Remember when we had a space program? Those were very good days.
Today is the 51st anniversary of when John Glenn first orbited the earth in the Mercury Friendship 7 space capsule. There was barely enough room to fit him into the capsule, but with the success of his mission, the USA began its incredible journey to the moon.
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- It was said that you didn’t get into the capsule as much as you wore it.
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- Photo of the Earth taken by John Glenn with a 35-millimeter Ansco Autoset camera he had purchased just before liftoff, seen during Mercury Atlas 6 (Friendship 7) orbital flight on Feb. 20, 1962. (NASA)
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- The capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean. The green dye was intended to aid in recovery in case the capsule sank.
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- Riding with the President at Cape Canaveral. JFK gave Glenn the Distinguished Service Medal.
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- John Glenn delivers a speech to the U.S. Congress during the Washington, DC ceremonies honoring his Friendship 7 space flight, February 26, 1962. (NASA photograph)
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- New York ticker tape parade for the returning hero.
That was back in the day of radically higher tax rates. We are too broke to do anything so spectacular as a country today. It’s really unfortunate because that was an amazing time in our history. Hopefully one day it will be our present once again.
I’m going to research that. The top marginal tax rate in 1962 was 91%; today it’s 35%. That is not the whole story, of course! Interesting point you bring up, though.
Of course we needed the fear brought on by Sputnik and a whole host of other things. However, the impact of tax revenues is huge. It impacts corporate R&D. If you were CEO and your choices were A) give 91% of your earnings to the government or B) invest in your company to be more competitive; what would you do? The middle class ends up with a lot more money and with 26 tax brackets, so does the government to invest in things like NASA.