William Shatner is a son of a bitch (in the very best sense of the term)
Earth as seen from Apollo 14 in lunar orbit…
What the late astronaut Edgar Mitchell observed from the moon:
“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’”
― Edgar D. Mitchell
The space traveler, known for his portrayal of the fictional Captain Kirk, observed after his return to earth:
Those profound observations of deadly space and our life-supporting home planet were made near-earth, after a sub-orbital flight.
= new reply since forum marked as read
If you like biographies:
Korolev: How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon
by James Harford
Stuff that makes hours fly by:
http://www.astronautix.com/
An example:
http://www.astronautix.com/l/leklunarexpionarycomplex.html
Right up my alley.
It's appalling how little I know of the Soviet space program. I'll get that lined up for when I've read "Earthrise."
Edgar Mitchell sets up an Apollo lunar surface experiments package made up of a set of scientific instruments placed at the landing site. The instruments were designed to run autonomously for long term studies of the moon's environment.
“I theorize that there is a spectrum of consciousness available to human beings. At one end is material consciousness. At the other end is what we call 'field' consciousness, where a person is at one with the universe, perceiving the universe. Just by looking at our planet on the way back, I saw or felt a field consciousness state.” — Edgar D. Mitchell, PhD.
Sheperd was the only Mercury astronaut to walk on the moon. He had been grounded after his Freedom 7 flight — grounded by an inner ear condition. He persevered for years — missing out on Gemini — until he was cleared medically again for flight.
Remastered images reveal how far Alan Shepard hit a golf ball on the Moon
50 years ago, the Apollo 14 astronaut hit a golf ball that traveled roughly 40 yards.
JENNIFER OUELLETTE
Ars Technica - 2/4/2021,
Excerpt…
The idea for Shepard's golfing stunt came out of a 1970 visit by comedian Bob Hope to NASA headquarters in Houston. An avid golfer, Hope cracked a joke about hitting a golf ball on the Moon, and Shepard thought it would be an excellent means of conveying to people watching back on Earth the difference in the strength of gravity. So he paid a pro named Jack Harden at the River Oaks Country Club in Houston to adapt a Wilson Staff 6-iron head so that it could be attached to a collapsible aluminum and Teflon sample collector. Once NASA's Technical Services division added some finishing touches, Shepard practiced his golf swing at a course in Houston while wearing his 200-plus-pound spacesuit to prepare.
Most popular accounts describe Shepard as "smuggling" two balls and a golf club onto the spacecraft, but according to a later interview with Shepard, that wasn't the case. The astronaut ran the idea past then-NASA director Bob Gilruth, who was initially opposed but relented once Shepard laid out the precise details. Shepard also assured Gilruth that the stunt would only be done once all the official exploration tasks had been completed and then only if the mission had gone off without a hitch.
On February 6, Shepard brought out the club and two balls. His spacesuit was too bulky to use both hands, so he swung the makeshift club with just his right hand. After two swings that were "more dirt than ball," he made contact with the ball on his third swing, "shanking" it into a nearby crater. ("Looked like a slice to me, Al," Apollo 13 pilot Fred Haise joked while watching from Mission Control.)
But Shepard nailed his fourth attempt. He sent the ball soaring out of camera range and declared that it traveled for "miles and miles and miles." And as he had anticipated, the impressive 30-second time of flight perfectly showcased the difference in gravity between the Earth and the Moon. Not to be left out, crewmate Edgar Mitchell used a pole from a solar wind experiment as a javelin, which landed near the first golf ball. Once back on Earth, Shepard donated his makeshift club to the USGA museum and had a reproduction made that is now on display at the Smithsonian.
The location of the first ball Shepard hit has been known for quite some time—it's sitting in a crater next to Mitchell's javelin, about 24 yards from where Shepard stood when he took his swing. Saunders' remastering of archival photos enabled him to locate the second ball that traveled farther, as well as one of the divots in the lunar soil.
Continues…
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/remastered-images-reveal-how-far-alan-shepard-hit-a-golf-ball-on-the-moon/
Did you hear Gus’ capsule hatch may have blown open due to an unexpected static charge and not due to any action on the part of the astronaut?
New Evidence Shows That Gus Grissom Did Not Accidentally Sink His Own Spacecraft 60 Years Ago
Careful analysis of the recovery film showed it was static electricity that doomed the Liberty Bell 7.
By Tony Reichhardt
AIRSPACEMAG.COM , JULY 21, 2021
It’s one of the great mysteries of the early space age. How did Mercury astronaut Gus Grissom, after a near-perfect flight on just the second U.S. space mission, inadvertently “blow” the escape hatch prematurely on his Liberty Bell 7 capsule, causing it to fill with water and sink in the Atlantic? In fact, did Grissom blow the hatch? Or was some technical glitch to blame?
