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n5lp

fugio ergo sum
Don't get me wrong, I am watching and enjoying the series, lots of good information. Interesting to have Scott Carpenter as one of the hosts and that is the person they question the most as to what things he may have done that negatively effected his mission. Big contrast to the villain of "The Right Stuff."

Anyway, in any television production about technical stuff it seems inevitable that there will be groaners. The big one for me in the first part was when they talked about the X-15 airplanes that got so high the pilots experienced weightlessness; as if you couldn't do the same thing in a J-3 at 1,000 AGL for a somewhat shorter time.

What did anyone else notice?
 
Big contrast to the villain of "The Right Stuff."
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I thought The Right Stuff (the book - the movie was terrible) treated Carpenter quite well. It depicted him as one who was excited about the science of his flight, as opposed to simply a test pilot who wanted to do as little as possible in order to guarantee a successful flight.

As for the show, I recorded it but haven't watched yet.
 
As someone profoundly affected by the '60's space program as a young kid, I will watch these programs also and did watch last night's. The current space program, while still unbelievable, just doesn't hold a candle to the brazenness of Mercury/Gemini/Apollo.

It was mankind's finest accomplishment ... to date. The current space program is amazing, but just doesn't have the amazing human exploration side so much.

Oh, I didn't really notice any real dumb stuff. Guess my automatic tuner-outer blocked it!
 
Yes! I had the same thought. Your altitude has no effect on whether or not you experience the feeling of weightlessness.

Though I was not yet born when the Mercury program started, the show has so far done a good job communicating the senses of apprehension, awe, excitement, fear, and PRIDE that surrounded our space program in those heady days.

<soapbox>I was inspired by the NBC reporter on the show that talked about how proud and excited he was to cover the space program; about how people stopped, got out of their cars, and prayed when they saw Alan Shepherd's "candle" soaring upward. Everyone was united in common admiration of this bold and daring venture. Now, it seems as though all we hear about is why our country is evil. All we see is infighting and counter-productive, self-serving goals. Oh how I wish there were some greater national goal we could all rally around, aspire to, and follow with apprehension, awe, excitement, fear and pride.</soapbox>
 
NASA has always stepped up to the plate to solve seemingly insurmountable problems.

Why don't we commission them to solve our problems with dependance on foreign oil.

I bet with some funding, they would have some alternatives.

Heck, they came up with Teflon. We all use that.
 
caryr said:
NASA has always stepped up to the plate to solve seemingly insurmountable problems.

Why don't we commission them to solve our problems with dependance on foreign oil.

I bet with some funding, they would have some alternatives.

Heck, they came up with Teflon. We all use that.
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All we have to do to NOT be dependent on foriegn oil is drill what we have over here. I love trees as much as most but this is getting stupid.
I also love NASA and it's exploits, but we don't need them on this one.
Long term, they could come up with alternatives.
 
There was a PBS show back in the mid-80's called "Space" that was outstanding. It was four 1-hour shows and was narrated by Martin Sheen. Several years ago, I saw the series at the PBS store that was in our local mall but didn't buy it. I've regretted it ever since.

Can't comment on the new show, don't have cable... yet.

Karl
Now in Sandpoint, ID :)
 
Scientist's vs. engineer's perspective

Jeff R said:
I thought The Right Stuff (the book - the movie was terrible) treated Carpenter quite well. It depicted him as one who was excited about the science of his flight, as opposed to simply a test pilot who wanted to do as little as possible in order to guarantee a successful flight.
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I agree. I found myself admiring and feeling a kinship with Carpenter's curiousity and true sense of exploration, although I appreciate the ground folk's frustration. I sorta saw the engineers on the ground as the ones who didn't get it and plan accordingly. When I got to know Carpenter a little bit many years after reading the book and seeing the movie (I loved both), I found him to be extremely intellectually curious and sharp (and very personable). My real pause in the TV show was its declaration that Shepard was the smartest of the bunch. I hadn't seen that representation before.

