SPACE

You know I love space and outer space stories.  Here's a bit of info I picked up watching a documentary. 

You know that the famed Wernher von Braun was the keystone of our space program at it's beginning.  He was a Polish rocket scientist that the Germans had forced to work for them during World War II.  We brought him over here right after the war.  Several countries were trying to lure the top German scientists to help their programs - including the Soviets.  Through the 1950s, he led a research team that, in 1958, was the nucleus of new agency called NASA. 

You also know that in 1962, President John F. Kennedy set a goal for our country to reach the moon before the end of the decade.  It was a huge challenge for NASA.  At that time, it was apparent that the USSR was ahead of us in space technology.  No one was quite sure what repercussions that might cause. 

In tackling the goal Kennedy had set for the Space Administration, a long range plan had to be laid out for just how we would get to the moon.  You may have seen pictures or heard it discussed  recently or remember, as I do, that we sent a rocket ship into space.  From there, a manned capsule separated from the rocket and flew on to the moon.  From the orbiting capsule, a landing craft descended and landed on the moon.  It went back to lunar orbit to join the capsule and then back to Earth.

It worked.  We did it a few times and quit. 

That's not what Wernher von Braun wanted to do.   His idea was to build a space station.  Put the space station into Earth-orbit and then take off from there with a ship that could land on the moon.  The advantage of this procedure was that it takes so much less power to take off in space than it does from Earth.  This was the best way to go to Mars and beyond.  The space station outside of the Earth's gravity would be the best launching point.   

Von Braun's idea was vetoed.  The method they chose got us to the moon in the 1960s as Kennedy had promised but may have stunted our progress to further challenges.  I'm almost sure that future space travel WILL occur from Earth-orbit launches and not from Earth.   
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