Apollo 13 Astronaut Jim Lovell Dies At 97 (cnn.com) 35
Jim Lovell, the legendary NASA astronaut who commanded the Apollo 13 "successful failure" mission, has died at age 97. From a report: Lovell was already well-known among NASA astronauts, having flown to space on the Gemini 7, Gemini 12 and Apollo 8 missions, before he was selected to command Apollo 13, which would have marked the third successful crewed moon landing for NASA. But during the ill-fated mission -- which carried Lovell as well as astronauts John Swigert Jr. and Fred Haise Jr. on board -- an oxygen tank located on the crew's service module exploded when they were about 200,000 miles (322,000 kilometers) away from Earth.
Lovell delivered the news to mission control, saying "Houston, we've had a problem." With the damage effectively taking out the crew's power source and other life support supplies, the Apollo 13 crew had to abruptly abandon their trek to the lunar surface and use several engine burns to swing around the far side of the moon and put themselves on a course back toward Earth. The three-person crew made a high-stakes splashdown return in the South Pacific Ocean about three days after the tank explosion, marking the conclusion of what has come to be known as the "successful failure" of the Apollo missions. The ordeal was fictionalized in Ron Howard's 1995 film "Apollo 13." [...]
Lovell was the first astronaut to make four spaceflights, totaling more than 715 hours in space. He was part of NASA's second-ever astronaut class, selected in September 1962 and nicknamed the "New Nine." And joining the Apollo 13 crew after having first served on Apollo 8, which intentionally circumnavigated the moon but did not land on its surface, made Lovell the first human ever to see the moon up close for a second time. Further reading: Acting NASA Administrator Reflects on Legacy of Astronaut Jim Lovell (Source: NASA)
Lovell delivered the news to mission control, saying "Houston, we've had a problem." With the damage effectively taking out the crew's power source and other life support supplies, the Apollo 13 crew had to abruptly abandon their trek to the lunar surface and use several engine burns to swing around the far side of the moon and put themselves on a course back toward Earth. The three-person crew made a high-stakes splashdown return in the South Pacific Ocean about three days after the tank explosion, marking the conclusion of what has come to be known as the "successful failure" of the Apollo missions. The ordeal was fictionalized in Ron Howard's 1995 film "Apollo 13." [...]
Lovell was the first astronaut to make four spaceflights, totaling more than 715 hours in space. He was part of NASA's second-ever astronaut class, selected in September 1962 and nicknamed the "New Nine." And joining the Apollo 13 crew after having first served on Apollo 8, which intentionally circumnavigated the moon but did not land on its surface, made Lovell the first human ever to see the moon up close for a second time. Further reading: Acting NASA Administrator Reflects on Legacy of Astronaut Jim Lovell (Source: NASA)
Space is "FAKE AND GAY." (Score:1)
Remember that guy who used to post on Slashdot years ago who, in response to anyone posting about space-related topics, would call those people "space nutters" and just trash talk them?
I used to get kinda annoyed by that guy. Then I actually studied the "moon landing" photos with eyes open and noticed that they are obvious fakes, which is easily proven. I simply had no reason to question any of this stuff before, nor did you, dear reader....but when you do, you'll find that it is indeed all FAKE AND GAY.
See
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Obligatory xkcd (Score:3)
https://xkcd.com/893 [xkcd.com]
Too sad . . .
Re: Obligatory xkcd (Score:3)
Though he isn't actually part of that graph, since he never landed. Still it's sad that the cohort of lunar astronauts is only shrinking.
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There are currently 4 still alive, which puts us pretty dead-on for the 95th percentile on that chart.
Re:13 is unlucky (Score:4, Interesting)
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Some buildings skip 0 (ground), 4 and 13. So the 14th floor is really only 11 above ground.
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Some buildings skip 0 (ground), 4 and 13. So the 14th floor is really only 11 above ground.
That's not universal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
By my estimation the most common tactic is to keep the floor numbering accurate and use the 13th floor for mechanical operations, like pumps to push water to higher floors, elevator mechanisms, backup generators, fire suppression devices, and workshops.
Uninhabited 13th floor: sometimes, the floor is put to some other use, such as a mechanical floor.
I don't recall hearing the tactic of skipping floors to avoid "unlucky numbers" but it makes sense to use the need to keep elevator travel efficient by skipping floors as a means to skip numbered floors
Re: 13 is unlucky (Score:3)
"In Chinese culture, the number 4 is considered unlucky because its pronunciation (sÃ, å) is very similar to the word for "death" (sÇ, æ). This phonetic similarity leads to a strong association of the number 4 with death and misfortune, a phenomenon known as tetraphobia. "
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Re: 13 is unlucky (Score:2)
Or the people that make the building that houses the elevator
RIP, seems like a good guy. (Score:3)
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+1. As a military veteran I concur--the only "service" I rendered was to Lucifer and his imperial war machine. "Jim Lovell", likewise, is a cold blooded, lying psychopath. See my post above which explains in a nutshell how the moon landing is as obviously fake as Pamela Anderson's tits and as gay as Richard Simmons.