Oh yeah. The one point where Paul and I differ is on whether engineers or scientists should rule the world. At least we both agree that it should be one or the other.....not politicians. :eek:
 
Say What? VAF Groaner

Heck, they came up with Teflon. We all use that.
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A fellow at DuPont, Roy Plunkett, invented Teflon in the 1930's. NASA was formed in the late '50s (Paul, assume you were there at the start? :eek:)

Oooh; Did I just write that?!?!?!?
 
Harold Lanfear said:
A fellow at DuPont, Roy Plunkett, invented Teflon in the 1930's. NASA was formed in the late '50s (Paul, assume you were there at the start? :eek:)

Oooh; Did I just write that?!?!?!?
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PTFE / Teflon, like most useful daily inventions (e.g., microwave oven), was discovered through serendipity. I wish more people understood that the fun of science isn't finding exactly what you looked for, but instead it's about learning.

TODR
 
Teflon?!

Hey, I just thought that we had invented Tang!:p:rolleyes:

I'm looking forward to seeing some of the series when I get a chance - they found a lot of footage that hasn't been shown before, and that is always cool. I've heard all the stories before, but seeing "lost" films of guys and stuff I know is worth a little time in front of the TV...

I guess I'll get caught up after we land Discovery!

If you REALLY want to lose yourself in some fascinating story telling, take a look at the NASA/JSC Oral History Site:

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/participants.htm

Some of these links work, and some have given a few problems, but just about any of these interviews are fascinating - they basically sit down with us with a tape recorder, ask a few questions to get us talking, and then let us ramble.


Paul
 
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OK Paul, since you just destroyed my work productivity for the day, a counter-link is only fair:

http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/frame.html

This is the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal - landing/EVA transcripts with the audio and video links dispersed in them, plus every technical detail and related report a space nut ever wanted. They also have a journal for the "flight" portion of some of the missions.
 
When We Left Earth

Back to the original question, I was surprised that they basically skipped over Wally Schirra's Mercury (Sigma 7) flight with just one sentence. I thought his flight deserved more description than that. :confused:

Every time I watch one of these shows about the original Mercury astronauts, I learn something new. I appreciated the description of Gus Grissom as an engineer. He had to have been intelligent to have been selected as an astronaut. My one big gripe of the Hollywood-ized movie "The Right Stuff" was that they portrayed Gus Grissom as a bumbling idiot, capable of only mouthing half-sentences and at one point, foul-mouthed half-sentences. :mad: Not to say that the astronauts are supposed to be angels, but if I had been a relative of Gus, I would have found out who was responsible for the decision to portray him that way. There were other parts I was disappointed in, especially after reading the book, so that is why I feel this is one movie that doesn't deserve to have the same title as the book it was adapted from. You may feel otherwise, and that's OK. :)

Back to the current Discovery Channel show, I notice it is being replayed at other times during the week, so if some of you missed it you might check the Discovery Channel schedule.

It always amazes me how much our country and NASA accomplished in just a few years. I was in 7th grade when John Glenn made his flight, and my granddad and I watched it while I came home for lunch. Just 8 years later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were walking on the moon. Wow. :D

Don

P.S. I did some checking yesterday and only two of the original Mercury astronauts survive. John Glenn was born in 1921 and Scott Carpenter was born in 1925. I always thought John Glenn would be one of the oldest living Mercury astronauts.
 
rv7boy said:
It always amazes me how much our country and NASA accomplished in just a few years. I was in 7th grade when John Glenn made his flight, and my granddad and I watched it while I came home for lunch. Just 8 years later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were walking on the moon. Wow. :D
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Ain't that the truth. You know what I find amazing? The other day when Discovery launched only two cars in my general vicinity pulled over to look at that magnificent bird soar (I live near Orlando and I was in one of those cars). It's amazing how we take this technology for granted nowadays.

