Tag Archives: moon landing

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Artemis II impact was greater than I thought

Well, kids, it appears that the Artemis II mission to the moon and back had a greater impact on me than I thought it would have.

I could have done a lot of things today. The weather is warm and breezy. I could have spent the day outside working on my yard. Instead, I parked in front of the TV and watched two Netflix documentaries on the Apollo space program. One dealt with the Apollo 11 mission that put human beings on the moon’s surface for the first time. The other dealt with the Apollo 13 mission that brought home three astronauts in a high-stakes deep space rescue mission.

Yes, the Artemis II mission has invigorated my interest in recent history. It returned me to the days when I would await launches with my Mom, counting down until lift-off. Mom is gone now. I, of course, am now an old man … but damn, this stuff gets my heart beating rapidly.

And to reiterate what I’ve said already on this blog, I tend to allow my sappiness to show itself when I cry at signature moments while watching documentaries I have seen dozens of times already. It happened today when Neil Armstrong informed the world, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” And again, when the Apollo 13 chutes deployed and the astronauts splashed down safely in the ocean.

There truly are heroes still left in this world. Today’s binge-watching reminded me of what I have known all along.

Oh, and FYI … I did mow my front lawn.

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Can’t shake Artemis II’s afterglow

It’s weird feeling as I continue to feel in this period after a spectacular mission to orbit the moon.

The Artemis II flight launched April 1 was our first manned flight to the moon in 54 years. Four astronauts got an up-close look at the dark side of the moon and snapped some astonishing pictures they transmitted to Earth.

I wept when the rocket launched. I cried when the astronauts came out of their communications blackout upon re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Damn! I behaved like a schoolboy when I would watch the Mercury and Gemini flights with Mom.

I don’t want to shed that glow. I now believe that desire hinges on what we’ve been enduring while our federal government continues to flounder and thrash as it seeks to govern. NASA’s success with Artemis II reminds us that the government can do great things. That we have the technological know-how to accomplish a high-stakes mission.

It won’t get any easier when NASA starts to prep for its moon landing mission. The space agency is preparing a new rocket for that task, Artemis III, the largest rocket ever built.

OK, I did nothing to accomplish this success. I am just a citizen, a patriot and a man who’s sickened by what is happening here, and in Iran and all the many trouble spots around the world. I am looking for something on which to hang my hope for the future. Artemis II has helped restore my hope.

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More ‘hard’ tasks remain for NASA

President Kennedy once reminded us — as if we needed reminding — that humankind doesn’t reach for the stars because “it is easy”; we do so, he said, “because it is hard.”

Artemis II has returned four brave astronauts from its loop around the moon. The landing was picture perfect. The heroes splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at precisely, to the minute, on time. They called it a “bulls-eye” conclusion to the first lunar mission in 54 years.

Let us remember what JFK told us in 1962. This is an endeavor with many thousands of moving parts. Virtually anyone of them could produce a tragedy were they to fail. I won’t presume is less difficult in 2026 than it was in the early ’60s. Indeed, the nature of the technological beast that will transport future heroes may be more difficult.

Let us always presume that future missions contain grave risks to the human beings who suit up for missions such as the one that captivated the nation with Artemis II’s success doesn’t lure us into complacency.

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Yes, let’s go back to the moon!

President Kennedy had a rare talent for putting current events into context, for making us ponder the value of what we were about to undertake.

“We don’t seek to land on the moon because it is easy,” JFK said in a speech at Rice University in Houston. “We do it because it is hard.” Yes, the task of meeting Kennedy’s end-of-the 1960s goal of landing a man on the moon and “returning him safely to the Earth” was arguably the most challenging assignment ever handed to Americans.

We succeeded on July 20, 1969 when Neil Armstrong took “one giant leap for mankind” on the lunar surface.

Eleven more men would walk on the moon before we ended that program in 1972. But … we’re about to return to the one deep-space body that contains human footprints.

I am one American who relishes the idea of watching the next generation of astronauts continue our journey into the unknown of our world’s creation. Artemis II is set to take off soon. It will carry four astronauts to the moon. It will carry the first Black astronaut, the first female astronaut and the first astronaut from another country.

The question persists: Why do this again? I believe we should do it because we have a lot more to learn about the moon. The final Apollo mission, Apollo 17, brought back a trove of info on the moon. Did it close the book? Did it answer every question we ever will ask about Earth’s sole orbiting body? Hah!

I am delighted to see American ingenuity being put to work once again. Artemis II’s task will be to ferry space travelers 250,000 miles from Earth and bring them home safely. What’s more, as with the Apollo program, we have a race to win. This one is with China, which is planning a lunar landing of its own. NASA’s plans call for Artemis to land a crew in 2028.

