40 yards? Pfff
My money is firmly on Europe for the first lunar Ryder Cup.
Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
31–40 of 122 posts
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comment reminds me of this book: https://time.com/3910020/the-over-parenting-trap-how-to-avoi... > So imagine how surprised I was to discover among my more affluent, well-connected students a growing number who seemed to be lacking the ability to make their way independently in the world, as, frankly, 18-22 year olds always had been able to do and just as crucially, used to desire to do. I’m deliberately being v…
I don't know if this dean's observation is about helicopter parenting or risk aversion as much as it's about how bifurcated and ultra-high stakes the university/credential-pedigree system has become, and how essential it is to optimize for a certain outcome at all costs. When I was high school age, the A students went to good universities and generally ended up with a good professional career, the B students went to…
I agree, I've some nephews/nieces in college and was talking to their parents about why they were getting them to start applying for tech internships in freshman year, sounded absurd to me. And I was telling them how they should be more adventurous with where they want to work and live after they graduate. But all they wanted to do was work in Silicon Valley ( they grew up around here, so I thought they would want to move and explore other parts of the country). But, no they did not want to. I think it was both risk-averseness and also sheer practicality that all the good tech jobs are here.
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comment reminds me of this book: https://time.com/3910020/the-over-parenting-trap-how-to-avoi... > So imagine how surprised I was to discover among my more affluent, well-connected students a growing number who seemed to be lacking the ability to make their way independently in the world, as, frankly, 18-22 year olds always had been able to do and just as crucially, used to desire to do. I’m deliberately being v…
I don't know if this dean's observation is about helicopter parenting or risk aversion as much as it's about how bifurcated and ultra-high stakes the university/credential-pedigree system has become, and how essential it is to optimize for a certain outcome at all costs. When I was high school age, the A students went to good universities and generally ended up with a good professional career, the B students went to…
Walmart/Meth is a pretty strong exaggeration. Things aren’t great without a degree, but they’re not (yet) impossible.
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#34An old boss of mine was a Hungarian immigrant and said this golf swing was the moment he became an American. He was a teenage veteran of fighting invading Soviet tanks, saw those images on TV, and fell in love with the combination of accomplishment and irreverence. I think he accomplished here what he hoped to back then.
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect that it's more a generational thing than an occupational one. I've met a couple of test pilots from the '90's and '00's and they were the some of the most by-the-book people I've ever met, they were meticulous and followed their steps precisely, even for quotidian things like making breakfast or pitching a tent. As for risk, Jim Lovell was asked, before he left for his second trip to the moon (Apollo 13), i…
> And war (for Americans and the rest of the world) is a lot less deadly than it used to be My hunch for wars getting less deadly is because of nuclear weapons. There hasn't been a direct war between superpowers for the better part of a century. This sounds good, except it's possible we'll essentially wipe out the planet overnight because of a technical error. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_a…
Fatalities have gone down even for wars of similar intensities. More important is the improvement in battlefield medicine and body armor - the KIA/WIA ratio for the US military has plummeted, from around 1:1.5 during WW2, to around 1:3 in Korea after the introduction of helicopter evacuation and more refined frontline aid stations, to just above 1:10 in Afghanistan.
e.g. I strongly doubt that Tammy Duckworth's wounds would have been survivable on the battlefield in 1940, or even in 1970.
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#36I wonder if things like this would ever happen now. The original Mercury and Apollo astronauts were Air Force test pilots, a group known for picking and choosing which rules they wanted to follow. Sneaking a golf club aboard, not to mention the possibility of falling and tearing his suit, is a non-trivial risk. It's hard to imagine that culture of risk taking still exists, but at the same time, that culture may be wh…
Your comment reminds me of this book: https://time.com/3910020/the-over-parenting-trap-how-to-avoi... > So imagine how surprised I was to discover among my more affluent, well-connected students a growing number who seemed to be lacking the ability to make their way independently in the world, as, frankly, 18-22 year olds always had been able to do and just as crucially, used to desire to do. I’m deliberately being v…
> But, yeah, I imagine people used to accomplish more before everyone got so damned risk adverse.
I'm looking at you GameStop... (tongue-in-cheek)
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any shot on the moon is pretty impressive. But yes 40 would be puny on earth.
He did it one-handed (with some sort of iron IIRC), and had to 'fight' his own suit, which offered poor visibility and range of motion, as well as 'elasticity' from changes in volume.
The iron was an actual golf iron head, attached to the collapsible rod/handle of a sampling scoop.
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#38An old boss of mine was a Hungarian immigrant and said this golf swing was the moment he became an American. He was a teenage veteran of fighting invading Soviet tanks, saw those images on TV, and fell in love with the combination of accomplishment and irreverence. I think he accomplished here what he hoped to back then.
Great story!
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also important to note how much a bit of goofing around got the public engaged in the missions. It wasn't a dry, clinical, scientific expedition — real humans were on the moon, and took the opportunity to... be actual humans. Hitting golf balls. Jumping around. Those antics, even if they had nominal risk, are part of what got millions of people (especially young people) excited about manned spaceflight.
What in the world are you talking about?? That is actually completely opposite of what happened! As cool as this was to many of us, public support plummeted after seeing NASA "fooling around", and golf especially was seen as an elitist white man's activity. In the wake of the Civil Rights Act, this only highlighted NASA's cultural bias. Political support, which was already waning, immediately fell off a cliff as well…
I’m not old enough to know how this stunt affected public opinion (although I do remember when golf was an elitist sport).
This is the first I’ve heard of a connection between the golf swings and waning political support. Where can I read more about that?
> this only highlighted NASA's cultural bias
In 1971, even in the wake of the civil rights act, I don’t think many people cared about nasa being a whites boys club.
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know if this dean's observation is about helicopter parenting or risk aversion as much as it's about how bifurcated and ultra-high stakes the university/credential-pedigree system has become, and how essential it is to optimize for a certain outcome at all costs. When I was high school age, the A students went to good universities and generally ended up with a good professional career, the B students went to…
Walmart/Meth is a pretty strong exaggeration. Things aren’t great without a degree, but they’re not (yet) impossible.
We're straying way off-topic here but I'd suggest that things are pretty terrible for significant numbers of people. As evidence (I'm not US-ian), I present this article [0], which actually tries to make the point that living standards have never been better. In my view, he fails, specifically with the following statement in para 5, "There would surely be a revolution in America if 90% of our citizens have suffered income stagnation or worse". I'd suggest that recent events and the fact that many tens of millions of people supported (and still support) Donald Trump, are proof of a slow-motion revolution in progress - a kind of cold-civil-war.
So, maybe parent was being colourful with the "Walmart/meth" exaggeration, but in terms of "effective equivalence" I'd say they are close to the mark.
[0] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/americans-living-standards...