Given the current problems of the 737 MAX even the production model would have had some problems, but you’re right they were luckier than hell to only lose two given the failure points that were present when they were retired. Ronnie preferred battleships to space planes without any weapons. If it had an enormous laser cannon or photon torpedoes Republicans would have funded it.

The days of Bell Labs and PARC ended in the 1980s.

Ronald Reagan was the problem in the 1980s. He didn’t understand the military and did moronic things like hauling battleships out of mothballs believing that they would intimidate the world. Then there was his worthless anti-ICBM system.
The funding that could have gone to the exploration of space was flushed down the loo on worthless equipment and systems that never worked. We should have been designing and building the follow-on to the Space Shuttle, but did nothing.

I saw & learned a lot whilst at GD. One of the sad things was that there were more projects shelved for space/NASA related research & projects than were active. Mainly due to lack of funds or interest by the powers-that-be. And that was the 80’s. A lot worse now I’m sure. GD were laying off researchers & staff even back then. There was just no work for them. Same @ JPL too.

I know what you mean. Despite the fact we did this 50 years ago, we literally cannot build what we had back then. We are hitching rides to the ISS in antique Russian Soyuz [Союз] capsules. All that was needed was the will and we didn’t have it.

One of my friends worked at the Cape and has a collection of the mission patches from the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo launches.

With Trump in the US and Boris Johnson in the UK I can’t argue with you 😉

I really miss our space program. Not that I would ever have the guts to do what any of those people did, but I sure did love to watch them. Occasionally, I’ll go to the NASA channel and watch what’s happening on the space station. I was down in Florida for one of the last shuttle missions, and it was amazing to see it with your own eyes. Completely different than just viewing a tv screen, no matter how big a screen you have.

And if our politics are any further indication, I think we’re devolving anyway.

You don’t live in a space suit and eat the stuff that was approved for zero gravity to have someone question you. Four days without a shower and rather primitive toilet facilities tends to make you a bit grumpy. The big problem with government conspiracies is that they require a level of secrecy and competence that has never been a hallmark of the US government. Add on the number of telescopes all over the planet that were tracking the mission, and it would have been really hard to have kept it secret if we hadn’t landed on the moon.

And I had to laugh at the old videos of Buzz Aldrin punching that crazy moon landing conspiracy theorist. The guy had it coming.