Bruce McCandless, who’s written extensively about space travel, writes in an op-ed published Sunday in the Dallas Morning News, “You don’t get to be good at space travel by thinking about it. You get there by going.”

And so, we’ll be “going” there once more to fulfill humankind’s quest for knowledge.

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Wanting to cry again

My sappiness is a personality trait I have displayed with pride and without apology on this blog for many years.

My eyes get wet when I see historical events over and over: Muhammad Ali lighting the Olympic flame in 1996; Barack Obama declaring victory in the 2008 presidential election; the moon landing in July 1969.

I want to revisit briefly the final item I just listed. I watched a Netflix documentary titled “Apollo 11,” our nation’s first successful space mission that landed on the moon. Hey, I know how it turns out. But still, my eyes welled up when I heard Neil Armstrong declare, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

Today I made a decision as I watched the documentary film. It is that I want to cry again at our nation’s scientific know-how. It will come eventually when we send men back to the moon aboard another rocket, the Artemis ship that is being prepared to launch from Florida. The first mission won’t end with a moon landing, but the program eventually send astronauts to the moon for lengthy stays.

A long time ago, my mother and I would watch the Mercury astronauts lift off as the nation began its first baby steps toward space exploration. We continued to watch the missions of the Gemini program that succeeded Mercury. Then came Apollo. I wasn’t able to watch all of the Apollo missions with Mom, as I was serving in the Army. But I still cried when they were completed successfully.

We walked away from the moon missions. Skylab came and went. Then we had the shuttle missions. I cried when the three astronauts burned to death on Apollo 1 in January 1967. And when Challenger blew up moments after liftoff in January 1986. And when Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry in February 2003.

Artemis represents another “giant leap for mankind” when it will soar toward the moon. NASA’s goal is to use the moon to prep for missions to Mars. Oh, man … I hope I live long enough to see the first Mars mission lift off.

I am sick and tired of being angry at world events. I want desperately to cheer for some seriously positive — and heroic — deeds from ordinary men and women.

I want to cry tears of joy again.

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Ready for launch?

Americans of a certain age — which is a sort of code for “old folks” like me — recall a time when we waited with bated breath for space ships to launch from Florida en route to outer space.

It’s going to happen again, I believe. NASA has revealed the names of the crew to fly aboard the Artemis space ship in 2024. Its destination? The moon!

The Artemis II team will be made up of three Americans — Victor Glover, Christina Hammock Koch and Reid Wiseman — and one Canadian, Jeremy Hansen.

OK, it’s going to be a fly-by. A practice run preparing the space agency to land astronauts later on the moon’s surface as part of its preparation for eventually sending men and women to Mars.

I intend to await the launch when it occurs. I likely will awaken early that morning and watch on TV as NASA counts down prior to the ship firing and sailing away on its mission to the moon. For me, it’s going to be like the old days during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. Mom and I would wait endlessly for the launches. It was the highest drama possible.

The last Apollo mission flew in 1975. It was an Earth-orbit flight that hooked up with a Soviet space ship. The most recent moon landing occurred in 1972. Then NASA canceled the moon-landing program, citing lack of money and a reported lack of interest among Americans.

I do hope the interest returns to the public that needs an event such as this to cheer. I intend to be one of the cheerleaders.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Conspiracy theories live forever and ever

They will never die. Not ever. They will live far beyond all of our time on Earth. They’ll outlive my sons’ time, too.

What are “they”? Conspiracy theories! That’s what I’m talkin’ about!

Jeffrey Epstein’s death in the Manhattan, New York City jail cell has spawned ’em by the dozens. Already! You see, Epstein was supposed to stand trial after he pleaded not guilty to charges that he peddled young girls for sex.

Epstein had some high-powered friends. Two of them became “former friends” for reasons that aren’t exactly clear. Their names are Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. 

Now that Epstein is dead, the conspiracists have developed some hideous notions that Clinton might have been involved in killing him. Others have suggested Trump played a role in murdering Epstein.

These theories are going to take root. Their roots will run deep.

We’ve had our share of eternal conspiracy theories.

  • President Kennedy’s murder in Dallas couldn’t possibly have been committed by a lone rifleman.
  •  The 9/11 terrorist attacks were the work of those within the George W. Bush administration looking for reasons to go to war.
  •  President Barack Obama was born in Africa and was not qualified to run for the office to which he was elected twice.
  •  Those pictures from the moon’s surface were shot in a studio somewhere on Earth.
  •  Good grief, there are those who have suggested that President Roosevelt goaded the Japanese into attacking us at Pearl Harbor.

