I never realized how much bigger the space shuttle is compared to everything else launched into space. That is just amazing. USA! USA! USA!
The two in the foreground (Apollo and SpaceShipOne) appear too big because they're closer. The humans are obviously shown bigger than scale. An additional 12 astronauts, not 14, flew over the moon without landing. On a search engine tonight, I was reading Lockheed Martin's unclassified "User's Guide" to the Atlas 5, and noticed the floor plans to Atlas control buildings at Vandenberg and other sites on about page 341 as I recall. So if you want to forward that your Afghan friends, just Google it.
Very nice post. This brings mixed emotions for me. As a kid, the space race was a real thing. We developed all sorts of industries, made many scientific discoveries and in general advanced our society as a whole. Everything benefited from that from medicine to clothing. Now we are retiring our "fleet", and like the rest of our infrastructure, it too is decaying not to be replaced any time soon. We have outsourced thinking and become a nation of McDonald's employees and wall-mart shoppers, while we dumb ourselves down and economical bankrupt this nation.
I completely agree with that. The trade deficit and outsourcing began early in the Reagan administration due to his so-called Free Trade policy. Nixon cancelled Apollo. Bush cancelled Shuttle and Space Station in the same speech he cynically claimed to create a new moon program. But he wasn't smart enough to manage it so he never funded it. He hoped the next president would create the program while giving him credit. Then Obama cancelled the unfunded moon program and restored the space station. Speaking of the wrong president getting credit, Apollo was paid for during the Johnson administration. But Kennedy gets credit for starting it and Nixon dominated Apollo 11 national TV twice, during the moonwalk and on the aircraft carrier. No one mentions Lyndon Johnson.
