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Weird-Looking Freak Saves Apollo 14 (1971)

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Re: Weird-Looking Freak Saves Apollo 14 (1971)

#91

Post by smoyer »

dang wrote: post #83
smoyer wrote: post #25

It's so funny to see an article from 1971 is on the same page as news (and ads) from 2020. If this were a printed newspaper, people would be very confused!

Historical material is particularly welcome on HN. When an article shows up that's old, has never been discussed here, and strikes chords with the community, that's the best!

Hopefully it didn't sound like I was complaining! ... I also love that Saturdays and Sundays have a broader scope of topics making it to the front page. I do appreciate having the date shown though ... I've read a couple articles and thought "that seems pretty passe" before I realized I was reading older materials.

Re: Weird-Looking Freak Saves Apollo 14 (1971)

#92

Post by dang »

smoyer wrote: post #91
dang wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historical material is particularly welcome on HN. When an article shows up that's old, has never been discussed here, and strikes chords with the community, that's the best!

Hopefully it didn't sound like I was complaining! ... I also love that Saturdays and Sundays have a broader scope of topics making it to the front page. I do appreciate having the date shown though ... I've read a couple articles and thought "that seems pretty passe" before I realized I was reading older materials.

It didn't sound like you were complaining at all! I just felt like exuberating.

Re: Weird-Looking Freak Saves Apollo 14 (1971)

#93

Post by annoyingnoob »

_bxg1 wrote: post #89
annoyingnoob wrote: post #88

How do we bring back the national enthusiasm for space again? Enthusiasm that spans across politics. Maybe I'm out of touch, it seems to take a lot longer to get things done and get something flying into space than it used to. I don't think we can be world leaders with projects like the SLS that never get off the ground anywhere near the expected date. Seems like we used to take more risks or have less bureaucracy or…

> Seems like we used to take more risks or have less bureaucracy or ??? More like we had a Cold War to win via technological showmanship. Today's world has more important, more fundamental political problems to solve (not that we're doing a good job on those either, but regardless). At the same time: > it seems to take a lot longer to get things done and get something flying into space than it used to It's never been…

Looking at Wikipedia, maybe its just about money.

"Apollo ran from 1961 to 1972, with the first crewed flight in 1968" - $25.4 billion (1973)

"The Space Launch System (SLS) is a US super heavy-lift expendable launch vehicle, which has been under development since its announcement in 2011. It is the primary launch vehicle of NASA's deep space exploration plans,[12][13] including the planned crewed lunar flights of the Artemis program and a possible follow-on human mission to Mars.[14][15][16] SLS replaces the Constellation program's Ares V launch vehicle of 2005, which never left the development phase." - For fiscal years 2011 through 2018, the SLS program had expended funding totaling $13.999 billion in nominal dollars.

In 7 years Apollo had crewed flight. In 7 years SLS isn't even off the ground, and that is after the previous project never finished.

So, how do we gain public support for funding these missions? Honestly, while 'war' may be an answer its not a good one.

Re: Weird-Looking Freak Saves Apollo 14 (1971)

#94

Post by tomjakubowski »

kingbirdy wrote: post #87

Great article. I was curious about the game mentioned towards the bottom: > At M.I.T. next door to Draper, some of the undergraduates play a game called “Space War.” To play “Space War,” you need a television screen, a computer, and a working knowledge of Newtonian physics. The TV screen shows a planet surrounded by spaceships. Each player fires torpedos from his spaceship, aiming them according to the laws of orbita…

You can also play Spacewar! on a real restored PDP-1 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. You may even get to play against Steve Russell. Highly recommended.

https://computerhistory.org/exhibits/pdp-1/

Re: Weird-Looking Freak Saves Apollo 14 (1971)

#95

Post by sbierwagen »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #88

How do we bring back the national enthusiasm for space again? Enthusiasm that spans across politics. Maybe I'm out of touch, it seems to take a lot longer to get things done and get something flying into space than it used to. I don't think we can be world leaders with projects like the SLS that never get off the ground anywhere near the expected date. Seems like we used to take more risks or have less bureaucracy or…

Apollo was not as popular at the time as commonly remembered.

>Polls both by USA Today and Gallup have shown support for the moon landing has increased the farther we've gotten away from it. 77 percent of people in 1989 thought the moon landing was worth it; only 47 percent felt that way in 1979.

>Consistently throughout the 1960s a majority of Americans did not believe Apollo was worth the cost, with the one exception to this a poll taken at the time of the Apollo 11 lunar landing in July 1969. And consistently throughout the decade 45-60 percent of Americans believed that the government was spending too much on space, indicative of a lack of commitment to the spaceflight agenda.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/moond...

Re: Weird-Looking Freak Saves Apollo 14 (1971)

#96

Post by Wingman4l7 »

kingbirdy wrote: post #87

Great article. I was curious about the game mentioned towards the bottom: > At M.I.T. next door to Draper, some of the undergraduates play a game called “Space War.” To play “Space War,” you need a television screen, a computer, and a working knowledge of Newtonian physics. The TV screen shows a planet surrounded by spaceships. Each player fires torpedos from his spaceship, aiming them according to the laws of orbita…

The Living Computer Museum in Seattle had a Spacewar tournament a couple years ago, which I believe also ran on restored hardware.

Re: Weird-Looking Freak Saves Apollo 14 (1971)

#97

Post by annoyingnoob »

sbierwagen wrote: post #95
annoyingnoob wrote: post #88

How do we bring back the national enthusiasm for space again? Enthusiasm that spans across politics. Maybe I'm out of touch, it seems to take a lot longer to get things done and get something flying into space than it used to. I don't think we can be world leaders with projects like the SLS that never get off the ground anywhere near the expected date. Seems like we used to take more risks or have less bureaucracy or…

Apollo was not as popular at the time as commonly remembered. >Polls both by USA Today and Gallup have shown support for the moon landing has increased the farther we've gotten away from it. 77 percent of people in 1989 thought the moon landing was worth it; only 47 percent felt that way in 1979. >Consistently throughout the 1960s a majority of Americans did not believe Apollo was worth the cost, with the one excepti…

I think support has a lot to do with reporting and the stories we tell. The economy has an impact too. In 1969 we had a great story to tell, it was all over the news and everyone was paying attention. In 1979, the economy was crap and there probably wasn't the money to spend. In 1989 the economy was doing well. 1989 also saw 5 shuttle missions, again lots of news. From your link - "Americans might not have supported the space program in real life, but they loved the one they saw on TV."

Re: Weird-Looking Freak Saves Apollo 14 (1971)

#98

Post by [deleted] »

jkaptur wrote: post #8

> What NASA needs most, he says, is some imaginative PR... The astronauts he has met could provide reams of picturesque copy; they are hard-drinking, fast-living, generally “wild and weird.” The editor of Rolling Stone was certainly paying attention! It sounds like they sent Tom Wolfe to cover Apollo just a short time after publishing this. His book, The Right Stuff, would cement the image of those first American ast…

[deleted]

Re: Weird-Looking Freak Saves Apollo 14 (1971)

#99

Post by greenyoda »

gwbas1c wrote: post #54

> Weird-Looking Freak Where's the picture?

There are a couple of pictures of Don Eyles and his colleagues from that period at the bottom of this page on Don's web site:

https://doneyles.com/LM/Tales.html

It looks like in those days, having long hair was what made you a "weird-looking freak".

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