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"The Right Stuff" is so repeat-watchable. I watch it two or three times a year, never gets boring. Sadly "When we left Earth" isn't available on UK Netflix :(

"The Right Stuff" is so repeat-watchable. I watch it two or three times a year, never gets boring. Sadly "When we left Earth" isn't available on UK Netflix :( One of my first vivid memories was watching Apollo 14 or Apollo 15 on my folks old black and white telly. I was four at the time and went to school completely obsessed with the Saturn V rocket and the idea of space travel. As I've grown older and come to appreciate the limitations of the technology of the day, I am even more in awe of the challenges the Apollo programme had to overcome to get two humans to land on the moon, and the mortal danger these individuals lived in from takeoff to landing. I wonder if we've plateaued in our ability and willpower to put humans into space and to break new barriers in space travel. I wonder if governments could ever stomach the 1960's attitude of "throwing caution to the wind" to send humans to Mars or beyond.

krisgee 12y ago
> I wonder if governments could ever stomach the 1960's attitude of "throwing caution to the wind" to send humans to Mars or beyond. I would honestly hope not because there's no point in doing it wrong, especially not now when any failure is a huge setback and successes are treated as expected. We will put people on Mars, we will have space stations and people living on the moons of Jupiter. This won't happen quickly and I do understand that at some point we have to put people in danger but there's no reason to do it as recklessly as we did in the 60's. Hell we're doing just fine as it is. Right now there are six people living in space. There are companies starting right now to supply them, to get minerals from asteroids, to take people to Mars. It's happening now and it's just not as heroic as it was in the 60's, which to my mind just shows that we're doing it right.
rquantz 12y ago
The Right Stuff is an entertaining movie, but beware that it plays fast and loose with a lot of facts, and also does a great disservice in its depiction of the beloved and respected Gus Grissom, who was killed in the Apollo 1 fire and was most definitely not the cave man/coward in the movie.

krisgee 12y ago

> I wonder if governments could ever stomach the 1960's attitude of "throwing caution to the wind" to send humans to Mars or beyond. I would honestly hope not because there's no point in doing it wrong, especially not now when any failure is a huge setback and successes are treated as expected. We will put people on Mars, we will have space stations and people living on the moons of Jupiter. This won't happen quickly and I do understand that at some point we have to put people in danger but there's no reason to do it as recklessly as we did in the 60's. Hell we're doing just fine as it is. Right now there are six people living in space. There are companies starting right now to supply them, to get minerals from asteroids, to take people to Mars. It's happening now and it's just not as heroic as it was in the 60's, which to my mind just shows that we're doing it right.

rquantz 12y ago

The Right Stuff is an entertaining movie, but beware that it plays fast and loose with a lot of facts, and also does a great disservice in its depiction of the beloved and respected Gus Grissom, who was killed in the Apollo 1 fire and was most definitely not the cave man/coward in the movie.