The best of America (Score:2)
Compare this man's heroism and character to the current oligarchy of the US.
The American people deserve better than their current administration. Celebrate your heroes America, Lovell showed the best Americans can be, Trump's government shows the worst.
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The American people deserve better than their current administration.
I'd say that Americans always get the administration they deserve.
People have the option to vote, so if they made a bad choice of candidate, or chose not to vote at all, then they got what they deserved. Voting for a candidate that lost is still getting what they deserve because there's no knowing if that candidate won that things would have been any better, and there's the matter that with the right to vote comes the responsibility to influence how other people vote.
Celebrate your heroes America
Sure, I can agree to that. Just don't
Really? Do you people have no self control? (Score:2)
People here are commenting on the life of an American hero who, by all counts, lead an extraordinary and exemplary life, and you turn it into a political rant against [of course] The Bad Orange Man. It's childish, and annoying, and says more about you and your character than it says about either Mr Lovell or Mr Trump.
There's a certain type of derangement that cannot keep a thought to itself. Apparently it's a shared trait of vegans and people deranged by Trump. Normal people see Trump as a sort of carnival
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I am not deranged by Trump at all. Or a Vegan. Or a Republican or Democrat. As for self control, are you showing much yourself ?
I am, like many around the world, disappointed that a country that produces men like Lovell is being led by a man like Trump. As I believe a lot of men like Lovell with honor, professionalism, integrity and other virtues are too. Can you imagine being a secret service agent considering they will have to take a bullet for a documented liar, cheat and very likely one of Epstein's per
Godspeed (Score:2)
Was it fictionalized? (Score:2)
Re:Was it fictionalized? (Score:4, Informative)
There were some minor things changed and added for movie storytelling, and some things done by a team compressed into a single character, but it was basically accurate. It wasn't documentary-level accuracy, but better than typical Hollywood-level "based on a true story" accuracy.
Re: Was it fictionalized? (Score:2)
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I seem to recall there was an HBO drama documentary series called From the Earth to the Moon that was decently accurate, but still entertaining.
The more things change the more they stay the same (Score:5, Insightful)
I was watching a video the other day where there was a mention on how the USA underwent a big push for rural electrification in the 1950s. That got me thinking just how rapidly we can see technology advance and yet so much of our lives can stay much the same.
Jim Lovell was born in 1928, which meant he'd likely have remembered a time when aircraft were still a new idea and "barnstorming" was a thing. He'd have remembered WW2 where so many soldiers and sailors would be first introduced to electric lights, indoor plumbing, and diesel engines. For many Americans life in the 1950s would have had little to distinguish it from life in the 1850s. But for others the 1950s meant flying jet powered aircraft, and a few years later reaching an altitude above the Earth where aerodynamic principles of flight no longer applied and astronautics was how the pilot was to maintain control of a vehicle.
Looking at the life Lovell lived shows how quickly things change, but also how slowly. How are the lives of those reading this at the time it's posted all that different than how Lovell lived? He'd have known of telephones, indoor plumbing, passenger jets, and hopes of landing people on the moon before the end of the decade. Compare Apollo 11 to Artemis III. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Jim Lovell clearly lived an interesting and inspiring life. His life demonstrates how technology impacts our lives. He could have gone from seeing the life of the future at the US Navy and at NASA, then gone to see how life was lived 100 years prior by driving out into rural America. We can still see something of how life was lived in 1850s era America today, only that it might take a flight on an airplane on top of a drive some distance from the airport. Consider that there's still people living in the Stone Age today. For some they see life as it will be for others in 50 or so years. By my estimation Lovell lived a life constantly 50 years in the future.
I wish I could recall where I read this for proper attribution, but it goes something like... we are living in the future right now only that the future isn't distributed evenly. Lovell was one of the few people that got to live in the future, and help spread that future a bit more widely.
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"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed."
--William Gibson, SF Author
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/... [wikiquote.org]
11 years old when Apollo 13 launched (Score:1)
Re: 11 years old when Apollo 13 launched (Score:2)
They couldn't have made it without the NASA guys on the ground figuring out how to make it all happen.
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They couldn't have made it without the NASA guys on the ground figuring out how to make it all happen.
There's no doubt this was a team effort, Neil Armstrong is known to repeatedly point out how he got to the moon only because of a team of people getting him there. The Apollo 11 mission patch is somewhat unique in that it lacked the names of those on the crew. This was not an oversight, or a contingency against a last minute change in crew, this was to avoid focus on any individuals. The Apollo 13 patch also had no names, rather "Ex luna, scientia" (From the Moon, knowledge).
Re: 11 years old when Apollo 13 launched (Score:2)
Interesting trivia (Score:2)
IIRC Lovell was the first Astronaut to fly to the moon twice, yet he never got to land there (Apollo 8 had no LM, and Apollo 13 needed the LM as a lifeboat rather than a lander).
Think about it, and how YOU might respond if you worked for years to be among the most-elite and to walk on the moon and actually got so close, yet were unable to complete the task you'd aimed yourself at with intense focus, TWICE, and with nobody, including yourself, to blame. Typical cool, level-headed, self-controlled test pilot.