Watched the media coverage of the Artemis re-entry and splashdown this evening. Hoped I’d hear the sonic boom, but I was too far away. The splashdown point was probably 20-30 miles south of San Diego, and our place is another 50-60 miles north of downtown. So no boom.
It was really nice to hear news folks talking about how we can do great things when we work together and put our minds to it. We sure need some inspiration these days, and I can’t think of a better place for it to come from – science and space technology, trained military, technicians, and astronauts, all working together to accomplish complex/difficult things. I sure hope some of the MAGA types who applauded DOGE cuts to science are watching this and thinking…hmm, maybe this stuff is worthwhile. Because it is.
I have a huge regret watching all this, though the regret was no fault of mine. I wanted to be an AF pilot, actually got my orders to report to the AF Academy, but there was a catch. The AF said no, you can’t be a pilot, my eyes were too bad and they didn’t allow correction. 15-20 years later my eyes could have been (were, in fact) corrected, and during that period the AF reversed policy and allowed corrective lenses or surgery. So my timing was just bad. I also could have been on an astronaut track because of my intense science and science fiction interests. Just wasn’t meant to be.
Title photo is a picture I took of the Moon last year using the big 600mm zoom lens I took to Cabo.