08-25-2012, 04:24 PM
I was working at Fabricon Products in Grabill, Indiana, back when Armstrong landed on the moon. As I recall, he took his first step at about 11:15 pm. I was working third trick at the time. My job was to mix up fiberglass using big bags of asbestos and zinc and other magical substances. The air was alive with these things and microfibers. The place has since vanished, and the parent company, Eagle Picher, has been through several bankruptcies and is saddled with massive settlements for mesothelioma. I worked there about three years, and all I can say for myself is, so far so good.
I remember walking up to the time clock where a supervisor had a radio on. I was able to hear a bit of the chatter of Armstrong on the surface. This was not how I wanted to witness the first man on the moon, but I didn't have a lot of options at the time. I listened for maybe a minute, then I had to get back to playing in the asbestos sandbox.
I've had very mixed feelings about Armstrong. Actually, if I were to draw a graph of what I thought of the man over time, it would be a backslash: \
In the beginning I greatly admired him for what he did. I still do. That took some bloody courage -- or an incredible ability to ignore the dangers. But my goodness, he had nothing to say about the experience afterwards. He had no opinion on the whole moon landing. I desperately wanted him to push for space exploration, to be a visionary selling humanity on the need to go out into space. Instead, he treated it like a trip to the 7-11 at the corner.
My attitude towards him in recent months has grown spiteful, even hateful, this in large part due to his attempts to shut down Elon Musk's spaceship building business. Armstrong testified before Congress that it would pose too big a danger to astronauts to privatize the space industry. Unbelievable. NASA has become one big ugly political machine. Perhaps not their fault. But with all these large companies vying for NASA contracts, money starts circulating in all the wrong ways, leading to incredibly wasteful projects, and I'm sorry, but in the end Armstrong turned out to be like so many recent NASA figureheads, with all the wheeling-and-dealing pet-my-monkey-and-I'll-scratch-your-poodle contracts, chasing after money and not giving a damn about the real exploration of space.
Elon Musk survived by a whisker, and he went on to prevail by not only launching a rocket into space, but having its capsule dock with the ISS. This was on the first fucking try! I mean, none of the news anchors seems to realize just how amazing this is (I guess they're too busy asking politicians various what-if scenario questions about rapes and abortions). And this is just the start of Musk's plans for the future. He is working on bigger and better rockets, and crewed ships.
Elon Musk emerges as the true visionary. I have tremendous regard for him in so many ways. And I am so happy that he was able to withstand all those broadsides coming from NASA, and especially from Armstrong.
Neil? I don't wish death on anyone. It would have been better for you to have continued to live. But you should be ashamed of yourself. Not for choosing not to be a visionary, but for trying to destroy someone aspiring to be one. Standing over your grave, I have just swallowed the spit in my mouth. You should appreciate that fact.
I remember walking up to the time clock where a supervisor had a radio on. I was able to hear a bit of the chatter of Armstrong on the surface. This was not how I wanted to witness the first man on the moon, but I didn't have a lot of options at the time. I listened for maybe a minute, then I had to get back to playing in the asbestos sandbox.
I've had very mixed feelings about Armstrong. Actually, if I were to draw a graph of what I thought of the man over time, it would be a backslash: \
In the beginning I greatly admired him for what he did. I still do. That took some bloody courage -- or an incredible ability to ignore the dangers. But my goodness, he had nothing to say about the experience afterwards. He had no opinion on the whole moon landing. I desperately wanted him to push for space exploration, to be a visionary selling humanity on the need to go out into space. Instead, he treated it like a trip to the 7-11 at the corner.
My attitude towards him in recent months has grown spiteful, even hateful, this in large part due to his attempts to shut down Elon Musk's spaceship building business. Armstrong testified before Congress that it would pose too big a danger to astronauts to privatize the space industry. Unbelievable. NASA has become one big ugly political machine. Perhaps not their fault. But with all these large companies vying for NASA contracts, money starts circulating in all the wrong ways, leading to incredibly wasteful projects, and I'm sorry, but in the end Armstrong turned out to be like so many recent NASA figureheads, with all the wheeling-and-dealing pet-my-monkey-and-I'll-scratch-your-poodle contracts, chasing after money and not giving a damn about the real exploration of space.
Elon Musk survived by a whisker, and he went on to prevail by not only launching a rocket into space, but having its capsule dock with the ISS. This was on the first fucking try! I mean, none of the news anchors seems to realize just how amazing this is (I guess they're too busy asking politicians various what-if scenario questions about rapes and abortions). And this is just the start of Musk's plans for the future. He is working on bigger and better rockets, and crewed ships.
Elon Musk emerges as the true visionary. I have tremendous regard for him in so many ways. And I am so happy that he was able to withstand all those broadsides coming from NASA, and especially from Armstrong.
Neil? I don't wish death on anyone. It would have been better for you to have continued to live. But you should be ashamed of yourself. Not for choosing not to be a visionary, but for trying to destroy someone aspiring to be one. Standing over your grave, I have just swallowed the spit in my mouth. You should appreciate that fact.
I'm nobody's pony.
![[Image: magpie13.gif]](http://imagegen.last.fm/LastfmLiveJournal/recenttracks/magpie13.gif)
