Take Off to 1960s Space Motels | Hacker News Reader

Take Off to 1960s Space Motels

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52 pointsjohnny31323 comments

The space program influenced everything back then. Clothes, toys, cars, buildings and more. Nothing said the future better than space. Makes me nostalgic for that time, anything seemed possible. When we stopped going to the moon then it all sort of died.

I think we'll get back there, but recent things really make me wonder what's changed so much. When Elon literally put a roadster into space on the experimental, and successful, debut launch of the most powerful rocket ever built since the space race, to say nothing of the crazy design and autonomous landings, I thought that we might see some sort of wider reawakening and wonder as to what we can actually do now a days if we actually just decided to do it. Literally gave me goosebumps seeing those boosters do their dance and land in such beautiful harmony.

Instead, it received relatively little coverage in the media, and a fair bit that of what coverage it did receive managed to somehow spin it into a negative. The media is in general just so incredibly disappointing now a days. So much time is wasted trying to ignite outrage when so many amazingly great things are happening at this very moment.

The biggest change is that the Space Race era was, at least by perception, happening in the public sphere. In the US, NASA and the fairly new Air Force were the face of it and the whole thing seemed like a scientific pursuit which would benefit all of mankind.

Now, it's about the self-indulgence of one very wealthy guy with a lot of federal tax breaks. The luster has worn off.

> Instead, it [Falcon Heavy] received relatively little coverage in the media

Huh? It was covered world-wide by essentially all media.

US, China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Britain, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Canada, Australia, Latin America, Turkey. At the time I dug through a lot of media to see how it was covered, there hardly seemed to be any exceptions that didn't cover it.

Maybe North Korea didn't cover it.

All the talk show hosts talked about it. Even Trump tweeted the synchronized landings. It lit up social media and forums everywhere.

We are, at this very moment, living through what will likely be seen as one of the most important and keystone eras in humankind. We are finally taking the steps to move, as a people -- as a species, into space. This is something that will completely transform our species, forever. People millennia from now will wonder how this came to be - how the time that we're living through played out, how people responded to such change. The reality that most people are completely unaware would probably be quite disappointing.

One-off bursts of coverage are forgotten as quickly as they emerge. For instance, if we were to poll Americans on our recent achievements in space, what percent of Americans do you think would have any clue about what's going on? Even just of the Falcon Heavy in particular? I think a fair over/under would be 20%. In my experience it's a fair bit lower than that. And the biggest shame here is that people are just jaw dropped at seeing what we're achieving - which makes that ignorance all the more of a shame! Heck, YouTube is home of some the most negative and trollish commenting on the internet. See how people responded to this [1] video of the Falcon Heavy test flight. That a 'mere' technological achievement somehow brought out such strong and positive emotion from so many people, on YouTube of all places. Why aren't the media more actively tapping into that?

The media plays a very large role in deciding the zeitgeist of a time. And I think it's a shame that they've chosen to obsess primarily on divisive topics rather than on topics that unify people and let them see what we're actually doing. There are a good deal of people that formulate their world views based primarily on the news. But if you were to do that now a days you'd see nothing but negativity, divisiveness, and general nastiness. Yet in reality we live in amazing times when we're doing amazing things, but instead of focusing on that -- the media are taking the worst of the worst, and spending all of their time focusing on that to the point that the glimpses of what really is (and will) define this era are lost to the never-ending tidal wave of divisive or outrage driven news.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c

Remember, Falcon Heavy is far from the biggest rocket since Saturn. Even if you discount Space Shuttles - which still were quite a significant achievement even for our time - you still have to remember two flights of Energiya. That puts SpaceX work in perspective - yes, it's important and FH (when it flies) can lift the most, but don't expect comparison on the level of Apollo-11 or Vostok.

I think that what's changed is that people have lost faith that these advances, however spectacular, are going to benefit them in any compelling way. At most maybe we'll get a new method of soulless consumerism, but I don't think anyone believes in the sense of optimism and adventure that NASA or old sci-fi used to represent.

I think there's a clear argument against this. Let's assume people were both aware of, and believed, that e.g. SpaceX would achieve its goals. The immediate, and monumental, benefit there is quite self evident. Starting a new civilization would be akin to having something like expanding into a western frontier that never ended. Of course there will be immense room for scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers of all sorts, physicists, computer scientists, and the like. But you'll also need everything from janitors to system administrators to athletes in the longrun. Imagine the potential for 1/3rd g sports -- livestreamed (at the speed of light) from another planet. Even 'small' things like asteroid mining will signal the end of any sort of significant mineral scarcity on Earth and will almost certainly lead directly to the construction of sophisticated development and construction facilities in space to more efficiently utilize these resources. Again, think about the vast numbers of people and opportunities available there.

And of course this is all just scratching the surface in the most superficial way possible. Yet we're talking about a practically limitless number of new jobs and opportunities for people of all sorts of backgrounds. Of course most people don't think any of this will happen. And given that I'm certain similar statements were put forth following the moon landing, it's not entirely illogical to suggest this is all pie in the sky. But I think most people aren't even to the point of knowing what's actually happening, let alone deciding one way or another what will happen in the future.

If you are very interested in this subject, I would recommend reading "No Requiem for the Space Age", by Matthew Tribbe.

Given the rate at which these space-themed motels must have gone up in the years through the space race, someone must have been saying that these are a fad. However, despite seeming like they were a fad, they still bring an unexplained sense of nostalgia. I am left to wonder what the modern-day equivalent is to these motels and 50s/60s styling in general.

