APOD: A Trip to the Moon (2014 Jan 13)

[Anthony Barreiro]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

I enjoyed this movie more than the trip to the Moon. There were fewer characters jumping around at any given time (I guess people were excited by the novelty of "moving pictures"), and the fact that it was all a dream made the special effects more surreal. I wonder if the astronomer had used a proper neutral density filter to observe the full Moon, would all those awful things have happened?

[Nitpicker]

I wonder, in a hundred years from now, will early 21st century technology seem as dated and quaint as early 20th century technology seems to us now? I like to hope so, but I have my doubts.

Are you talking about early 20th century movie making technology or the quaint antiquated astronomical technology depicted in _A Trip to the Moon_?

Note that while electronics has rapidly advanced in the last hundred years pure mechanical technology has been impressive for a long time: http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 76#p191309

Sure, mechanical technology had a good head start over electrical and electronic technology, but just think of the improvement in the reliability of mechanical technology over the last century, just in terms of modes of transport and household appliances, and the way it has transformed the way we work, rest and play (arguably, not always for the best).

[Cousin Ricky]

Wish I could watch it, but my Internet service (which my ISP laughingly calls "high speed" and "state of the art") is having a bad day.

Actually, it's having a bad month. I haven't been able to get through a YouTube video without it choking since about a week before Christmas. (And I dread when I'm presented with an HD video. I don't have 3 hours to devote to a 15 minute clip.)

And this is our "new and improved" service. They're trying to tell us how good we have it. Won't work for me; I've seen what the Internet is like elsewhere.

[NateWhilk]

(never mind)

[NateWhilk]

I'm a baby boomer, and my first memory of this image is from Disney's "Man in Space".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWJrvT9sTPk#t=6m29s

[neufer]

I'm a baby boomer, and my first memory of this image is from Disney's "Man in Space".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWJrvT9sTPk#t=6m29s

Starring two of the really good guys:

• Willy Otto Oskar Ley (October 2, 1906 – June 24, 1969)
  Ward Walrath Kimball (March 4, 1914 – July 8, 2002)

[BMAONE23]

I'm a baby boomer, and my first memory of this image is from Disney's "Man in Space".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWJrvT9sTPk#t=6m29s

Starring two of the really good guys:

• Willy Otto Oskar Ley (October 2, 1906 – June 24, 1969)
  Ward Walrath Kimball (March 4, 1914 – July 8, 2002)

Poor Willy missed it by that much

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Click to view full size image

Only 26 days shy

[owlice]

The poem on that NY Times front page:

• VOYAGE TO THE MOON
  Archibald MacLeish
  (1892-1982)
  
  Presence among us,
  
  wanderer in the skies,
  dazzle of silver in our leaves and on our
  waters silver,
  O silver evasion in our farthest thought–
  “the visiting moon” . . . “the glimpses of the moon” . . .
  and we have touched you!
  
  From the first of time,
  before the first of time, before the
  first men tasted time, we thought of you.
  You were a wonder to us, unattainable,
  a longing past the reach of longing,
  a light beyond our light, our lives–perhaps
  a meaning to us.
  
  Now our hands have touched you in your depth of night.
  
  Three days and three nights we journeyed,
  steered by farthest stars, climbed outward,
  crossed the invisible tide-rip where the floating dust
  falls one way or the other in the void between,
  followed that other dawn, encountered
  cold, faced death–unfathomable emptiness . . .
  Then, the fourth day evening, we descended,
  made fast, set foot at dawn upon your beaches,
  sifted between our fingers your cold sand,
  
  We stand here in the dusk, the cold, the silence . . .
  and here, as at the first of time, we lift our heads.
  Over us, more beautiful than the moon, a
  moon, a wonder to us, unattainable,
  a longing past the reach of longing,
  a light beyond our light, our lives–perhaps
  a meaning to us . . .
  
  O, a meaning!
  
  Over us on these silent beaches the bright earth,
  presence among us.

(Eloquent, poetic) Info on the poem: http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/18/opini ... -poem.html

[Anthony Barreiro]

The poem on that NY Times front page:

• VOYAGE TO THE MOON
  Archibald MacLeish
  (1892-1982)
  
  Presence among us,
  
  wanderer in the skies,
  dazzle of silver in our leaves and on our
  waters silver,
  O silver evasion in our farthest thought–
  “the visiting moon” . . . “the glimpses of the moon” . . .
  and we have touched you!
  
  ...

Thanks, Owlice, that is a beautiful poem. MacLeish evokes the wonder of human spaceflight. We can argue about the relative merits of human vs. robotic space missions, but there will always be something magical about the images of human astronauts on the Moon. I followed the space program avidly as a child. Some of my vividest memories are of the astronauts getting excited, playing, and being goofy. Even if we built a robot that could play golf on the Moon, it wouldn't be quite the same.

[Chris Peterson]

The poem on that NY Times front page:

VOYAGE TO THE MOON
Archibald MacLeish...

Much more interesting, to me, is what they published four days earlier (while the Apollo 11 capsule was en route):

[owlice]

Thanks, Owlice, that is a beautiful poem. MacLeish evokes the wonder of human spaceflight. We can argue about the relative merits of human vs. robotic space missions, but there will always be something magical about the images of human astronauts on the Moon. I followed the space program avidly as a child. Some of my vividest memories are of the astronauts getting excited, playing, and being goofy. Even if we built a robot that could play golf on the Moon, it wouldn't be quite the same.

