A little journey by the temporary OIG site, http://oig3.gsfc.nasa.gov/scripts/foxweb.exe/app01? yielded this: Catalog Query International Designator Response Query return total: 3 Search Criteria: 1969-059 International Designator: Ascending Order IntID/Name CatNo Source period Incl Apogee Perigee RCS 1969-059A 04039 US 0.0 0.0 0 0 0.0000 APOLLO 11 CM (COLUMBIA) Launched (1969/07/16) Decayed [1969/07/24] 1969-059B 04040 US Heliocentric orbit SATURN 5 R/B Launched (1969/07/16) 1969-059C 04041 US Selenocentric orbit APOLLO 11 LM (APS) Launched (1969/07/16) Does anyone know when last any visual sighting of these was made? May possibly be made in the future? With the 20th-Century now complete at the 2-sigma confidence level, it is timely to consider selecting the most important human of the Century, at least from our current perspective. The most significant event or accomplishment of the 20th Century, certainly, and arguably of our species throughout history, is the successful journey of men from our cradle planet, Earth, to another planet, our Moon, a journey known to the Ages as Apollo XI. Two men made essential, irreplaceable contributions to that journey. Wernher von Braun figured out how to build rocket engines large enough, powerful enough and controllable enough to leave the gravitational influence of Earth and travel far enough to reach the Moon. Stark Draper figured out how to point the vehicle in the right direction, and maintain pointing during the flight, so that it would "hit" the Moon ever so neatly and cleanly in 1969 CE. So, the most important humans of the 20th-Century are Wernher von Braun and Stark Draper. Kurt G"odel's Proof of Every consistent axiomatic formulation of number theory contains undecidable propositions has echoed so very powerfully thru so many important, farflung areas of endeavor during the Century, powerfully influencing thinking and accomplishment. (SeeSat-L would not be the place for an extended discussion of whether such colossal failures as Iridium may flow from from these headwaters). You often see the characterization of 20th-Century thought as "realization of limits" being credited to Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in quantum theory, but Heisenberg's contribution in the elaborate world of physics pales beside the intellectual force of Goedel's tour de force executed on the tiny "pinhead" of number theory. Hofstadter's "GEB" and Sagan's "Cosmos" also have had wide influence. CTSS and its successor, Multics, which were accomplishments of a fairly large group, could possibly survive as more important in the view of future generations. The Intel 386, Pentium III, Athlon, etc., are in every essential detail silicon implementations of Multics, right down to the most significant nomenclature, like segment table look-aside buffer. Multics gave rise to Primos, then Unix, then copies of Primos known as VAX/VMS and the Eagle, and later, when chip fabrication was advanced (by another army of geniuses), the 386. What we think of today as operating systems, Windows, Linux, even to a substantial degree the Web, are what visionaries of the mid-1960's thought of as Multics. Gagarin, Kennedy, Shepard, Glenn, Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins, Churchill have reputations well-outfitted for the coming millennia. Cheers. Walter Nissen wnissen@tfn.net -81.8637, 41.3735, 256m elevation --- You may find many ironies in this task. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jun 01 2000 - 07:50:31 PDT