For 80s and 90s, I'd think a retro gaming/technology theme would be a good representation of the times.

there's a lot of awesome styling themes you could do for 80s and 90s:

80s - hair metal, synthwave/synthpop (think hotline miami, vice city, etc), retro games pre/post crash. all in the 8 bit c64/atari color palette.

90s - grunge and the internet revolution. i think we still need some distance from the 90s to really define the nostalgic points, but a lot of the last few years is undoubtedly swallowed in the new millenia hype.

I was born in the early '80s and it surprised me how much nostalgia was generated inside of me by these photos taken at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympic Games: https://www.facebook.com/pg/muzeulcineastuluiamator/photos/?... (warning: FB link). It's the haircuts, the look on people's faces, their attitude, hard to describe in words, they all remind me of my first memories as a child and especially about how I was looking at my parents.

90s for me: 90's era web design, frames, pre-CSS styling, blink tags, under construction gifs; TI calculator games; original Duke Nukem, original DOOM; ring pops, scrunchies, slap bracelets; dial up noises, AOL, getting a 2nd phone line for Internet or getting someone off the phone to chat with friends on AIM / ICQ; "parents" generation (though not my parents) not knowing the difference between the Internet and AOL; Palm Pilot V, HP palmtop (and other mobile devices without Internet Access)

> retro games pre/post crash

I've heard a few people discuss a games market crash in recent years and was very confused as I lived through that era and didn't remember anything of the sort. It was only recently that I discovered those discussing it were all American - turns out there was a "crash" of sorts but it was very localised to the US. Those of us in the rest of the world still had a thriving gaming scene. Particularly in Europe and Japan (I cannot speak for other areas with any great certainty).

Isn't nostalgia almost always targetting some fad? Some fads last months, others a decade, but the sentiment remains regardless (and will probably reiterate: we're getting pretty bullish on "cheap"/reusable spaceships again..)

bitcoin / altcoin mania.

My favourite that I personally stayed at (IIRC early 1990s) was the Best Western Space Age Lodge in the bustling metropolis of Gila Bend, AZ, along an old alignment of US 80. It was a bit of a dump then, but the decor was delightfully outlandish. However, the space theme seemed largely limited to the exterior, thank goodness. We ate at the "theme" restaurant too and it was really wacky inside and out (the food was just okay). It ostensibly opened in 1965: https://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/76

I went back in 2006 and it seemed to have been retrofitted somewhat, but largely was as I remembered: https://www.floodgap.com/roadgap/6/entry?060803

There's still a Space Age Inn in Gila Bend, AZ.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/best-western-space-age-lodge-gila-b...

I was thinking of things like the station in 2001.

I wondered if the people in the photos were models or actual guests.

If these photos had been made nowadays it would be obvious they are models, because nobody in the shots of the pool is overweight, except maybe the guy in the red tie who appears in the background in the postcard and the photo after it, and the man standing next to the slide in that photo--his belly slightly overhangs his swim suit.

But back when these were taken...it was actually plausible to naturally find a half dozen people at a pool with none of them overweight.

Upon further examination...definitely models. The photo in the postcard and the photo following were clearly taken at very different times, but the foreground women are the same in both. Same faces. Same hair colors and styles. Same swim suits.

How do we know the photos are well separated in time?

First, we see that the slides are on opposite sides...but that could be explained by one of the photos being flipped. That was not uncommon in print. It could also be explained by their actually being two slides, and we only see one due to the angle of the shot. So forget the slides for now.

Second, we see that the Moon House seems to be in a different position. In the postcard it appears that if someone swam straight out from the edge of the pool nearest the camera to the opposite edge, climbed straight out, and continued walking in that direction, they would pass the Moon House on their left. It would not in any way obstruct them no matter where they started on the near side.

In the photo, it appears that for most starting locations on the near side doing the above would run them smack dab into the Moon House.

If there are really two slides...maybe we can explain the apparent Moon House position by different shot angles, but not if there is only one slide with a flipped photo...but we can settle the Moon House issue without having to figure out the slide thing.

In each photo consider the diagonal line that goes through the corner nearest the slide and through the opposite corner. (The pool is not actually a quadrilateral, but is close enough that it should be clear what line I'm talking about). Also consider the other diagonal, the one that goes through the corner that would be nearest the hidden slide. Together these two diagonals form a cone.

In the postcard, the Moon House is outside the cone. In the photo, it is inside the cone. No mere change in shot angle or flipping of photos can change inside/outside cone. That's an invariant.

Conclusion: the Moon House moved between the photos, suggesting the photos were taken well apart.

(BTW, neither photo is flipped. Farther down is a third photo showing the pool and motel, and you can see that from the point of view of the pool looking toward the motel the motel extends far to the right, with little extent to the left. In the postcard, we can see that the motel does not extend far to the left. In the photo, we can see that it does extend far to the right. This shows that the postcard is not flipped relative to the photo).

(We still don't have enough to figure out if there are one or two slides. There are two if they haven't been moving slides. But these are people who can move Moon Houses! To them moving a slide would be child's play, so it is quite possible that the renovation that pool area renovation that moved the Moon House also moved the slide).

Hmm, the three women have the same swimsuits on, and the vertical posts along the balconies don't match. I think this is two different but similarly equipped pools at the same Motel!

No, it's two different motels--the 'space age' and the 'cosmic age' hotels were at different locations.

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