moronsofrokc

Thanks for taking the time to do this AMA. I've always been curious, what would it take for a spacecraft to be able to orbit Pluto? Could you give us some really rough ballpark figures with regards to the fuel/time/cost requirements for a hypothetical Pluto orbiting mission? Would it be at all feasible with today's technology, or would the weight and other constraints make it totally unfeasible?

[deleted]

Woodstock Just A Muddy Memory

August 15, 1989

I don't remember what I was doing 20 years ago today. Probably what I'm doing now.

But I do know I wasn't wading in mud on a New York farm, running naked in the presence of strangers, puffing on a weed or popping pills that made me say "wow".

In other words, I wasn't at Woodstock, the legendary rock festival, mass drug party, sex orgy, mud bath and traffic jam that many of its 350,000 participants and some media philosophers are now trying to turn into an event of great historic and sociological significance.

However, I do remember turning on my TV set and being told that this was the "Woodstock Nation".

My reaction was that if this was some kind of new "nation", we should send them foreign aid, since they obviously were in dire need.

The poor souls were wrapped in blankets, sleeping in muck, eating in soup kitchens, and many of them were being hauled on stretchers to be treated for dope overdose.

Even worse, there was obviously a shortage of toilet facilities. And because there were no motels, couples who couldn't control their passions were forced to engage in the procreative act before cheering spectators.

Despite all this, many of them said they were having a great time; that despite the hardships there was an aura of love and togetherness; and some had found a new meaning to life.

So I wished them well. But I still preferred a smoky piano bar with a clean john.

Now, 20 years later, it seems as if every publication and TV show in America is looking back at Woodstock, seeking its meaning and talking to those who were there.

The good news is that most of those being interviewed appear to have washed off the mud.

The bad news is that they actually think something remarkable occurred.

The author of a book on Woodstock is quoted in the New York Times as saying: "Woodstock was a moment in time that was the culmination of a lot of ideals and sensibilities that were the 1960s for a whole generation of people...culturally, it helped to define a generation."

There we go with the old defining-a-generation routine.

Well, maybe it did. But if so, I don't think the results were anything to brag about.

Most of those at Woodstock were somewhere between their late teens and early 30s, the majority in their early 20s.

No offense meant, but that generation was the most self-centered, self-indulgent, demanding, pampered, ungrateful generation in this country's history.

They were the children of people who grew up knowing hard times in the Great Depression. And many knew even harder times when they fought World War II.

But for their efforts, these parents were told: "Look at what a terrible world you brought us into. All you think about are material things."

Of course, these crass material things made them the best fed, best clothed, best housed, best educated and least appreciative generation in history.

"Ideals and sensibilities," the Woodstock author said. Well, yes, I'm sure most of them were against the Vietnam War. Or at least personally taking part in the war. But as soon as they were safe from the draft and the war ended, many of the more ardent peaceniks became furious dollarniks. The peace generation became the "I'll get mine" generation.

And when it came to materialism, they made their parents look like monks. There were no designer labels on ma and pa's butts.

One of the Woodstock scholars said that the rock music they gathered to hear could change society, could change the world. That's part of the '60s vanity. I've never quite understood why if the genius of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms didn't change the world, the sight of Joe Cocker, twitching through withdrawal on a public stage, should be profound.

But I will concede that the world did change for some of the artists who appeared at Woodstock. Three of the top stars soon doped themselves to death. A couple of others wound up in jail and rehab joints. And one made a fast exit using a noose.

Of course, it would be unfair to judge an entire generation by a herd of grass-puffing mud-bathers. There were some from that generation who put themselves on the line in the civil rights movement. But they were a minority. And that generation included many ghetto blacks, working class ethnics and sleepy hollow Southern boys who couldn't or wouldn't wrangle deferments and wound up in Vietnam. But when they slept in mud, it wasn't any "culmination" of their "ideas and sensibilities."

So spare us the nostalgia. Get back on the phone and sell some stock, or take your BMW in for a tuneup.

Or at least be honest, as one Woodstock veteran was, when he told a reporter:

"What do I remember most? I got the clap. That was it."