The moon, and something I've never thought of before
Bobb Fwed
Posts: 1,119
I thought this was interesting, it had never even crossed my mind:
http://youtu.be/QBK3QpQVnaw?t=9m24s
http://youtu.be/QBK3QpQVnaw?t=9m24s
Comments
As a thirteen years old guy in England I followed the progress of the Apollow 11 mission avidly. I was totally overwhelmed by the idea that those guys were going out there with a high probablilty they cannot make it back. I could not imagine how fearless you would have to be to even think about doing that.
Had Apollo 13's oxygen tank explosion waited to happen when the LM was on the surface, that speech could very well have been in for some last-minute editing and deployment though.
Also, the astronauts would not have starved. They would have run out of oxygen long before either food or water became an issue. I would imagine that if I had been one of the pair that faced such a fate I would have spent my last hours figuring out how we could get the hatch open and both make it to the surface and see the Earth without a piece of glass in the way in the 15 seconds or so you have of consciousness when exposed to vacuum.
So one of theres folks proposed an interesting question "Is the moon still there if nobody is looking at it? "
This type of philosophical navel gazing is a relic of the Aristotelian world view, like water having an "innate desire" to flow to the lowest level. If humans became extinct the moon would still be there. Unless of course our extinction was caused by the moon dropping on our heads.
Did they have any way of knowing the lunar soil wasn't somehow toxic or pathogenic? Had prior missions sent back samples for analysis? Or were the unmanned landers able to determine that?
The argument centers around what counts as a measurement. For example in the delayed quantum eraser experiment a measurement is taken the information is destroyed. This produces the same result if the measurement is not taken. However, if the results are observed then the system acts like the measurement was taken. While I'm not a fan of loopy interpretations of QM, there's definitely strange things afoot at the circle K.
There weren't any successful sample returns before Apollo 11, but there were meteorites strongly suspected of being lunar in origin and in practice most of the expected mineral chemistries were inert. The returning astronauts were quarantined after returning in case of pathogens. There was very little opportunity for contact between the astronauts bodies and actual lunar material except for dust tracked into the LM.
I guess running a vacuum cleaner inside the LM would have been a bit uselessly redundant.
There are a LOT of things which go on in this world which are kept from the general public...
From the following link...
["Horror stories of Korean War POWs -- brainwashing and torture -- had led the CIA Agency to furnish U-2 pilots with cyanide capsules and the infamous poison needle hidden in a bisected silver dollar. Powers never took them along. Like the other pilots, he considered their use optional, not mandatory."]
The U2...
http://area51specialprojects.com/u2_mayday.html
Tragedies do happen, lessons are learned, and progress goes on. It is amazing that the Apollo program returned all the astronauts safely from the moon, but of course during training there was the deadly fire on Apollo 1.
This is indeed a very compelling YouTube, but for me it reeks of a media exploit of the iconic heroes of the modern world. And sadly presents the ever-present pragmatism of the Washington, D.C. spin doctors to write up a speech for every contingency when the eyes of the world are turned your way.
Most brave men died alone and didn't have multiple versions of their obituaries written in advance for their handlers to revise and review in terms of gaining the most political cashe.
I lived in a fishing town on the Oregon Coast for three years, and every year some didn't come home, and it was never known why or how. They were just lost at sea.
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On the other hand, I was in Taxco, Mexico when these men landed on the moon and the whole town stopped to watch the event. I sat on a hillside above a hotel that had pulled out one of the few available TVs and placed it on a table that about 500-1000 people sat in front of.
It gave me the impression that for that one event, the whole world had paused to see history. I was quite proud to be American, the Mexicans all said they loved America... but hated Nixon. I felt they were honest and sincere, and I was treated as a welcome guest.
Why are we talking about tragedies that never happened?
Miners, fishermen, loggers, taxicab drivers all deal regularly with death as an occupational hazard - just like soldiers and astronauts.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap170325.html