Friday, August 31, 2012

Lanced!

So now that a bit of time has passed for the imbeciles that think that since Neil Armstrong's dead, he won't have to give back his 7 tour de France medals1 to focus on some other moronic pop culture thing, there's an interesting thing I thought I'd bring up.

While Neil Armstrong was, himself, a pretty awesome guy, and engineer -- the thing he is most well-known for is that he strapped himself into rockets and trusted the engineers, mechanics, scientists and mathematicians to get him where he was going.

Bravery? Yes.

Skill? Definitely.

But nowhere in the common press do I ever hear about the people who got it all right, who put those men on the moon.

Heaven, most people probably can't even name the other two astronauts in the Apollo 11 capsule without Google or Wikipedia2.

People, don't just celebrate your front men. Neil himself had a small ego; it's one of the reasons he was chosen to be the first human to step onto another celestial body. It's all of you together that can do great things, not just a single man. Celebrate your scientists, your engineers, your mechanics, your logistics support. Celebrate science.

Don't cut it away a piece at a time to religious demagoguery. Don't slice it up so that another defense contractor can sell another bomb.

You've got too much riding on this, and your failure to do so... disappoints me.

1. Yes, Really. I'm not joking.
2. Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, in case you're wondering. Though Collins wasn't in the lander.

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