Belitopia S1E1 – Apollo +

 
The Apollo space program. The quintessential peak of human kinds manned space program. The funding that went into this program was astronomical, around $120 **billion** dollars, adjusted for inflation.
But once we landed on the moon, we lost interest in space. With the reduced interest in space came reduced funding...and our future in space suffered.
But, what if funding didn’t stop suddenly…
This is “Apollo Plus”.
For more information, please see belitopia.com/apollo (https://belitopia.com/apollo) .
TranscriptWhat if the world was different? Science fiction is usually utopian or dystopian, either unrealistically good or unbelievably bad. There doesn’t seem to be much in the middle. But what if we looked at science fiction differently? What if we instead looked at a realistic world? A believable world.
This is the world of Belitopia.
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In this episode of Belitopia. The Apollo space program.
The quintessential peak of human kinds manned presence in space.
The funding that went into this program was astronomical, around $120 **billion** dollars, adjusted for inflation.
But once we established John F. Kennedy’s dream of putting a man on the moon, we lost interest in space. Our society moved on, and the will and drive to do more and more in space went away. With the reduced interest in space came reduced funding. Like having whiplash, the Apollo program was stopped suddenly.
But, what if it didn’t stop suddenly…
This … is … Apollo Plus. Welcome to Belitopia.
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From the space program to high speed trains, from bridges to artificial intelligence, from pop culture to politics, and war to religion. Belitopia is about the world of what if. What if, different decisions were made in our history? Different priorities held by our leaders? Different politics involved? Let’s see the world as it could have been, perhaps should have been, and might still become.
Welcome to Belitopia.
Start of EpisodeHello everybody, and welcome to Apollo +.
Apollo, the United States space program that put a man on the moon.
The Apollo program ended after Apollo 17 returned to earth on December 19, 1972. The Apollo program stopped … abruptly.
By some people’s thinking, this was the end of the real manned space program. Everything else that came after Apollo 17 was a shadow of what went on before.
The reason? Well, people lost interest in space. There was enough other things going on in the late 60’s and early 70’s to keep people’s interest. Who cared about going to the moon anymore? It was old news. After losing interest in space, the space program lost funding…no more big Apollo-type programs…nothing. NASA spent the next 50+ years squeaking by on as little money as they could squeeze out of the government budget…it was, really, a national embarrassment.
The halting of the Apollo program was so sudden that many people believe the whole entire program must have been faked. We never landed on the moon, it was a fake. And so there wasn’t any more “there” there… So went the conspiracy theories.
But, it did happen. We did land on the moon…and we did so five additional times. Six times in total, human-kind landed on the moon.
Each flight had accomplished more and more important space objectives. Each flight did something new and different.
Apollo accomplished many space objectives, including:
First time we left the vicinity of the earth and entered into the gravitational pull of another object, namely the moon.
First time we docked two ships together in orbit around an object that was not the earth. A task that was essential if we wanted to eventually complete our mission to land on the moon, and continue our expiration into space.
First time humans landed on an object that wasn’t earth…namely the moon.
We left the safety of our ship and walked around on the surface of another astronomical object.
We brought home rocks and soil...