RIP Neil Armstrong

[DrLove42]

Thats one small step for man....

The man who uttered those most famous of words is dead. The world has lost a legend.

I may never have wanted to be a astronaut, or fly jets, but he was a bit of inspiration to me and many others.

The world is a worse place tonight

[Gotthammer]

Just read it myself. One of the most amazing people in history lost, a sad day for us all.

RIP

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

That man began us on the greatest expansion of human kind, that man has started us on the path to the stars.

"This night is dark and full of terrors"

RIP

[Chronowraith]

Sad day indeed. He was an amazing individual who achieved greatness despite his humble beginnings.

I also count him as one of the only true explorers of the late 20th century. He accomplished something no one else in human history had achieved to that point.

[olberon]

the world has lost a legend. may his words be remembered for ever

[Wildeybeast]

Just realised I had no idea what he looked like until I saw an article on his death. I wonder if they'll send him into space one last time, would be a nice tribute.

[Psychosplodge]

Just realised I had no idea what he looked like until I saw an article on his death. I wonder if they'll send him into space one last time, would be a nice tribute.
Me Neither,
The greatest explorer of our age? Even whoever goes to mars first is essentially doing just the same, further away...

[Wolfshade]

Nah, Yuri Gagarin was the greater :D

Don't get me wrong, it was a monumental achievement, but Yuri took the first step.

The worrying thing is since he stepped on the moon 14 other people have, and come this December it will be 40 years since any one did which is depressing in itself.

In the "space race" man was put on the moon within 20 years, 30 if we date this back to the discovfery of rocketry by German scientists. So by now, we should have had a permant colony on the moon, landed and walked on mars and at least started to terraform Mars' atmosphere (at least in a limited way) but we have lost the political will to do this,

[Psychosplodge]

I can see your argument, but he just flew higher, The lunar astronauts escaped the pull of Terra...

[Wolfshade]

Sorry I am a big fan of the Soviet space program, I think it was more ambitious and gave better science than the American one.

[Psychosplodge]

I'm not informed enough to comment, but personally in terms of achievement, Getting to the moon is greater than going a bit higher, imo anyway. Though considering the US is now buying seats on the russian rockets it wouldn't surprise me if you were right.

[Wolfshade]

For me the trouble is that it was a race to have a man in space which the Soviets won.
Then when it came to landing on the moon the Soviets had a bit of a problem that their rockets, they would explode a little bit, but if they could have over come this they would have had a better rocket than the Saturn V.

In terms of achievement, we then look at the time the americans were landing men on the moon, soviets had the first women in space, first civilian in space.
The american landers both manned all landed in the same sort of areas, the soviets were landing all over the moon and brought the first pictures of the dark side of the moon, which was widely ignored by the americans, which was very interesting as geographically it is radically different to the earth side of the moon, much more rugged and junk. Also, they landed rovers and the such like which again is a very interesting concept, being used nowadays on mars. And did the first purely robotic sample return!

This space race actually led to joint soviet and american programmes which was a level of international cooperation which many thought would be impossible just a few short years before.

The other most important thing that soviets did, having "got" the moon, they then advanced and started to aim for another planet, unfortunately, they aimed for Venus which is terribly inhosbitable, and in the 70s landed on Venus and Mars, something that america didn't manage to do till the 90s...

[Psychosplodge]

cool, I never realised that Nasa didn't get there till the nineties.

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

No, Walrus is the best astronaut.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PddklbQXrWs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PddklbQXrWs)

EDIT: It kept adding the bolslounge url to the front of it.

[Psychosplodge]

link 404

[Wolfshade]

No... Walrus is the best astronaut. (http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/www.youtube.com/watch?v=PddklbQXrWs)

Your URL is a failure.

Yup, its all very interesting and one can only imagine what might have been if the Soviet Union didn't collapse, after all look at the time lag between the ISS and Mir.

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

There, I fix.