Moon landing anniversary
Jul. 20th, 2009 05:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hnpccFor a long time growing up, I wanted to be an astronaut. This was of course inspired by reading science fiction, in which people swanned around in space all the time. It sounded cool.
I only really completely gave up the dream some time in about year 10 when I realised that (a) I was too short to qualify; (b) my maths/physics was probably not strong enough and mostly importantly (c) Australia did not have a space program of any description.
(Even then, though, I still kind of hoped. Even after Challenger.)
Which is why it amused me somewhat to see that they're trying to encourage students to stay interested in science at school by referring to the space program and developing programs to trigger kid's interest that way. Meanwhile we still don't have any sort of space program, Andy Thomas notwithstanding. You want to be an astronaut? Well first off you'll need to migrate...
As to the moon landings - well 40 years ago it looked a lot like we would be living there by now. Given that the most recent landing was in 1972 though... not so much. Ditto Mars, even with the landers (which are way fun to control btw. Yes, I've played with the stuff at Scienceworks).
Do you think maybe we could encourage kid's interest in science on their own damn planet maybe? Given that that's where they're likely to be for the foreseeable future? *sigh* Australia has some sort of stake in that one at least.
I only really completely gave up the dream some time in about year 10 when I realised that (a) I was too short to qualify; (b) my maths/physics was probably not strong enough and mostly importantly (c) Australia did not have a space program of any description.
(Even then, though, I still kind of hoped. Even after Challenger.)
Which is why it amused me somewhat to see that they're trying to encourage students to stay interested in science at school by referring to the space program and developing programs to trigger kid's interest that way. Meanwhile we still don't have any sort of space program, Andy Thomas notwithstanding. You want to be an astronaut? Well first off you'll need to migrate...
As to the moon landings - well 40 years ago it looked a lot like we would be living there by now. Given that the most recent landing was in 1972 though... not so much. Ditto Mars, even with the landers (which are way fun to control btw. Yes, I've played with the stuff at Scienceworks).
Do you think maybe we could encourage kid's interest in science on their own damn planet maybe? Given that that's where they're likely to be for the foreseeable future? *sigh* Australia has some sort of stake in that one at least.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-20 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 12:53 am (UTC)