That’s how long it’s been since the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, with a second one on Nagasaki three days later, ending the war and probably saving millions of lives. Gerard Vanderleun thinks that it’s been too long (three generations now), and perhaps the world needs another reminder. Nuke something for peace.
Category Archives: History
Space As Exploration
Can someone explain to me the point of this long essay (assuming that it actually has one)? Because I seem to be missing it.
Forty-One Years Ago
One small step for (a) man, one giant leap (too far) for mankind.
Apollo Anniversary Thoughts
Nothing has happened since the fortieth anniversary to change my opinions in the long essay I wrote last summer.
Four decades have passed since the first small step on the dusty surface of our nearest neighbor in the solar system in 1969. It has been almost that long since the last man to walk on the Moon did so in late 1972. The Apollo missions were a stunning technological achievement and a significant Cold War victory for the United States. However, despite the hope of observers at the time—and despite the nostalgia and mythology that now cloud our memory—Apollo was not the first step into a grand human future in space. From the perspective of forty years, Apollo, for all its glory, can now be seen as a detour away from a sustainable human presence in space. By and large, the NASA programs that succeeded Apollo have kept us heading down that wrong path: Toward more bureaucracy. Toward higher costs. And away from innovation, from risk-taking, and from any concept of space as a useful place.
As I wrote, Apollo was a magnificent technological achievement, but in terms of opening up space, it was not only a failure, but the false lessons learned from it have held us back ever since.
Happy Birthday
I was thinking that this would be a good iPhone/iPad app, but apparently someone was way ahead of me.
An Interesting Google Ad
This looks like an interesting course:
Have you ever wondered: How do various scholarly discourses—cosmology, geology, anthropology, biology, history—fit together?
Big History answers that question by weaving a single story from a variety of scholarly disciplines. Like traditional creation stories told by the world’s great religions and mythologies, Big History provides a map of our place in space and time. But it does so using the insights and knowledge of modern science, as synthesized by a renowned historian.
This is a story scholars have been able to tell only since the middle of the last century, thanks to the development of new dating techniques in the mid-1900s. As Professor Christian explains, this story will continue to grow and change as scientists and historians accumulate new knowledge about our shared past.
I and others actually tried to condense this story down to something that can be told in forty-five minutes or so at the dinner table, which we tell on Moon Day (coming up two weeks from today, on the forty-first anniversary of the lunar landing).
What was really interesting, though (and what mindless stereotypers on the left will find boggling) was that it was a Google ad at National Review…
Jobs Americans Can’t Do
Scott Ott, on the disastrous state of the American educational system, thanks to the unions and collectivists. They’ve achieved Dewey’s dream.
And this seems related:
There’s good news for American education. About three-quarters of residents — 74% — know the U.S. declared its independence from Great Britain in 1776. The bad news for the academic system — 26% do not. This 26% includes one-fifth who are unsure and 6% who thought the U.S. separated from another nation. That begs the question, “From where do the latter think the U.S. achieved its independence?” Among the countries mentioned are France, China, Japan, Mexico, and Spain.
Actually, as a commenter points out, it raises the question — it doesn’t “beg” it (a phrase that confuses many people). Which is also a symptom of deteriorating education, even among the supposedly educated.
The Rest Of The Story
The previously hidden verses of the Star Spangled Banner.
And to think that some people want to replace it with that commie song by Woody Guthrie.
Dunkirk Evacuation Delayed For Safety
June 1, 1940
DOVER (Routers) The evacuation of British and French troops from the besieged French city of Dunkirk was halted today, over concerns that many of the private vessels that had been deployed for the task were unsafe for troop transport.
Government officials ordered all soldiers to hold their places on the harbour waterfront and beaches, and those in the water were told to hold up boarding as well, until the various fishing and pleasure vessels could be inspected by the Home Guard, to ensure that there were sufficient life vests, fire extinguishers and other safety devices on each one. Each boat will also have to be tested for leaks before it will be deemed safe for the passage across the Channel.
“We can’t risk our soldiers’ lives on these cheap boats,” explained one official. “The Germans are firing on our ships, and we’ve already lost six destroyers to submarines and aerial bombardments, three of them just today. If all those non-military boats don’t have the proper safety gear, they won’t stand a chance,” he shouted over the din of incoming mortar fire from German troops only two miles away.
Many of the troops agreed. One of them, standing chest deep in the surf, holding his weapon out of the water, said “The Home Guard always knows best, that’s what I always say.” Ducking down at the sound of a nearby artillery shell hitting the beach, he came back up for air. “We can’t be expected to risk our lives on those floating death traps. The colonel said that some of those fishing boats have exposed hooks on the deck. We could stab ourselves something nasty if they go through our boots. And look at that rickety dinghy there. We’d probably spend half the trip to old Blighty bailing it. And think of the splinter danger.”
In response to concerns that the troops might be in danger if they remained much longer, the notion was pooh poohed. “Jerry knows how dangerous those boats are. That’s probably why they’ve held up on the final assault. It will only be a couple more weeks until we can get a shipment of life preservers and fire extinguishers in from Southampton. Nothing comes before the safety of our troops.”
[Copyright 2010 by Rand Simberg]