Anthony, you're welcome. I find the info at the link I posted also very beautiful ("We loved those three men because we knew their adventure was born of the elegance of the human mind and desire."), and that a newspaper felt it couldn't adequately convey the experience through journalism so wanted a poem on the front page... well, there is a lot of heart in that that I find very touching.

I'm so glad BMAONE23 posted that NYTimes front page! Thanks so much, BMAONE23!

Chris, good of the NY Times to issue the correction!

[geckzilla]

That correction makes my head hurt.

Will we see corrections such as that in 2060 regarding CO2 emissions and greenhouse gases indeed being capable of changing our climate?

[Chris Peterson]

That correction makes my head hurt. :bang:

Will we see corrections such as that in 2060 regarding CO2 emissions and greenhouse gases indeed being capable of changing our climate? :o_O:

I predict not. The NYT in 1920 was demonstrating a failure to understand mainstream science. Scientists at that time were not debating whether rockets would work in space. What we saw was the result of a newspaper failing to follow scientific consensus. That's exactly what a few newspapers and other publications are guilty of today, and they're going to look similarly silly in the future (to the extent they don't already).

Edit: well, my answer is one interpretation of your comment... not the one you probably meant. Curiously, this NYT correction is found on a lot of global warming denial sites, now that more and more newspapers are not challenging global warming on their editorial pages. A few deniers have already issued their own retractions as the evidence as overwhelmed their earlier denial.

The sort of outlets that today preach against climate science are much more likely to simply fade away than to be around in 2060 to issue retractions.

[neufer]

That correction makes my head hurt.

Of course you have the distinct advantage of hindsight.

Does Feynman reverse sprinkler physics seem that intuitively obvious to you

[Chris Peterson]

That correction makes my head hurt. :bang:

Of course you have the distinct advantage of hindsight.

The NYT had that same advantage in 1920, I'm afraid. They simply failed to take advantage of it.

[geckzilla]

That correction makes my head hurt.

Of course you have the distinct advantage of hindsight.

Does Feynman reverse sprinkler physics seem that intuitively obvious to you

It's not that I couldn't see myself being perplexed by the idea of a rocket propelling itself through vacuum, it's the derisive way Goddard is referred to and that it was published by a major newspaper. The global warming thing comes immediately to my mind because I have felt similarly duped into thinking anyone who could believe we are affecting Earth's climate must be a moron only to do a lot of subsequent investigation and discover I was the one being fooled. Some things never will change.

[owlice]

Please note that it was an editorial-page item, not a news item, that was corrected. And surely the NY Times did this for the amusement/signs of the times benefit, as it is quite unlikely that their reading audience would have read/remembered the slight item being corrected.

[geckzilla]

Was the original editorial item a satire?

[owlice]

With opinion pieces on editorial pages, it's sometimes a little hard to tell whether they are intended as satire or not.

[neufer]

Does Feynman reverse sprinkler physics seem that intuitively obvious to you

It's not that I couldn't see myself being perplexed by the idea of a rocket propelling itself through vacuum, it's the derisive way Goddard is referred to and that it was published by a major newspaper. The global warming thing comes immediately to my mind because I have felt similarly duped into thinking anyone who could believe we are affecting Earth's climate must be a moron only to do a lot of subsequent investigation and discover I was the one being fooled.

Note that Feynman had to test for himself that the Feynman reverse sprinkler wouldn't move...

and Goddard had to test for himself that Newton's Third Law of Motion applied to motion in space:

<<Goddard read Newton's Principia Mathematica, and found that Newton's Third Law of Motion applied to motion in space. He wrote later about his own tests of the Law:

• I began to realize that there might be something after all to Newton's Laws. The Third Law was accordingly tested, both with devices suspended by rubber bands and by devices on floats, in the little brook back of the barn, and the said law was verified conclusively. It made me realize that if a way to navigate space were to be discovered, or invented, it would be the result of a knowledge of physics and mathematics.>>

Common sense and/or reliance upon scientific consensus don't always work.
(E.g., in 1920, the best climate scientists were probably more concerned about an ice age return.)

[geckzilla]

With opinion pieces on editorial pages, it's sometimes a little hard to tell whether they are intended as satire or not.

Well, that's kind of an important thing to know if I am to continue disparaging the news media and for my continued thinking that I am more clever than the typical column writer.

[Chris Peterson]

Was the original editorial item a satire?

There's nothing to remotely suggest that. Any publication that prides itself on accuracy will not allow factual errors, even in editorial pages. The original piece was quite cruel towards Goddard. The wording of the retraction makes it pretty clear that this was not satire, and constituted an embarrassment to the NYT.

They screwed up.

[Nitpicker]

With a correction published almost 50 years after the original mistake -- and well after the first rockets in space -- I'd say it is the correction that is satire, self-directed. The best satire is subtle and understated.

[Chris Peterson]

With a correction published almost 50 years after the original mistake -- and well after the first rockets in space -- I'd say it is the correction that is satire, self-directed. The best satire is subtle and understated.

So what do you say about the Roman Catholic Church correcting their little boo boo regarding Galileo, some 400 years late, and well into the Space Age? Self-satire?

[geckzilla]

From reading Goddard's Wikipedia article, this NYT article would seem to have been serious at a time when he was already experiencing a lack of support from academia. There is no indication that the correction and apology, however late it was issued, wasn't sincere.