1. That mission control engineers and astronauts used slide rules for calculation. Jesus, they didn’t even have pocket calulators??!.
2. That the crew of Apollo 13 had to navigate manually to get back to Earth.
3. That the rocket carrying Apollo 8 crew, was only third Saturn V vehicle ever launched, the previous one having failed!
4. That the Apollo guidance computer which took men to the moon ran at a spectacular 1Mhz with a full 2KB of memory!

I salute the men who made of the Apollo possible.

@Matt: Yup, I’m hanging out at Marshall. I grew up in Athens, just a couple miles to the west, but I’m generally in Atlanta these days for school. I got a few friends over at UAH though, good school. I nearly ended up there myself.

As for the budget, I just looked it up and surprisingly it topped off at 5.5% of the budget in 1966, but it wasn’t even that high for most of the 60′s. I was thinking it was a good bit higher than that, too. Granted, they still had over $20 billion a year for most of the decade (over $30 for three years, and those are in 2007 dollars), so there was still a ton more funding than there is now. The funny thing is (well more sad) that most people still think that NASA comprises a massive portion of the budget. A recent poll said that an outrageous portion of America thinks that NASA has over a quarter of the budget (I wish I could find the article). Either way, they’ll make due with what they have.

I agree with your post. And by the way, when you mention seeing the Saturn V sitting there when you go to work everyday, I assume you are interning at the Marshal Space Center in Huntsville, Al? I was fortunate enough to spend my first year in college at UAH right across the interstate, I could actually see the tip of the Saturn V from my dorm window. Good luck in your career with NASA.

Another amazing thing about the Apollo missions is that the technology used in today’s calculators are more advanced than the majority of that used in the Lunar Landing. Just imagine what would be possible if NASA still had the budget it had from the 1960s. Today NASA receives less that 1% of the budget, back then NASA received approximately 25% of the budget if I have read correctly. I am very excited about the future of space exploration, namely the goal of returning to the Moon by 2020.

And to the posts

I think it’s telling that the crew of Apollo 11 are pushing for space travel beyond the moon. After all, they’re the pioneers. If we want to do what they do, we should use them as role models.

And finally, for those keeping up (or trying) with the Apollo 11 tributes today, check out http://www.newsy.com/videos/moonstruck_40_years_later which gives an overview of the tributes, the mission, and what those mean for the future of space travel.

Very well said. I’m extremely jealous that you scored an internship at NASA. Well done!

Just to make a quick budget argument, NASA gets just under $19 billion, which is a considerable amount, but it is still less than 1% of the US budget. The Air Force actually has a bigger space budget than NASA does, so for such a (relatively) low price, we keep men in a permanent space laboratory, fly resupply missions, launch telescopes, probes, and develop the technology that everyone will be using in a few years (thanks Hutch for that run down, and add joy sticks and dust busters on the list too, lol).

All that being said, when I finally make it out to a real job, I have my heart set on a private space venture. I agree that NASA seems to be becoming bogged down in the bureaucracy of being a government agency. I believe that the return to the Moon and the first trips to Mars will be NASA projects though, since no space company that I know of flings around so much for the pure goal of exploration. Either way, I get the impression that companies such as Space X and Virgin Galactic hold on to that ballsy, Apollo way of thinking: We’re going to make it into space, no matter the challenge, no matter the obstacle, not matter the sacrifice.

At any rate, the Apollo astronauts and all the scientists and engineers behind them are an inspiration to create a better world for ourselves. Nothing makes me happier going into work than seeing the Saturn V standing majestically in the distance, its the rocket that makes me and who knows how many others push themselves to get off this rock for ourselves in pursuit of the next great adventure.

I would hardly call the invention of the smoke detector, medical imaging, satellite dishes, portable electronics, LED’s, laser surgery, water prufication, etc a boondoggle. All these inventions and many many more resulted from NASA technology.