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To the Moon and
Back
By Mona Lease
Hi, all!! Flashing red lights, warning bells...ding, ding, ding. Read
on at your own risk. The following is more of what circulates through
my head. I told a couple of people and they said they wanted to see
this in print. I thought I'd submit it - see what happens.
According to Wikipedia, John Glenn was born in 1921. He's an Ohio boy -
by the way. He flew on Mercury-6 in 1962. He would have been 41 years
old. He flew on S75-95 in 1998. He would have been 77 years old. In
1962, John Glenn flew in the spaceship Mercury-Atlas "Friendship" 7. It
orbited the earth three times at a circular velocity of 17,500 mph.
Another flight saw him circling the earth 134 times while
traveling 3.6 million miles in 213 hours and 44 minutes. (NASA made
this information available to the public).
Neil Armstrong was born in 1930. He walked on the moon in 1969. He was
39 years old.
The Civil War was 1861-1865. That's only 156 years behind us. The
weapons were crude compared to our machine guns today...that have the
ability to kill how many? For an MG 08...you can buy a 250 round belt.
This gun has the ability to fire 500 rounds a minute...that's a round a
little less than every second. And this gun is from WW1.
Guns from the Civil War (1861-1865) are: revolvers, pistols,
rifles...and swords were also used. A popular gun at this time was the
"Coffee Grinder".. which had the ability to fire 120 rounds per minute.
See how we have perfected our weaponry through the years? We went from
having the ability to kill 120 men (or women) per minute in 1861 to
having the ability to kill 500 men a minute in WW1 (1914-1918). If you
think it's not possible to kill a man with every round...try cutting
the numbers in half.
Opium was the best pain-killer in the Civil War years. As usual...there
was never enough to "go around"...and penicillin was not discovered
until 1928 (10 years after WW! had ended) in Scotland. It would be
available to the public in the UK in 1940 with the US being credited
for a mass-production of the penicillin for WW11.
We have the telephone, cell phones, and the internet. We can - I can -
speak with people in Africa...or the South Pole...or the Moon. We can
prolong life, shorten the duration of the cold, flu, chicken pox, and
other diseases, ailments, etc.
We put a man in space repeatedly (John Glenn). Think about this. If
your heart rate is, say...70...your heart beats 70 times a minute.
There are 60 minutes in a hour. Multiply 70 beats by 60 minutes for
4,200 beats an hour. Multiply 4,200 beats an hour by 24 hours in a day.
You get a total of 100,800 beats a day. Multiply 100,800 beats a day by
365 days in a year. You get 36,792,000 beats per year. Multiply that by
41 years (the age John Glenn was when he orbited the earth three times
at a velocity pressure of 17,500 mph) for a total of some 1,508,472,000
heartbeats when he started the triple orbit. And we were ok with that.
He went back into space at the age of 77. Add a few more
hundred-thousand heartbeats.
We believed in the knowledge - in the ability of the equipment to
withstand the strain and pressures. We believed in it so much that we
were ok with men depending upon the fact that the spaceship would
depressurize so they could get out and "go for a walk" on the
moon...that said spaceship would then repressurize itself so they could
make the return trip to earth...some 239,228.3 miles...center to center.
But we can't trust ourselves...as human beings on this earth...to say:
"I won't let a child be harmed or his/her head be twisted while I'm
around." We can't stop cheating, lying, blaming someone else for our
woes, but:
We could send a man to the moon twice. We could send a man spinning in
a circle around the earth three times at the speed of 17,500 mph for
three revolutions and a total time of 4 hours, 55 minutes, and 23
seconds. Remarkable.
Remember the kiddies and our service people. Take good care of the
furry and feathered ones out there. Be safe and healthy. See ya next
time. Ever Toodles. mona
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