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by dash2
758 days ago
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>The political climate in the 1960s was far more tense than it is today, which fueled the space race in ways that forced both sides to give their absolute best efforts to move space exploration forward. I'd say the climate is as tense today, and it is getting tenser. NATO is now talking about putting "trainers" into Ukraine, and US-made weaponry is being used to kill Vatniks; China is using water cannon on Philippine ships in the South China Sea; Iran is shooting missiles at Israel and the Houthis are trying to knock international shipping out of the Gulf of Aden. It's just that the US looks a lot weaker and less competent today. (But perhaps that is hindsight? In the 60s people were still worried that the USSR would overtake the West economically.) |
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I think that all the examples you mentioned pale in comparison to the terror of global annihilation from nuclear weapons, a couple of decades after the bloodiest war in human history, during the peak of the Cold War. Conflicts exist today as well, and there is an increasing risk of a global conflict, but there is no urgency of beating an adversary ideologically because you can't fight them militarily. There was a nationwide competitive spirit back then that just doesn't exist today, which caused nations to accomplish things that seem impossible in hindsight.
> It's just that the US looks a lot weaker and less competent today.
I wouldn't say the US as a whole, since as a country it's still a leader in science and technology, and it has sufficient financial resources to invest in this project, if it wanted to. I think it boils down to the lack of urgency and political/public support, and perhaps managerial and competency problems at NASA itself.
> (But perhaps that is hindsight? In the 60s people were still worried that the USSR would overtake the West economically.)
By some measures, China has overtaken the US economically, and they have a space program with a focus on the moon, yet both sides are sloppy in their own ways. I think we'll get there eventually, but it will take more attempts, time and resources than we planned for. And, to be fair, it took 11 missions for Apollo to land on the moon, 10 Gemini missions before it, and many failures along the way. But if you take a look at the rate of progress, and time between missions, it's clear that getting to the moon was US' primary objective in the '60s, which is far from what it is today.