35th Anniversary of Apollo 13 Splashdown 197
orac2 writes "35 years ago today, the crew of the Apollo 13 mission splashed down in the Pacific, after a harrowing four days following an oxygen tank explosion aboard their spacecraft. If you've only seen the Ron Howard movie, IEEE Spectrum has an article about what really went on in mission control to save the crew, with interviews with Gene Kranz, etc,and including a previously unreported hack the lunar module controllers had to come up with in real-time just to turn on the LM."
Now *that*s a cool hack! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do people still deny the moon landing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now we're looking at Mars, but there's only so much duct tape we can wrap around these shuttles. I wish some of the enthusiasm and can-do attitude towards space that we had in the early days would return so that this next trek could be adequately funded and researched.
Since I'm too young... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:True geeks (Score:5, Insightful)
What I loved about the movie "Apollo 13" was that it celebrated the true heroism exhibited by the "geeks" at NASA. I remember reading editorials from feminist man-haters whining about how all the men in the movie were, well, men, and white men, which is somehow worse. That kind of criticism really made me ill. I felt really sorry for the kind of person who would attack a movie for being sexist or even cheuvanist simply because it shows a group of white men being heroes, even if it is historically accurate.
It's not often you see a group of actual, Coke-bottle-glasses, pocket-protector, polyester-pants GEEKS acting in concert to save lives presented in movies these days. (Usually they are sexed-up CSI-types. Yeah, sure.) But damnit, those boys (and girls) at NASA really do have people's lives in their hands, and each and every successful, boring old manned mission is a tremendous risk and a testament to the genius and sheer balls of the American Nerd.
Ahh, the good old days.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's all fiction anyways (Score:2, Insightful)
And Ive been told that if you went on to do degree level physics and chemistry, you are pretty much told exactly the same. Whats the point, why not just teach the real facts at all levels?!
Questioning the validity of the "new stuff" (Score:2, Insightful)
asked within 5 years: good informative details
asked after 5-10 years: less details: you'd have more if you asked earlier
asked after 10-15 years: way less details: you'd have much more if you asked earlier
asked after 15-20 years: refuses to answer: this is pointless, you should have asked me when it was fresh in my mind
asked after 20-25 years: refuses to answer
asked after 25-30 years: refuses to answer
asked after 30-35 years: I don't remember anything significant, but let's talk about it, old people like to talk!!
Re:Ahh, the good old days.... (Score:3, Insightful)
You think it was all "peaceful scientific exploration"? Wanna see a list of weaponry that was developed in those days?
Sad... (Score:5, Insightful)
All those Apollo anniversaries make me sad. 35 years is my whole life, I was born the same year Apollo 13 made its epic return to Earth. And what happened through my whole life with space exploration? Are we further than we were in 1970? All that's left from the grand dreams of the period are some old shuttles, that make news when they fly at all, a space station which we wouldn't be able to operate without Russian (paid) help and a huge, costly government agency that produces lots of nice animations, small droids and very, very little substance - and tons of SF movies. In our silver screen dreams we have already conquered whole galaxy, in reality we hardly moved.
I know it's a harsh judgment. But technologically speaking we could have been walking on Mars a decade ago, we could have been visiting Moon regularly, we could have been sending dozens of automated probes each year not just a few. Isn't that sad?
I think it is each time I have to ask myself: will I live long enough to see anything to even match, let alone outshine Apollo achievements?
Re:True geeks (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Now *that*s a cool hack! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Now *that*s a cool hack! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:True geeks (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sad... (Score:2, Insightful)
What was it, a single single failure in over 30 years?
Technology really is moving backwards.
Re:Ahh, the good old days.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:NASA of Then v. NASA of Today (Score:1, Insightful)
Lets review this statement and break it down shall we? Yes the bureaucracy was to blame for both disasters. They created an atmosphere of hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. That is in fact a problem. However abandoning the Hubble space telescope isn't the same as giving up on a crew.
The truth of the matter is Nasa doesn't have as big a budget as they need to do everything. Nasa has to choose between spending money on a new system or upgrading. If you want to talk about balls lets talk about the new Telescope they are working on. They are going to try to assemble one working mirror out of 20 smaller mirrors at a la-grange point. Not only is that tricky, but if it doesn't work it's going take them years, if ever, to fix it. So they still have some balls
Oh and about going to the Mars, it's again a money issue. Going to the moon cost America about 5% of the national governments budget. Sure we could probably do it for cheaper this time around. Certainly it something we need to do for the future of humanity. Now imagine trying to sell that one in congress. Now add giant deficits and a failing economy. It won't fly, NASA will probably never get that kind of a budget again. Short of killer asteroid being found tomorrow that is.
That and from a scientific stand point, sending people doesn't make any sense what so ever. For a lot less money you can get a lot better science with robots. So the only reason to go to mars in person is for human adventure and exploration. That's not something governments do with out a very strong reason.
No the kinda of space exploration you want to see is in a new frontier now, the commercial sector. It's business that drove the re-discovery of america. It's business that will take us into space.
Don't get me wrong NASA still has a role to play, but it will continue to be a less important one. For better or for worse thats the way it is. However there really isn't any need to insult them. Unless you're just going for the Management at NASA. I'm cool with that, they have made some gross mistakes.