“Don’t you even remember the speech you read from the TelePrompter on April 15, 2010?”

Would it have meant more to you if he had memorized the speech?

You do realize that ALL Presidents use Teleprompters nowadays, so you just lumped Obama in with Bush I&II, Reagan, Clinton, et al.

And all of this ties in with the discussion going on in the other Space Politics topic, where other than Newt Gingrich, no other Republican presidential candidate had anything space-related to say when offered the chance.

Space is an initiative, and without a National Imperative it makes no sense to plant a huge stake in the middle of the budget and declare the destinations of a politicized agency (NASA) beyond the political boundaries of the current owner.

Kennedy was able to go to the Moon because it served a political need and it was novel, but Bush 43 wasn’t able to return to the Moon because his goals didn’t fit the political & budgetary realities of his successor (Constellation was WAY over schedule & budget). The same will happen to Obama if he institutes a program that exceeds it’s budgetary boundaries without a perceived National Imperative. And right now we don’t even have one for the Senate Launch System (SLS), so why put much effort into far away destinations.

Obama has his NASA focused on providing the foundations for future exploration, and there is no way NASA is going anywhere big during his tenure, even with re-election. And I’m fine with that.

To me the Apollo astronauts of today are people like the Ansari Family, All the team leaders that competed for the X Prize, Paul Allen, Burt Rutan, Dr. Peter Diamandis, Sir Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Robert Bigelow and many more.

“I think the [Ansari] X Prize should be viewed as the beginning of one giant leap…” — Dr. Buzz Aldrin

Very well said. Seriously. A well written way to disintegrate the “inspiration” rationale if there ever was one.

“You could if it happened to you”? Daresay I could, if I had been on that flight. If I had “shared a similar experience”. But I wasn’t on that flight, and I never shared a similar experience. Unfortunately! Very few people have shared a similar experience.

It’s a novel idea, that remembering the names of people who made history is a test for the extent to which one was touched/influenced/moved/inspired by that history. The event becomes the person who did it, more than what was accomplished. With all due respect to the astronaut corps, this has a familiar ring to it. I look at our accomplishment in human space flight, and see the effort, brilliance, creativity, and leadership of the supporting engineers and scientists somewhat eclipsed by the folks who happened to fly. I guess if what “inspires” me is danger, risk, and perhaps fear, then the astronauts are inspirational, and their names count for a lot. If what inspires me is the effort, brilliance, creativity, and leadership, then it’s the whole program, rather than the astronauts, that bring that inspiration. I suggest that Obama was, as a kid, inspired most by the latter.

No wonder that “inspiration” is a lousy rationale for human spaceflight. People can’t even agree on what it is, or how it manifests itself. All we know is that, whatever it is, it is surely a GOOD THING. So adopting it as a rationale for human space flight is both easy and meaningless, requiring minimal thought or investment.

“He can’t name the crew or the flight. You could if it happened to you.”

Nope. I’m not that good with names for people I meet, much less people I see from afar.

But you keep proving my point – not only are you oblivious to your Apollo obsession, you’re even oblivious to the possibility that it’s not that important to other people.

Would it matter that Obama was there with his grandfather for Apollo 10 or Apollo 12? I have no clue who those guys were, and I would imagine 99.9995% of the rest of the world remembers them either. They were “Apollo astronauts” – does it matter who they were?

You lack the ability to understand that Apollo is 40 years distant, and doesn’t occupy a daily presence in people’s lives. It does with you, which as I said before, probably makes you a huge bore at social gatherings.

Maybe if you were a docent at a space facility like Stephen C. Smith, then that be would important info to have memorized. But otherwise imposing your standard of arcane knowledge on other people is pretty ignorant of reality. But luckily your reality doesn’t infect others, so the world is safe from mass Apollo Obsession-itis…

As to the 15’s FDC mess- maybe its time you boned up on some Apollo history. Pretty much everyone who knows anything about Apollo with any interest in it knows of the mess about the FDC’s, the rationale behind it and the German stamp dealer selling some, breaching the deal. Scott wrote about it in his book w/Leonov as well a few years back as has Worden and the late Jim Irwin touched on it some but Scott, as CDR, took the responssible heat over the deal. Slayton went to bat for them then but was left hanging when it turned out he was misled– andd he was ticked off. Disgraced is a harsh word- but in the context of the times they were ‘reprimanded’ in the heirarchy over the deal. If memory serves, Scott ended up EAFB as I recall for a stint because of it. After the Mitchell’s ESP bit and Shepard’s golfing on 14, it wasn’t helpful PR in the context of the times.