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RE: "Moon Hoax" Conspiracy Theorists Rev up for 50th Anniversary
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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 RE: "Moon Hoax" Conspiracy... (in reply to RobF)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: RobF
Hi Richard.
If possible, in light of the anniversary, could you convey the regards of the Foro to your brother? I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this is due.
Here's the photo I mentioned. Thanks to Simon for promptly fixing the bug.
In the background, in suspense over the air leak.
The second photo, 38 years later, receiving the Space Medicine Association's highest award.
I post the photos as my own tribute to him.
He turned 85 last week. With a rapid onset about three years ago, he suffers from disabling dementia. When I visit he recognizes me, but he is almost unable to speak. His wife of 61 years, who ran the Nurse Practitioner program at the medical school for several years, is capable of supervising his care. She says he remains the gentleman he always was. They can afford full time assistance.
They still live in their country place, around 200 acres with deer, birds, squirrels, rabbits and other wildlife visible daily, as well as their daughter's horses. Their daughter and son-in-law live up the hill. They are frequently visited by their other two children, their spouses and their eleven grandchildren, all of whom adore him.
A sad conclusion to a life of vibrant adventure and achievement, but it is a possibility we all face.
RNJ
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Date Jul. 18 2019 19:38:12
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Escribano
Posts: 6415
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy
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RE: "Moon Hoax" Conspiracy... (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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One thing no-one has mentioned in this discussion (I think), is the advance in technology that has allowed unmanned space vehicles to explore on our behalf for decades. We humans are limited to ISS (probably for biological/science experiments etc.).
There is no reason to go to the trouble of equipping a vehicle for oxygen, C02 scrubbing, food, water, toilets, a lot more room, much more fuel, many launch stages and a lot more weight.
A computer-controlled device can do as much as man, much further away, nourished by the Sun, more efficiently and for way longer.
Voyager 1 is now 13 billion miles from Earth and still transmitting, still obeying commands. It also doesn't need to return.
Trump's planned excursion coincides with his last year of any next term and is just grandstanding. With today's tech., Apollo 11 would not happen.
_____________________________
Foro Flamenco founder and Admin
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Date Jul. 18 2019 21:34:27
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: "Moon Hoax" Conspiracy... (in reply to Escribano)
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I stayed up late last night and watched a Public TV documentary on the NASA manned spaceflight programs: Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. I was aware of it at the time, but the documentary reminded me vividly that the human flight programs were inherently a part of the Cold War.
The Soviet Union gained great prestige from Sputnik, the first man made earth satellite. They followed up with the orbital flights of Gagarin and Titov, which gained even greater prestige. Gagarin was sent on a world tour of national capitals. There was footage of Gagarin parading through the streets of London in a cavalcade of Rolls Royces while crowds cheered. Meanwhile the U.S. efforts were a series of spectacularly disastrous failures of un-manned rockets.
With Alan Shepard's successful suborbital flight the USA began to gain a foothold, but the Soviets had a sizable and clearly perceived lead. One of my friends tracked Shepard's flight with a telescope on a gun mount, from a U.S. base in Antigua. Shows how old I am.
John Glenn's orbital flight gained the U.S. a little more ground, but the U.S. was still clearly behind the Soviet Union in space technology. Glenn was hailed as a hero, and given a ticker tape parade in New York City. Judging from the rest of his life, he deserved to be famous. But Gagarin and Titov outshone him in the space race.
In the documentary NASA's official historian points out that people weren't interested in satellites, or even so much in ICBMs. What interested people was manned space flight.
Kennedy decided to set the goal of a human moon landing before 1970 in order to gain prestige for the USA, and to galvanize the U.S. space technology community. In 1963, worried about the escalating cost of manned spaceflight, Kennedy proposed a shared moon landing effort to Khruschev. After consideration, Khruschev declared himself open to the proposal.
Kennedy was assassinated in November, 1963, Khruschev was deposed in 1964. The USA and the Soviet Union continued to compete.
The Soviets, like the USA had imported German rocket experts, but decided to make their space race a purely Soviet effort. They repatriated the Germans. We kept our Nazis, and they got us to the moon before the Soviets.
I say our Nazis did it because to me, with years of space related experience, the most impressive part of the U.S. moon program was the development of the Saturn V rocket.
At Huntsville, Alabama, where the rocket was developed, there is a museum dedicated to the project. There is a Saturn V separated into stages, suspended on its side above the heads of the spectators. It is gigantic. People stop in their tracks and stare when they enter the building. The Apollo 12 Airstream trailer is there, with a photo of my brother in it with the astronauts.
The most impressive thing for me is the display of the project plan and schedule. It is blindingly fast, immensely risky, and it went off without a flaw. It was one of the most impressive technological feats of the 20th century.
Another significant role: von Braun is widely believed to be the one who finally convinced Kennedy that a moon landing before 1970 was possible.
