Sandeep, Anjani, Christopher, and I had driven to Dallas for a tennis tournament. It was COLD. There is much waiting at these tournaments. Lots of parents and players waiting around. They don’t talk much to each other. Maybe that is the nature of these types of events. Just want to get through the day. Don’t want to disturb the players or the parents. Or we brought our own things to keep us busy.
Finding someone to interview should have been easy. There were so many people to strike up a conversation with. Finally I went up to someone and explained my project and he directed me to Zach.
Zach had not heard that we were going to the moon, but his thoughts were “Go for it! Why not. I’m sure there is more to explore and know about.”
What does he hope we get out of it? It would provide better pictures of the landing, and going this time would convince people that we went the first time. People “might be willing not to call it a Hoax”. And perhaps that is one of the reasons we really should go. To make people believe that we can go, that we did go, and that we can keep going. Perhaps we need to open people’s eyes.
I asked Zack when the last time we went to the moon was. He said that he thought it was the same as the first time. And considering the reasons we originally went, to show that we could go further than the USSR, that makes sense. It is really interesting that we did go back. It made sense to have some backup options, but that we had Apollo 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17. And I think there was the belief that we would keep going in some quarters. And there was a belief that we had achieved everything we wanted after the first landing the rest was just victory laps. And then still other people thought the whole thing was foolishness to.
How much do you think it would cost to send people to the moon? “A few billion” Would you believe that the rocket that NASA is planning to use cost $1 Billion per launch? “Wow. That is a lot of money. But might still be worthwhile”
Zach had heard about SpaceX’s plans to go to Mars. He is more interested in what we can discover than going to space himself.
Zach’s feedback about these interviews was to keep doing them.