Grissom himself insisted he hadn’t accidentally triggered the explosive bolts designed to open the hatch during his ocean recovery. His NASA colleagues, by and large, believed him. Years later, Apollo flight director Gene Kranz told historians Francis French and Colin Burgess, “If Gus says he didn’t do it, he didn’t do it.” And, as writer George Leopold points out in his 2016 biography, Calculated Risk: The Supersonic Life and Times of Gus Grissom, NASA would later pick Grissom for the first shakedown flights of its Gemini and Apollo spacecraft—hardly what you’d expect if the agency had lost confidence in him.
But in his bestselling book The Right Stuff, author Tom Wolfe played the incident for laughs, reporting that test pilots outside NASA thought Grissom had, in their vernacular, “screwed the pooch.” The episode hung over the astronaut’s head until his premature death in 1967 in the Apollo 1 fire.
Now Leopold and Andy Saunders, a space photo expert and author of Apollo Remastered, think they’ve solved the mystery of what really happened to Liberty Bell 7 that day. An electrical discharge during the recovery operation—not a panicky or clumsy astronaut—caused the hatch to blow. Their detailed analysis is published today in Astronomy magazine.
Here’s how the capsule recovery was supposed to go: While Liberty Bell 7 bobbed in the water with Grissom inside, the rescue helicopter would move in close enough for co-pilot John Reinhard to lean out and snip off a long antenna on the capsule with a cutting tool. The helicopter would then hook onto the capsule and raise it enough for the hatch to be fully above water. Grissom would hit a button to blow the hatch, then climb out through the open hatchway to be hoisted on a sling into the helicopter.
Continues…
https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/new-evidence-shows-gus-grissom-did-not-accidentally-sink-his-own-spacecraft-sixty-years-ago-180978240/
As you know, legro, Gus Grissom, with crew mates Edward White and Roger Chaffee would lose their lives in the Apollo 1 fire. Shepard died too young, as well, felled by leukemia. As the poet said, “Our time here isn’t long.”
Earth supports life in a perfect balance. Unfortunately, too many Greedheads have ruined much of it, but there may still be time for action that saves us. Humanity has the will and the People vote in government to institute change. But, the Owners like the stuff low taxes buys them, especially banks and politicians.
The Blue Sphere
We are surrounded by the majestic statement of the sea
and the ever changing murmur of the forests;
we share all these miracles with our lively cousins:
the ones that fly
the ones that crawl
the ones that swim
the ones that run
all seeking the blessings of Mother Nature.
But all the ones that walk:
the builders of cathedrals, pyramids,
great walls and temples to the sun,
we still look at each other with hatred and misgivings
while seeking the forgiveness of a forgotten God.
-- by Adolfo Chipoco, MD
The International Memorial to the Underground Railroad
Created by Ed Dwight
Ed Dwight Was Going to Be the First African American in Space. Until He Wasn’t
The Kennedy administration sought a diverse face to the space program, but for reasons unknown, the pilot was kept from reaching the stars
Shareef Jackson
Smithsonian Magazine, February 18, 2020
In the early 1960s, U.S. Air Force pilot Ed Dwight was drowning in mail. “I received about 1,500 pieces of mail a week, which were stored in large containers at Edwards Air Force Base. Some of it came to my mother in Kansas City,” Dwight, now 86, recalls. Fans from around the world were writing to congratulate Dwight on becoming the first African American astronaut candidate. “Most of my mail was just addressed to Astronaut Dwight, Kansas City, Kansas.”
The letters, however, were premature. Dwight would never get the opportunity to go to space—despite the publicity and hype—for reasons that remain unclear even to this day.
Dwight was working at the time as a test pilot at Edwards in the Mojave Desert of California, the U.S. Air Force’s premier experimental flight base and a pathway to entering the astronaut corps of NASA. He trained in the Aerospace Research Pilot School, run by aviation icon Chuck Yeager, the first person to break the sound barrier. Edwards holds a legendary status, then and now, as the premier flight test facility of the Air Force, where the likes of Gus Grissom and Gordon Cooper, two of the original Mercury 7 astronauts, and Neil Armstrong, selected in the second group of astronauts, trained as test pilots in experimental jets over the vast high desert that often served as an impromptu runway. During his time at Edwards, Dwight flew jets such as the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, a supersonic aircraft capable of soaring into the high atmosphere where the pilot could observe the curvature of the Earth.
“The first time you do this it’s like, ‘Oh my God, what the hell? Look at this,’” Dwight recently told the New York Times. “You can actually see this beautiful blue layer that the Earth is encased in. It’s absolutely stunning.”
Snip…
Around this time, Kennedy encouraged leaders in all the military branches to work to improve diversity among their officers. When the first group of NASA astronauts were selected in 1959, the nation’s military officer pilots, initially the only people who could apply to be astronauts, included no people of color. But as Murrow advocated for a black astronaut, Dwight was rising to the rank of captain in the Air Force, armed with an aeronautics degree from Arizona State University and enough flying hours to qualify for the flight test school at Edwards.
Continues…
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ed-dwight-first-african-american-space-until-wasnt-180974215/