People these days may be impressed by SpaceX. I feel privileged to have cooperated with them on their initial flight tests. But with all their brilliance and elan they have suffered more failures, mistakes and schedule setbacks than von Braun and the Saturn V did.
Their first three flight attempts were failures. The first two ended in fiery and spectacular explosions. The third was hilarious. They fueled up the rocket to launch, but scrubbed. While "de-tanking" liquid oxygen from the second stage, a vent check valve stuck closed. Under atmospheric pressure the empty LOX tank slowly shriveled up the second stage like a crushed beer can--on live TV. Most of the 3,000 people on Kwajalein Atoll saw it. Many of them were highly educated and successful engineers.
People made fun of SpaceX. I said the rocket business was a sporty game. Every project had its failures. Rocket failures are public and spectacular. But SpaceX has always figured out what went wrong, and they have never made the same mistake twice. That's what makes them so good.
Saturn V never had a major failure.
After the Apollo 11 landing and return, public interest in manned spaceflight decreased significantly in the USA. NASA's budget was cut 20% the next year. After the last Apollo flight my brother left NASA.
Years later he was the head of the Galveston County Public Health Service. My wife, children and I went to his younger daughter's wedding there. There was a good sized crowd at the reception at the former Bishop's mansion. After a while I looked around to find my brother. He was standing tall, smiling, the father of the bride. With him at the moment were a half dozen men who didn't look nearly as upbeat: slumped shoulders, tending to look down, maybe not the spiffiest suits. I wandered over and was introduced. The men around him were old friends who had stayed on at the Manned Spaceflight Center.
It's true that "purely scientific" research can be carried out more efficiently by unmanned means. The unmanned missions to Mars, Venus and the outer planets have been technological tours de force.
The driving objectives of manned flight have not been scientific research. The Space Shuttle program deployed some research satellites that didn't attract much public attention. Perhaps most famously the Shuttle enabled the repair of the Hubble Telescope. But this wasn't a big scientific advance. It was a lucky recovery from a major f...up. The Shuttle project killed 14 people.
I knew well the aerodynamicists and aerothermodynamicists who did the analyses and predictions for the Shuttle reentry. I consulted with their small company in Mountain View, California on a military project. The shuttle was ten times bigger than anything that had reentered the atmosphere before. They nailed it, including the precise altitude regime where the effect of the control surfaces would reverse, then recover. To me it was an impressive piece of work, but it was only needed because the Shuttle was manned, and had to be brought back home.
The Apollo program was part of the Cold War. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos intend to colonize Mars.
Will they make it? Maybe, maybe not.
Just before Kennedy's speech, a poll showed that 61% of Americans thought it unwise to try for the moon. After Kennedy's speech 65% agreed that we ought to go for it: an example of political leadership with no visible counterpart in the present day.
RNJ
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Date Jul. 18 2019 23:57:15
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: "Moon Hoax" Conspiracy... (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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In fact there were two speeches, one to Congress, another at Rice Stadium in Houston to announce the location of the Manned Spaceflight Center. Videos of both are available.
All these years later, having seen them more than once, I am still impressed by Kennedy's persuasiveness, and his ability to inspire the acceptance of a challenge. Of course my impression today is colored by hindsight of the success of Apollo.
And remember, the speech to Congress was only six weeks after the Bay of Pigs invasion. It took a while for much of the story to come out, and when it did it was largely blamed on the CIA. The Cuban Missile Crisis, which occurred after the speeches, was pretty much a draw in the Cold War, neither side really winning or losing, but in the USA it played as a triumph of Kennedy's statesmanship, since the quid pro quo removal of our missiles in Turkey was kept secret.
The speeches were before Vietnam, Watergate, the failed attempt at rescuing the Iran hostages, Iran-Contra, Whitewater, Clinton's lying to the grand jury about Monica Lewinsky, the invasion of Iraq, 18 years of war in Afghanistan, the rise of Al Qaeda--and, how can I give the least offense to his supporters?--the credibility issues with our current president.
It is generally believed that it was von Braun who convinced Kennedy that a moon landing was possible before 1970. James Webb, the NASA Administrator was an able and well informed operator in Washington, who helped build political support.
Kennedy undertook to convince Congress and the public. Most importantly in my estimation, the office of the president still had considerable credibility in 1961.
Kennedy's immediate predecessors were Eisenhower, Truman and Roosevelt, each of whom significantly increased or maintained the prestige and credibility of the office.
So we should not only give credit for leadership to Kennedy, but to his immediate predecessors as well.
RNJ
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Date Jul. 19 2019 2:07:13
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henrym3483
Posts: 1584
Joined: Nov. 13 2005
From: Limerick,Ireland
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RE: "Moon Hoax" Conspiracy... (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
Another reason why we tend to spend money on weapons and stunts like the moon landing is that they are much easier problems to solve than "making the world a better place."
