If you were paying attention this past week, you may have noticed that the long-delayed Artemis I moon mission finally launched successfully, early the morning of Wednesday, November 16th, 2022 - the first in a NASA program intended to get man back to the moon for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
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The hope? That by getting back to the moon, a whole new generation might be inspired to think about what's possible. To dream bigger. To build better. To imagine a future full of exploration and possibilities. Sound familiar? It's the kind of optimism that came to define the "Doo Wop" era of the 1950s & 60s.
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“I think you’ll see a new wave of inspiration hitting the world once this starts happening”
Dr. Robert Thirsk, Canadian Astronaut (via citynews.ca)
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It could be said that the pioneering spirit of 1960s America led to entire new industries being born, that may not have otherwise come to exist...
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“My field, which is space physics, wouldn’t exist without the moon race of the 1960s,” said Donovan. “In a very real sense, I owe my career pathway to the moon race of the 1960s and there’s no hyperbole in that.”
Dr. Eric Donovan, Associate Professor of Physics & Astronomy, University of Calgary (via citynews.ca)
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Here in Doowopolis, space travel once inspired the design & development of themed motels like the Satellite, Telstar, Apollo, Astronaut, and Galaxie - all intended to capture the attention of working & middle-class vacationers whose imagination had already been captured by television images of bold, brave space cowboys pushing the boundaries of where mankind could go. The great beyond? The final frontier? The original developers of Doowopolis were happy to help provide a way to get there - for at least a week or two each summer, that is. Their entrepreneurial dreams of creating new lodging businesses met perfectly with their would-be guests' dreams of "escaping" to far-away places (like, really really far away) and an entire tourism ecosystem was born that didn't even require you leave New Jersey, let alone planet Earth (but you could go anywhere you wanted, at least in your own mind).
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Could it be time to get a new generation "shooting for the moon" once again? (in more ways than one?) After all, the future is always brighter when we can blaze our own new frontiers, become princes (or princesses?) of our own little kingdoms, and with a little help from the gods (and goddesses?) we just might be able to let our dreams guide us to new heights once again?
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The last manned moon mission took place in 1972. Just like in Doowopolis, it seems so many really cool things came to a screeching halt in the early 1970s - and we still can't help but wonder if that's a coincidence…
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We also can't help but wonder if it's time to go back and pick up where we left off? It seems we're not the only ones asking these days...
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From Apollo to Artemis: 50 years on, is it time to go back to the moon?
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/nov/20/from-apollo-to-artemis-50-years-on-is-it-time-to-go-back-to-the-moon
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Artemis expected to ignite interest in space: Calgary scientists say
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2022/11/18/artemis-space-interest-calgary-scientists/