Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
tomtom
Social climber
Seattle, Wa
|
|
That $100+ billion was a lot less than we paid out to a few financial institutions who just did stupid things.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
how about some inspiration...
"...Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.
We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.
There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.
In the last 24 hours we have seen facilities now being created for the greatest and most complex exploration in man's history. We have felt the ground shake and the air shattered by the testing of a Saturn C-1 booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas which launched John Glenn, generating power equivalent to 10,000 automobiles with their accelerators on the floor. We have seen the site where five F-1 rocket engines, each one as powerful as all eight engines of the Saturn combined, will be clustered together to make the advanced Saturn missile, assembled in a new building to be built at Cape Canaveral as tall as a 48 story structure, as wide as a city block, and as long as two lengths of this field.
Within these last 19 months at least 45 satellites have circled the earth. Some 40 of them were made in the United States of America and they were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to the people of the world than those of the Soviet Union.
The Mariner spacecraft now on its way to Venus is the most intricate instrument in the history of space science. The accuracy of that shot is comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and dropping it in this stadium between the 40-yard lines.
Transit satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer course. Tiros satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of hurricanes and storms, and will do the same for forest fires and icebergs.
We have had our failures, but so have others, even if they do not admit them. And they may be less public.
To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned flight. But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this decade, we shall make up and move ahead.
The growth of our science and education will be enriched by new knowledge of our universe and environment, by new techniques of learning and mapping and observation, by new tools and computers for industry, medicine, the home as well as the school. Technical institutions, such as Rice, will reap the harvest of these gains.
And finally, the space effort itself, while still in its infancy, has already created a great number of new companies, and tens of thousands of new jobs. Space and related industries are generating new demands in investment and skilled personnel, and this city and this state, and this region, will share greatly in this growth. What was once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the West will be the furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space. Houston, your city of Houston, with its Manned Spacecraft Center, will become the heart of a large scientific and engineering community. During the next 5 years the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to double the number of scientists and engineers in this area, to increase its outlays for salaries and expenses to $60 million a year; to invest some $200 million in plant and laboratory facilities; and to direct or contract for new space efforts over $1 billion from this center in this city.
To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This year's space budget is three times what it was in January 1961, and it is greater than the space budget of the previous eight years combined. That budget now stands at $5,400 million a year--a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year. Space expenditures will soon rise some more, from 40 cents per person per week to more than 50 cents a week for every man, woman and child in the United States, for we have given this program a high national priority--even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us. But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold...."
-John Kennedy - Rice University, September 12, 1962
|
|
Rudder
Trad climber
Long Beach, CA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 4, 2011 - 02:44am PT
|
|
|
Mangy Peasant
Social climber
Riverside, CA
|
|
That's how they rolled back then. They were willing to sacrifice, and had badasses willing to sign up for this hit, to accomplish a goal
Today, we've got thousands of badass kids signing up to go to Iraq and Afghanistan year after year, willing to sacrifice.
Now if someone could tell me what "goal" they are trying to accomplish...
|
|
Rudder
Trad climber
Long Beach, CA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 8, 2011 - 01:50am PT
|
|
|
TrundleBum
Trad climber
Las Vegas
|
|
Actually, don't dis the slide rule, or for that matter the carpenter's framing square. They don't need batteries and they survive impacts such as drops to the floor quite handily.
|
|
FireIntheCity
Mountain climber
from t'Hate-haunted canyon of human despair
|
|
^^^ word
FAKT: GET TOOZ THAT WOEULD WORK ON GILLIGAN'S ISLAND AND LEARN HOE TO USE THEM FOR THE COMING ACROPOLIPS
|
|
Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
|
|
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
Fritz-
Now THAT'S a great photo and caption!
BDC
|
|
rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
|
|
why is the flag "blowing in the wind" if there's no atmosphere? just asking...
|
|
mastadon
Trad climber
crack addict
|
|
One of my favorites..
|
|
nature
climber
back in Tuscon Aridzona....
|
|
|
|
Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
|
|
Slide rules ruled at Georgia Tech in 1954, and we all swaggered, having our little swords hanging from our belts - a lot more romantic than carting around an Ipad.
Well, in 1991 when I arrived at Ma Tech, we'd moved on to the HP48GX and swaggered down North Ave to the Varsity for some chili dogs with a green engineering pad and our prized $220 HPs in their little foam cases.
But my boss at my intern job at the time was also a Tech grad from the 50s (Al Herndon, a CE...maybe you knew him?) and had his slide rule on the wall of his office. First one I'd ever seen. He briefly showed me how it worked. Fascinating to someone who grew up in the pocket calculator era.
|
|
Norwegian
Trad climber
Placerville, California
|
|
"we're astronauts of inner space"
-merry pranksters
|
|
jfailing
Trad climber
Lone Pine
|
|
41 Posts and only like 7 pictures??
|
|
rmuir
Social climber
From the Time Before the Rocks Cooled.
|
|
Someone has been calculating the angle of their dangle... There's an app for that...
|
|
Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
|
|
My father graduated at the University of Saskatchewan, civil engineering 1949. For his classes' 50th anniversary reunion, he made a display out of a wide variety of slide rules he'd gotten at garage sales. One for each class member, and one for each professor. It's now hanging on the wall in the engineering building
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!