And so they have gone. They’ll go on forever.

Indeed, conspiracy theories already exist involving former President Clinton. They involve bogus allegations of people with dirt on the president and his wife ending up dead. Indeed, those phony rumors are thought to be the source of the latest defamatory rumors surrounding the death of the miserable pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Are there questions that need answering? Surely, yes.

However, I believe I can predict today that no matter how thorough the explanation, or how much evidence they produce to back whatever conclusions they draw about Epstein’s death, there will be those who will purport to disbelieve what they see and hear.

They will trade on conspiracy theories. What’s worse is that there will be those who are willing to take the bait.

Disgusting.

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Here come the Epstein conspiracy theories

If I were a betting man I might be willing to wager a lot of real American money on the prospect of conspiracy theories exploding all over the place in connection with the weird death of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

The former friend of presidents and assorted high rollers was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell this morning. He had been on suicide watch, which supposedly would have made a suicide a virtual impossibility. The lockup took him off the suicide watch, reportedly.

And then he hanged himself. Poof! Just like that the guy allegedly with tons of secrets about what he did with whom was gone. Forever. He’s deader’n a doornail.

Can’t you just imagine now how the conspiracy theories can develop?

I mean, he was friends with Bill Clinton and Donald J. Trump. He was worth many millions of dollars. He had been convicted already of a sex charge involving underage girls in Florida. The alleged prosecution of that case cost Labor Secretary Alex Acosta — who was a federal prosecutor in Florida when Epstein got caught — his job in the Trump administration.

As for former President Clinton, let’s just say he’s a conspiracy/scandal magnet. He’s been vilified amid myriad phony conspiracies dating back to when he was governor of Arkansas. Why stop concocting goofy conspiracies now?

Yep, there can be little doubt that the so-called theories are going to start flying. Who knows? They might rival the John F. Kennedy assassination, moon landing and Jimmy Hoffa conspiracies in their longevity.

Frankly, these theories sicken me.

I do, though, want answers on just how this low-life managed to kill himself while in the custody of law enforcement and corrections officials whose job was to ensure Jeffrey Epstein lived long enough to have this case adjudicated one way or another.

Talk to us. Now!

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Another NASA celebrity astronaut leaves us

There once was a time when astronauts were celebrities. We knew their names. We followed their careers. We got up early to watch them blast off from the Cape Canaveral, Fla., launch pad.

Another such astronaut — and please pardon this intended pun — has left this Earth for keeps. Alan Bean died today at age 86.

He was the fourth man to walk on the moon, aboard Apollo 12 in November 1969. He made the flight to the lunar surface with the late Charles “Pete” Conrad.

Alan Bean didn’t achieve the kind of celebrity status of, say, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, the seven men selected to fly in the initial Mercury missions, or most of the Gemini astronauts who came along later.

Bean was among those picked for the third group of space pioneers, the Apollo program. He joined NASA in 1963 after serving as a Navy test pilot.

My years in the Texas Panhandle makes me remind you that Bean hailed from that part of the world. He was a native of Wheeler, a tiny town east of Amarillo.

My most glaring memory of Bean’s time on the moon stems from some innovative measures he took to deploy a camera on the lunar surface. The camera wouldn’t start taking images. What did Bean do? He grabbed a hammer and beat on the device! Then it worked.

NASA doesn’t have a manned space program of its own these days. We’re sending our astronauts into space aboard Russian rockets. I’m trying to imagine how Presidents Kennedy and Johnson would react to that bit of aerospace irony.

Back in the day, though, Alan Bean was among those individuals we prayed for when they rocketed into space. As President Kennedy said about the goal of sending astronauts to the moon and returning them safely, “We don’t do these things because they are easy. We do them because they are hard.”

Alan Bean and his colleagues just made it look easy. It wasn’t. He needed to beat on a state-of-the-art camera with a hammer to enable the device to record his history-making adventure for the rest of time.

May he now rest eternally.

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If only Buzz Aldrin would tell us

Oh, how I wish I could read minds.

This video is making the Internet rounds. Donald Trump is talking about space travel. The fellow on the right is none other than Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, one of two men who walked on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969.

A lot of would-be mind readers are conjecturing about what Aldrin might be thinking. He looks alternately bemused, confused, aghast and flabbergasted at what he’s hearing from the president of the United States.

Oh well. I just wanted to share it here. You be the judge on what is going through Buzz Aldrin’s mind.

Might there be someone who can ask the space hero what he was thinking? Would he tell us the truth? Hey, it’s worth asking.