January 8, 2006

Good evening.

Ron Wells, http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/ Rwells.htm wrote a review for
Harrison H. Schmitt's "RETURN TO THE MOON" which I have posted before and he
has expanded at Amazon.COM.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0387242856/104-8050845-2801568

Ron sent me his comments on my post about the pros and cons of returning to
the Moon and I hope he doesn't mind my copying below. He titled it, "Lost
World".

I think you know by now that Ron is interested in seeing us go back to the
Moon and having had first hand communications with Jack Schmitt understands
the problems in doing so.

You may want to go to the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal (ALSJ) and check out
the Apollo 17 mission if you have not been there before.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/frame.html
(select the Apollo 17 link in the navigation frame)
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a17/a17.html

There is a wealth of information about the Moon contained in the accounts of
the Apollo missions that landed on the Moon. http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/

I hope you have had the opportunity to browse the ALSJ. - LRK
-
If you want to listen to the Apollo 11 mission, try live.365 radio.
http://www.live365.com/stations/apollo_11_oda

When we go back we need to make sure the next missions are open to the
public and are chronicled for others to read about. One start noted here,
you may know of more.
http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t409220.html

I hope that there is enough ground swell of interest and support to get our
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and some Landers to the Moon so that we will
have data to share.

We have a window of opportunity. Don't want to lose it. It was not long ago
that talking about going back to the Moon was not politically correct. Will
it be so next year?

In the mean time let me know how I can best spread the word and what would
help you in your efforts to do the same.

In a week specks of a comet return to Earth. STARDUST
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http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/index.html
http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/participation.html
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news104.html

snip
On January 15, 2006, after more than 7 years and billions of miles of travel
through space, NASA's Stardust spacecraft will release a 100-pound sample
return capsule (SRC) to Earth with some precious cargo -- pristine samples
of comet and interstellar dust. Stardust will provide the world's first
opportunity to analyze preserved samples of the fundamental building blocks
of our Solar System that formed 4.6 billion years ago.
snip

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http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/stardust.html

Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
Blog Spot http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
News ltr https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
The Study of the Pioneer Anomaly: New Data and Objectives for New
Investigation - http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0512121
Authors: Slava G. Turyshev, Viktor T. Toth, Larry R. Kellogg, Eunice. L.
Lau, Kyong J. Lee
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Hi Larry:

Read your last newsletter. In the discussion of the pros and cons of
returning to the Moon one ought to remember how the Apollo astronauts
answered the question often asked of them afterwards: "If we can go to the
Moon, why can't we ________ (fill in the blank)". Jack Schmitt answered
that in his book, "Return to the Moon" (quote): "The answer is, of course,
you can do "________", provided you can motivate young men and women to
believe that achieving "_________" would be the most important use of their
lives. Those young men and women who were the heart and soul of Apollo,
without exception in my experience, believed that putting an American on
the Moon represented the highest achievement to which they could aspire.
They gave youth, imagination, endurance, and in too many cases, their
families to insure that the astronauts were safe as well as successful. Ten
years of 16-hour days, eight-day weeks, required to meet John Kennedy's
challenge would not have been possible without this willing and dedicated
sacrifice." (end quote)

Let me add a few comments as one who contributed during that period. Most
of this nation's present population was not alive at that time. There was a
feeling of national unity, not necessarily blatantly voiced or imaged,
wherein everyone felt they were participating, from plumbers to carpenters
to janitors to electricians to mechanical engineers to construction workers
to teachers and students-- whatever the occupation-- and not just those in
Houston or at the Cape, but at countless factories, businesses, and schools
across the land working on even the smallest aspects of the space program,
all felt that they were making a contribution that had to be made because
the goal was worthwhile, because it meant something to them to be
successful. The national success was their success and vice versa.
All the money that was spent on sending men to the Moon, and the space
program in general, was not thrown down a gopher hole, was not flushed down
the commode, did not only pay for precision parts of complex and eclectic
machinery, it paid the salaries of, bought homes for, and insured the
livelihoods of countless hundreds of thousands of families working hard to
achieve a goal they believed in for themselves, their children and for the
common good. What gurgled down the drain after the premature end to the
Apollo program was the expertise and experience needed for technological
progress that would promote our economical well being, as well as the
thousands upon thousands of jobs upon which that progress depended, and the
education of our children upon which depended a future that has yet to
arrive.

The great thing about Margaret Wertheim and her 8 reasons why going back to
the Moon is looney is that her philosophy immediately characterizes her,
and many in Congress like her, as throwbacks to primitive times, easily
recognizable as such. If her philosophy had ruled supreme in the past,
there would have been no excursion out of Africa, no settlement of Europe
and the Americas. We would not be looking at our computer monitors reading
her words, or mine for that matter. She represents stagnation and cessation
of societal development. At the very least, giving her the benefit of the
doubt, she is setting up straw dummies to be knocked down by those willing
to disagree with her and stand up for the advancement of civilization.
The great thing about Robert Juliano, on the other hand, is that he
embodies the spirit of Apollo-- that desire to achieve a goal of which
dreams are made that he feels is important for his life and for the
students he has taught. He is living proof that that spirit still lives
although we as a nation and society have done much to crush the life out of
it.

The question isn't should we go back to the Moon to settle it and on to
Mars. The real question is should we join Robert Juliano and help breath
life back into the spirit of Apollo like Cabal and Passworthy; or shall we
join Wertheim and her rabble rousing attempts to surround and stop the Moon
rocket bearing their children into the future, thus sentencing us to a
barbaric, if mundane, existence on a Lost World? The choice is ours.

Ron

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK
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