I have to make it to Kennedy to watch one of those launches up close before it's too late. Paul, how many missions left?

PS: I thought Teflon and Microwaves was how the men in black funded their program!
 
Shuttle Launches...and Landings

jmartinez443 said:
I have to make it to Kennedy to watch one of those launches up close before it's too late.
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I've seen two launches and want to see another...PLUS I've never seen a landing and want to see one. For you guys and gals in Florida, I believe Discovery lands on Saturday. [ Update: Per Spaceflightnow.com Discovery is scheduled to land at 11:02 AM EDT on Saturday, June 14...but you might want to verify this with Paul or other sources to be sure. I think I saw 10:45 AM EDT on Wikipedia.] I can't make it to KSC this weekend, but I definitely need to plan a trip so I can see a landing.

Don
 
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Ironflight said:
10, +/- 1.......go see one soon if you haven't already!
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I wanted to take the kids to see one this summer. Unfortunately they were still in school for the launch of the current flight. Are there any shuttle flights scheduled next summer? If not, I might just have to drag them out of school anyway to go see it.
 
Shuttle Launch Schedule

This is one of the easiest links to find. But remember the launch schedules are subject to change. This link shows Shuttle launches as well as the other launches in the Cape Canaveral area. Hope you can get your kids to a launch.

http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/launches/scheduleStatus.asp

P.S. Woops! I didn't realize the above link only shows launches through the end of the year.

There's also this link http://www.nasa.gov/missions/highlights/schedule.html

but it also doesn't show next summer's schedule which is what you're interested in. I'll try to find out what the TENTATIVE schedule is and PM you.

It may be tomorrow.
 
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Week two

Well, I just watched week two. Really an interesting and informative series for someone like me who followed the programs only casually.

For groaners, the biggest one for me was when they were talking about the difficulty of docking with Skylab at 17,000 MPH, as if the speed relative to Earth has anything to do with it.

I liked Buzz Aldrin talking about how he felt kind of foolish taking the very limited geology training. It is apparent he didn't think the training was that important for the limited time he was on the moon. Just pick up some rocks!

Tim.JPG


I also liked when the RV judge above talked frankly, not only about getting sick on the way to the moon, but getting sick after reentry, rocking in the Atlantic.

One thing this episode did for me was confirm the amazing accuracy of the Apollo 13 Hollywood movie. I certainly thought the extended comm loss, during reentry, in the movie, was just a dramatic device, but it seems it really happened.
 
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I'm really enjoying this series, if only for getting to see footage I've never seen before.

Wow moments for me last Sunday was seeing the 11 crew taxi up on the ramp in their T-38's, Buzz getting into his blue Corvette and Neil into a little Dodge family sedan, and Gene Krantz changing hairstyle from Apollo through Skylab.

Seeing the Skylab footage was special for two reasons - footage of Pete Conrad and Al Bean (my two favorite astronauts). Man, I wish I had met Pete before he passed.

Great show.
 
jmartinez443 said:
snipped
I have to make it to Kennedy to watch one of those launches up close before it's too late. Paul, how many missions left?

snipped!
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Jorge,
I was lucky. At age 19 I was really steamed to learn that NASA had dropped the last 3 Apollo missions. I decided to hitch-hike to Florida from Tennesee to go see the Apollo 17 (last one) launch. I was 7 miles away. When that thing lit, you didn't just hear it, you FELT the sound beating on your chest. The ground also shook. The sound was nothing like the lame roar they show on TV and the movies. What I heard was more like "white noise" (think of a radio between stations) pumped through Metallica's concert sound system and you're standing 3 feet from the speakers! :eek:
I have a friend who works at the cape, so a few years ago, he got me a VIP pass to go see the shuttle launch. The shuttle is cool, but it can't compare to a Saturn V launch. I got into the space program at an early age because my uncle left Buffalo, NY and his job at Bell, to go work at the cape in 1959. He used to send me all sorts of cool stuff. The best thing I received was a 3" square piece of silk from John Glenn's drogue parachute. My uncle got it as a souvenir of the launch.:p
Charlie Kuss
PS Has anyone else read any of the op ed pieces on how both political parties are blowing it by not supporting our space program more?
 
