Andy Rooney, the old guy who blabs away on 60 Minutes, is cynical about the USA sending people back to the Moon. Well, perhaps he has a point. For the time being, outer space can be explored a lot more thoroughly and a lot more safely using machines. I\u2019ve heard the argument made that there\u2019s nothing like really being there when you\u2019re exploring new territory. But let\u2019s face it; human beings can\u2019t really experience the Moon or Mars or anything else beyond our planet\u2019s atmosphere. They would have to be cocooned in highly protective outfits and stay in isolated bases, due to all the radiation, heat, cold and lack of air. It\u2019s not like they could go outside and touch or smell or taste anything, which is what human exploration has always been about. So I\u2019ll give Andy a pass on this issue.<\/p>\n
But actually, I recall Andy Rooney also being cynical about the original Apollo moon landing program from the late 60\u2019s and early 70\u2019s. About 5 or 6 years ago, I heard him on 60 Minutes complaining about a promise that NASA made about the great discoveries that would be made regarding the moon;s formation. Andy said that he didn\u2019t remember ever getting that report. Well, that\u2019s because it hadn\u2019t been written yet. Actually, that report<\/a> only came in recently. Not long ago, moon scientists finally reached consensus that the earth was hit by another planet about 4.5 billion years ago. A lot of the earth\u2019s surface was scraped off in the process, and the stuff eventually congealed into the Moon. That\u2019s why the Moon doesn\u2019t have much iron, as opposed to the Earth, whose core is almost all iron. <\/p>\n They now call this story \u201cthe Big Whack\u201d. And it took a while to gel. Science can be a slow and cautious process. As it should be. Sorry for the wait, Andy. Sometimes, it takes time to get it right. But now that we\u2019ve got the moon right, well . . . . perhaps it\u2019s time to move on to some bigger and bolder science ventures, way out there in the blue. But as far as sending people along with our probes . . . . we\u2019re gonna have to be patient about that. Just as Andy Rooney should have patient about the moon rocks report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Andy Rooney, the old guy who blabs away on 60 Minutes, is cynical about the USA sending people back to the Moon. Well, perhaps he has a point. For the time being, outer space can be explored a lot more thoroughly and a lot more safely using machines. I\u2019ve heard the argument made that there\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}