Linked to the 1999 celebration* for good reason - the only substantial changes between the 30th celebration of the Eighth Wonder Of The Race and the 40th are the Columbia disaster and one massive political clusterfuck.

That we could celebrate the 50th - or even the 60th - with {Astronauts|Cosmonauts|Othernauts} triggering fireworks from the Lunar surface, I hope for.

While I'm at it, I'd like to be published, debt-free, and receiving a massage from the women's Swedish volleyball team, snorkeling whiskey through a straw made out of compressed cocaine while floating in a in a private pool in the Himalayas. That this fantasy seems more readily achievable** than a Lunar revisit is...

... well, it is what it is.

We came. We saw. We left.

I fully expected that, by the end of the century, we would have achieved substantially more than we actually did.

--Neil Armstrong; CBS interview, 2005 (source)

NASA continues to insist we'll return, using the same tone of voice one uses when promising ones least-favorite relative that you'll call them soon. In the meantime, they continue to focus on the Good Old Days like a fifty year old four hundred pound ex-cheerleader with six kids, living a John Waters flashback to Junior Varsity, hoping she'll get to fuck the quarterback under the bleachers after practice. Some day.

* What http://history.nasa.gov/ap11ann/introduction.htm links to as of this posting. Last update? 2002.

** Well under a million, all-in. Quite a bit more if we're stipulating a sustainable lifestyle, as opposed to a Weekend Of Awesome. The availability of the Swedish Volleyball Team is the key concern with regards to this matter. After the passport, this fantasy can be realized with money. Getting back to the moon isn't a matter of money - it's a matter of politics.

This afternoon, Oakland was buzzed by a B-17:

My friend Martin was aboard when it* buzzed Pittsburgh yesterday - he took photos and video and he'll be giving me copies next weekend. The above is "actual size" of my phone camera. There's a link to the big version here.

Nothing in the world sounds quite like a heavy prop-driven military aircraft.

* I assume it's the same one. It's not like there's, like, a squadron of B-17s on PIT tarmac, gearing up to bomb the Hill District back into the Jazz Age. Sticking around long enough to sit around looking pretty is rare enough for vintage aircraft - that this one isn't just airworthy - that it's actually in the air - puts it on a very short list.

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One time, before I was born, this country wasn't just cool. No. For one shining moment, it was awesome.

Since then we have talked ourselves to death, and buried ourselves in our own confusion.

Vietnam and Watergate proved the public prefers Reality TV to Progress.

Democracy in action - in lieu of progress, we get Virtuality and expensive plans to ship crew to the space station on Russian rockets instead of celebrating The Fortieth with, say... a Manned Landing on Mars.

Or the moon, even.

The NASA of Eisenhower and Kennedy (and Johnson and Nixon, but only as an afterthought) is the NASA everyone who grew up in the 80s and 90s wishes they could have tuned in to.

Our generation has a Space Truck* servicing a Space Telescope. As awesome - and as phenomenally sophisticated - as that is**... our dads got to watch NEIL ARMSTRONG AND BUZZ ALDRIN LAND ON THE MOTHERFUCKING MOON.

No matter our achievements - in this respect, we will always be jealous of our fathers.

(and if anyone can throw me the in-line CSS to vert-align the = up there, I'll buy you a drink.)

P.S. - So dad... where were you and what were you doing on 20 July, 1969? You were more there than I'll ever be - I'll be twice the age that you were when - if - we set foot on the moon again. My kingdom for a taste.

20090717.18:49 : Unpublished earlier due to dissatisfaction with content; republished (and slightly expanded) at xeno's prompting.

* And NASA is planning on shelving the Space Truck and replacing it with.... nothing. There's a whole bunch of stuff we can do with the shuttle that we can't do with Improved Apollo Capsules. The only reason we can't have both (by which I mean an Improved Space Truck that wasn't designed by a committee wearing bellbottoms and an Improved Mini Cooper) is because Congress thinks the F-35 needs two engine options, the Army thinks FCS might actually stop being a money pit some day, and oh yeah, the Entitlement Programs (SS and medi{care|caid}) that are on track to collapse before I'm old enough to need 'em. Less than 20 Billion a year is PEANUTS compared to the money we're pissing away on everything else.

Fuck Goldman Sachs. In the ear.

** Don't get me wrong here. Big HST fan. Much bigger MAN ON THE FRICKING MOON fan. 1080i video of a galaxy being sucked up the asshole of a black hole is bullshit compared to the thought of an astronaut making a snow angel on the moon. Odds favor snow angels on the moon over shooting human poop into a black hole in my lifetime.... or they would if the people we've put in charge of the country's wallet would MAN UP AND GO THERE.