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Ironflight said:
10, +/- 1.......go see one soon if you haven't already!
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I've seen a bunch of shuttle landings, but never have seen a launch and that's a goal of mine over the next two years. Paul or the folks who've been there/done that - what's the gouge on good viewing sites?

Sorry for dragging the thread sideways a little...

Dave
 
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DeltaRomeo said:
Buzz getting into his blue Corvette and Neil into a little Dodge family sedan, and Gene Krantz changing hairstyle from Apollo through Skylab...
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I loved the contrast in cars....and I had to do a doubletake to make sure that was actually Gene with "long" hair.....I think all pictures from that era were expunged from the local archives!:rolleyes:
 
High School Girl

I was watching a PBS program on San Francisco sidewalk astronomer John Dobson, this evening. He sets up a telescope downtown and encourages people to look through it.

He told the story of a full moon evening. He mentioned to the two high school girls that with a full Moon you don't really see the lunar mountains but can see the glass bead rays from impacts. One of the high school girls said "how do you know there are glass beads." John talked about the astronauts that picked up material. One of the girls said "SOMEONE WENT THERE?" He said she repeated it twice. "SOMEONE WENT THERE?"
 
I was fortunate to have worked at the cape during the sixties... traveled the down range islands working in telemetry. it was an exciting time with a can do attitude and tolerable bureaucracy.
 
Paul Dye?

Doug Reeves said:
while watching the next two episodes of 'When We Left The Earth' on the Discovery Channel, I SWEAR I saw a younger Paul Dye (RV-8) in the footage when they were working a Hubble solar panel extension issue.
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I thought maybe Doug had the groaner for this week. I watched the episode and didn't notice Paul.

I went back though; Doug may have something, this curly haired devil just could be Paul Dye!

DSC03480.jpg
 
Well, we all had a lot more hair back then.....;)

(That was on for like a second Larry - you must have looked pretty hard to find it!)
 
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I'm watching it off the Tivo right now, and picked you up immediately!

Of course, the prior warning helps.

Was that footage actually during the Hubble crisis or edited as such?

Good stuff-

Joe
 
Creative editting

jferraro16 said:
Was that footage actually during the Hubble crisis or edited as such?
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Paul is on console...a sim...until late today but we watched the show together. (Thank you, Verizon!) Paul mentioned that the footage was NOT from the Hubble mission.
 
chaskuss said:
When that thing lit, you didn't just hear it, you FELT the sound beating on your chest. The ground also shook. The sound was nothing like the lame roar they show on TV and the movies. What I heard was more like "white noise" (think of a radio between stations) pumped through Metallica's concert sound system and you're standing 3 feet from the speakers! :eek:
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I missed being at the Cape for one of the Saturn V launches, but was talking with one of the gents that worked there at the time. The company I worked for built the crawler that transported Saturn and now the Shuttle to the pad. He said the sound pressure from the V was so strong that after each launch the place was littered with birds that were too close.

As a kid, what I remember about Shephard's flight was that we all were scared, but hopeful for him. Russia was kicking our tails in the space race. Redstone Mercury #1 (MR-1) rose about 6" then shut down and settled back on the pad. MR-1A flew well, but in a trajectory that generated G's heavy enough to kill. MR-2 flew with Ham the chimp then Alan climbed into MR-3 for his flight. Those guys truly were made of "The Right Stuff"

One of my friends flew his entire career with Braniff Airlines. He started out on their DC-3's and retired after flying Concord on Dallas flights. I'm afraid there will never again be a time when any of us will have those types of opportunities over a single lifetime. And sadly, I think we have lost the national will to generate another Apollo-type program that cost us a tiny fraction of the trillions we have spent unsucessfully on the "War on Poverty" since the end of that program.

