Dreams

[julesjones]

Edmund Hillary is 88 today.

On his 50th birthday, humans set foot on another planet for the first time.

Nowadays we don't bother to keep track of who's stood on Everest -- it's still hard, it's still an incredible achievement for those who do it, but it's become commonplace.

Only twelve of us ever walked on the moon.

Maybe one day we'll change that.

Comments

[carl-allery.livejournal.com]

Oh, very nice analogy. :-) And yes, I hope so too.

Pioneers 4 Eva!

[gauroth.livejournal.com]

I never knew that the Apollo 11 landing coincided with Sir Edmund's birthday. What wonderful serendipity. I do remember going outside to look up at the moon that night (full, in a cloudless sky) and thinking "Wow! There are people up there!" That's my definition of sensawunda. I suspect that the first succesful climbing of Everest had the same effect on my parents' generation. The first shuttle-landing ("It's _glided_ all the way from the edge of the atmosphere!!" the commentator said - was it Raymond Baxter? If not, it should have been.) was another moment that was almost as special.

Hillary and Tenzing, of course, climbed Everest without any of the technology that we take for granted as regards clothing, supplies, or GPS navigation, which is why their achievement will always be so magnificent.

There's an sf story - Asimov? Niven? Oh, my poor memory! - about a terrible, harsh journey to the surface of a planet; eventually, by the end of the story, tourists go down there via a lift. I always think of that whenever I hear that someone else has 'conquered' Everest.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking that I do not actually care if there are any more manned expeditions to the Moon or other space places any time soon. It's not because I don't care about space, though I care about it less than a lot of sf people do. And it's not because I think it will never be especially appropriate again (I'm an agnostic about that). It's because the exploration of space by robot (and telescope) is so exciting these days, and there's so much more we can see and experience this way. I get my sense of wonder tweaked by a nice clear photo, or an announcement about a new planetary body or some complicated discussion I can't half follow about the habits of distant stars seen as blips in a digital record. Things we'll not be able to do with manned space flight for a long, long time.