Countdown to the Moon

Sunil had heard about the 2024 moon landing from me. I have been inviting him to the NSS North Houston Space Society (http://NorthHoustonSpace.org) since it started. He is not a space enthusiast, but he supports people doing things. He does not plan to celebrate people returning to the moon (though I will be inviting him to my party, so let’s see 🙂 )

He has no interest in going to the moon. The pictures will be enough.

I asked him about the recent events regarding Yusaku Maezawa‘s http://DearMoon.earth project with the dating show having the first woman around the moon be the winner. He is unconcerned as who can say right now who would be the first.

Ammaar has heard about the plans to land astronauts on the moon in 2024 from NASA’s twitter account. He is excited about NASA going back and he would like to go too. He is also a big SpaceX and Elon Musk fan. And he sees no reason why we can’t explore space and do all the other things that people want to do. There is so much we don’t know, let’s go out and explore.

Charlie had not heard of NASA’s plans to send people back to the moon in 2024. He wonders what the purpose is and would rather see those resources used to address problems on earth. “Let’s cure cancer and HIV before exploring space.”

We started to talk about how space exploration competes for resources for curing disease. Also talked about what it takes to cure disease. But we did not get too far as our Yoga class was starting.

David has not heard of NASA’s plans to send people back to the moon in 2024. He thinks it should be a good idea.

Giavonnah had not heard about the 2024 plans to put the first woman and the next man on the moon, but she is happy to see it happening. She thinks it a good use of money. She is not interested in going to the moon herself, but would be willing to take a suborbital flight on New Shepard.

Zach had not heard about NASA’s plans to send people back to the moon. He thinks that if they do it will convince people that it was not a hoax. He could be convinced to go but does not have strong desire to go to the moon. He also heard about SpaceX’s plans to go to Mars.

Brandy had not heard about NASA’s plans to send people back to the moon, but she thinks it is about time.

Gary did not know we were going to the moon in 2024, but he is excited to see that we are. He would like to see us spend more on exploration and less on military. He thinks we will make it to the moon but that it might be a little later than 2024.

Karthik had not heard about NASA’s plans to send a person to the moon. But he thinks considering it was 1972 since the last time we went to the moon it is time to go back. He is excited about it, and would be willing to go.

Roopa has not heard about NASA’s plans to land on the moon in 2024. She is not excited about it. We have enough problems on earth. We messed up the earth and we do not need to mess up the moon too. We should live in a state of nature.

It is ironic to think that the picture that Apollo 8 took that changed our perception of the world might lead to us shaming ourselves into dying on earth. Our environmental, global awakening has lead some people to believe that humanity is not good and can do no good.