It's really a great series to watch and will be available on DVD and Blueray for those without cable.

Don
 
My one complaint with the series is how old everyone is. ;)

I watched several episodes non stop over the weekend. Mike Collins -- no relation -- is a guy I'd love to spend some time with.

John Young seems very cerebral.

Buzz Aldrin -- Depression, alcoholism, divorce. The one quibble I have with the series is that these things may well have been part of the sacrifice he made, andthe doucmentary was too romantic in not discussing these sorts of things. But maybe that's for the followup : "When we came back to earth." He touched on it only briefly when he talked about the burden of going through life being known as the guys who walked on the moon.

I had intended to interview Jim Lovell at Osh last year. Maybe this year.
 
Oh, the other thing the series did for me. I've started looking through all my junk. Somehwere in there there's a bunch of small reel-to-reel tapes. they're recordings of me -- I was about 11 -- doing a play-by-play of various launches... pretending I was a newsman. In the background you can hear Frank McGee, or Cronkite, or Jules Bergman.

A lot of people think I'm still pretending.
 
Hey Bob
That reminds me. Christmas eve 1968, I was 11 and we opened our presents early that evening. I got a tape recorder, and the first thing I taped was the " In the beginning......" from Apollo 8. I'll have to look around my moms house for that tape.
Sometimes after reading alot of history, I think it would have been alot cooler to be alive back then. Shows like this,(and "From the Earth to the Moon") make me appreciate the times I grew up in.
I remember saying a prayer for Gordon Cooper during his Mercury flight.
I don't think I ever missed a launch since, until well into the shuttle flights.
Back in elementary school, they would wheel in a TV so we could watch the Gemini launches.
We went to a friends house to watch the Apollo 11 landing because they had a color TV.(even though it was just a simulation).
Pretty cool times!
Maybe our kids we'll look fondly back at these times as the beginnings of Van Grunsven Aerospace Systems.
 
Finally watched the last episode

Great series - brought back many memories.

I did catch a groaner though. The narrator (Gary Sinise) said that the shuttle would hit the atmosphere at 14000 mph. I recall that only a couple hundred mph delta is needed from orbital speed to start the descent, which would be something just over 17000 mph.
 
Jim Lovell

"I had intended to interview Jim Lovell at Osh last year. Maybe this year."

Bob, during 1970-1975 as an Instrumentation Tech. on eqpt. in the payload bay of an RB57F at Ellington Field, I was priveleged to watch the LLTV flights occasionally while on the flight line. Most of them were single take off and landings, accompanied by what appeared to be considerable trepidation.

One day, a pilot took off and climbed smartly to altitude and flew almost a perfect truncated ballistic arc to a perfect landing, then repeated the process once again. I didn't see all of the flights, but I have seen several, and that was the most remarkable flight of all. Truly a master at work on that flight. :)

Later, as I shared my observations with our NASA QA reps, who were also the QA reps on the LLTV, I was informed that the pilot was Major Jim Lovell.
Anyway, I have always had tremendous respect for Mr. Lovell, and always felt it was truly a shame that he never made a lunar landing and return. However, based on the enormity of the disaster they encountered on Apollo 13, I am just grateful that by the Grace of God, he and the rest of the crew survived.

I hope you do get to interview him at Oshkosh this year. If so, you will have the opportunity to meet a truly great man.

Joe Harwell
 
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The original seven

Astronauts.jpg


This photo was taken in St. Louis at the McDonnell Aircraft Company outside building 102 by the fountain in 1959 or 1960. It was autographed by the astronauts and copies were given to all McDonnell Aircraft Co. employees. I'm not sure of the timing but it seems like it might have been in conjuction with Alan Shepard's flight.

Bob Axsom
Employee #86305
 
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