The Apollo program, and its predecessors Mercury and Gemini had simple, explicit goals, with engineering solutions. So does weapon development. People seldom predict accurately the cost or schedule of large technical projects, but they get close enough to the right answers to get the money to begin, to produce some positive results, and to generate the momentum to keep the money flowing until the objective is achieved, at least to general satisfaction.
In the first place, people seriously disagree on what objectives to pursue to "make the world a better place." When they do agree, the law of unintended consequences frequently produces a world that is no better, or often enough, one that is worse.
I'm not counseling inertia in the face of the world's problems. For an 81-year old American I'm left of center politically, which would put me near the middle of the road in Europe.
I'm just trying to explain my take on why we spend our money the way we do. We spend it on objectives we can agree upon, with reasonably predictable outcomes, despite whatever moral imperative there may be to go in a different direction.
RNJ
I do not doubt that a number of civilian applications come out of military based research, materials technology etc. Nonetheless, I think there needs to be a paradigm shift towards bettering humanity rather than destroying it.
Sadly, the Dunning–Kruger effect seems to be present in nearly every powerful global political system. The modern political games seem to be a distraction from the real issues of human well being.
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Date Jul. 19 2019 7:39:01
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: "Moon Hoax" Conspiracy... (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
In fact there were two speeches, one to Congress, another at Rice Stadium in Houston to announce the location of the Manned Spaceflight Center. Videos of both are available.
All these years later, having seen them more than once, I am still impressed by Kennedy's persuasiveness, and his ability to inspire the acceptance of a challenge. Of course my impression today is colored by hindsight of the success of Apollo.
And remember, the speech to Congress was only six weeks after the Bay of Pigs invasion. It took a while for much of the story to come out, and when it did it was largely blamed on the CIA. The Cuban Missile Crisis, which occurred after the speeches, was pretty much a draw in the Cold War, neither side really winning or losing, but in the USA it played as a triumph of Kennedy's statesmanship, since the quid pro quo removal of our missiles in Turkey was kept secret.
The speeches were before Vietnam, Watergate, the failed attempt at rescuing the Iran hostages, Iran-Contra, Whitewater, Clinton's lying to the grand jury about Monica Lewinsky, the invasion of Iraq, 18 years of war in Afghanistan, the rise of Al Qaeda--and, how can I give the least offense to his supporters?--the credibility issues with our current president.
It is generally believed that it was von Braun who convinced Kennedy that a moon landing was possible before 1970. James Webb, the NASA Administrator was an able and well informed operator in Washington, who helped build political support.
Kennedy undertook to convince Congress and the public. Most importantly in my estimation, the office of the president still had considerable credibility in 1961.
Kennedy's immediate predecessors were Eisenhower, Truman and Roosevelt, each of whom significantly increased or maintained the prestige and credibility of the office.
So we should not only give credit for leadership to Kennedy, but to his immediate predecessors as well.
RNJ
Kennedy's initial year in office was marked by some real setbacks. The Bay of Pigs invasion was planned under the Eisenhower administration and Kennedy decided to go through with it. The driving force was Richard Bissell of the CIA, who in 1954 had managed to get Area 51 up and running for testing the U-2 at the time. After the Bay of Pigs failure, Bissell was fired.
IN June 1961, Kennedy had his summit with Khrushchev in Vienna and was totally unprepared for it. Khrushchev lectured Kennedy on everything from why the US should leave West Berlin to the finer points of Marxism. Kennedy admitted he had been bested. And in August 1961, the Berlin Wall went up. Many analysts thought (and still think) that if the US had shown more spine and threatened force to maintain the open border between East and West Berlin, Khrushchev (and East German leader Walter Ulbricht) would have backed down and we would have prevailed.
The Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 demonstrated that Kennedy had learned his lesson. The naval quarantine directed against the Soviets (and the secret agreement for the US to remove Jupiter missiles from Turkey) led Krushchev to remove his missiles from Cuba. I think it was more than a "draw" in the Cold War. I would call it a qualified "win" for the US because the missiles in Cuba represented a direct threat against the US, and their removal not only removed the threat, it showed Castro that he could not depend on the Soviets for a "blank check." On the other hand, our Jupiter missiles in Turkey were becoming obsolete and we would have eventually had to replace them anyway.
What I find interesting is how vehemently Eisenhower opposed the Apollo Program. He considered it nonsense to use it as a way to outpace the Soviets and thought there were better, more important avenues for the US to achieve our goals in the Cold War. Douglas Brinkley, in his recently-published book entitled, "American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race," quotes Eisenhower in a speech at the Naval War College, that "To make the so-called race to the moon a major element in our struggle to show that we are superior to the Russians is getting our eyes off the right target." And in an off-the-record meeting of Republicans in Congress, Eisenhower said, "Anybody who would spend $40 billion in a race to the moon for national prestige is nuts."
Nevertheless, Kennedy, with the remarkable Wernher von Braun (his Nazi and SS past notwithstanding) and the NASA folks, pulled it off. It was a magnificent achievement.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Jul. 19 2019 16:40:43
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