out there trying to convince the world it was all a hoax werent science fiction, they were the real deal and the plans for future exploration of the moon are no fantasy either.
As Emily’s video shows its been over 40 years since the last Apollo mission. The public and the government lost interest. The space race was won so to speak. And the funding for NASA dried up going from 4-5% of the federal budget in the mid-60’s to 0.5% today: NASA Budget.

Watch Emily’s Journey to the Moon video at the top for what’s happening now. The planned robotic exploration of the moon is fascinating and all the more probable to succeed given the incredible continuing adventures of the Mars rovers.

The success of the US 60’s space program was absolutely beyond belief. I have blogged on it before HERE. From the first Explorer satellite in space in ’57 and the first man in space in ’61 we land on the moon in ’69. Unfuckingreal. We have lost that level of the sense of adventure and exploration. 12 people have stepped on the moon, who might be lucky 13, and when?
Currently the race back to the moon is not for manned exploration but robots and not by NASA but by private companies competing for the Google X prize of 30 million dollars if successful.
Water, minerals, a base for solar system exploration, knowledge, and bucks. All good reasons to return.
At least there’s bucks for Buck Rogers’ robots for now.

Onward and Upward.