Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 08:00:45 -0400
From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: [WSFA] Last Man on the Moon recalls US era of courage to do the impossible
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Excerpt:
"When Kennedy challenged us to go to the moon we didn't know beans about it,"
says Cernan, now aged 80. "We had 16 minutes [of space experience]. Al Shepard
[the first American to go into space] went up and came down. I was just a
young lieutenant flying out in the West Pacific off aircraft carriers, and at
that time I believed \226 and I think most other people did too \226 that they were
asking us to do something that was impossible. And then all of a sudden we got
involved \226 all of us. And the rest is history. Don't tell me I can't do it: I
think that's the America I grew up in."

It's this faith in imagination that Cernan suggests the US space programme
lacks today. Nasa has seen its funding decline over the decades since he left
the moon. It now receives less than half a percent of the total federal budget.

"It's unfortunate \226 a half century ago Americans were walking on the moon,"
says Cernan. "Today we've been told it's going to take a trampoline to get us
back to our own space station. That hurts quite frankly."
--- end excerpt ---

<http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jun/08/last-man-on-moon-documentary-eugene-cernan>

And, goddamn it, the one I grew up in. Oh, and the government successfully did it.

          mark