Some weeks ago Brynn went to the Wellington planetarium as part of a school day-trip outing. The kids enjoyed the hands-on approach where they are able to experiment with stuff, like Brynn in the photo below.
Physics and engineering, nay the whole field of science and technology has progressed so much since I was a wee lad. In the mid-fifties there was talk about a few of the world powers sending men to the moon and other places…
I recall my late father saying something like, “A man on the moon? Ha! That’s a load of tommyrot, pie in the sky. Not in our lifetime.” Or words to that effect.
Presumably he was speaking for himself, as he was no longer alive a few years later when the Russians had Laika in a low earth orbit before 1960!
(Above): Laika, a stray picked up off the street and trained for his Sputnik low earth orbit. A statue memorial to Laika was eventually erected 50 years later in 2008 at the facility in Moscow where Laika was trained.
It was difficult for the generation before me to visualise a craft going into outer space. Today in 2014, we are aware that soon ordinary people (with some money at their disposal) will soon be able to go into the blue yonder.
Perhaps someone like Brynn will be seeing this view of the moon before long… Who knows?
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