Tom Wolfe on Space

Or, really, the space program and it's demise: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/opinion/19wolfe.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all. Really liked, "The Right Stuff," both the book and the movie. Chuck Yeager has been a god ever since, with Wolfe's description reminding us what a real man really was.

NASA and the space program and the race against the Soviets were a fundamental aspect of my childhood years, growing up in Houston in the sixties. Hell, my first little league team was named, "Polaris" as all the other teams in our league had space program monikers--the Nikes, the Saturns, the Apollos, etc. The trouble was that none of us, including our coaches, knew what "Polaris" was or meant or anything beyond that it was a word beginning with a "P." We really wanted to be the Lions or the Bearcats or the Hurricanes or something fearsome and relatable. What the hell was a Polaris, anyway? We never knew. Another frequent memory was hearing sonic booms from fighters out of Ellington, piloted by the Armstrongs and Aldrins, et al as they prepped for their missions. I heard them all the time while out playing or looking for horned toads and snakes. The funny thing was that when the day of the landing came and Armstrong's step onto the moon, the kids were only somewhat interested--we assumed it was going to happen and continued on with whatever frog torture or other meaness we were otherwise engaged. The adults, all depression era and WWII survivors, were flat out amazed and slack jawed and also quite flummoxed that we were not sharing in their fascination. Don't know. Maybe it was all of that mosquito spray.