40 yards? Pfff My money is firmly on Europe for the first lunar Ryder Cup.
They'll have to get to the course first...
Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
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Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#42video of the shots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_jYOubJmfM
Thanks for posting that!
They looked like a chip shots that'd go 10-15 yards on earth
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
#44One aspect of this that seems to have not been commented on is the actual potential danger involved in taking a full swing. It would have been extremely reckless for him to try to hit it hard. He could damage his suit in the swing, or maybe even spin himself off of his feet and land hard and puncture his suit that way. So of course he wasn't really trying to hit it far.
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 i…
Yea it was a little exaggeration, but the trend is in the wrong direction. If things don't change, we're going to have no middle class in 20-30 years and probably full-on Elysium in 50-70 years.
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#46I 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…
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…
Those numbers are fascinating in their own right, but even more so when compared against the staggering 35,000+ deaths per month the US is suffering right now.
(467k over ~13 months of pandemic, obviously it's not evenly spread but the point is it's an order of magnitude greater than the worst ever war death rates.)
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#47Earlier 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 if they're lucky
Taking a deep breath here. This is a teachable moment. Because what I really want to say is, fuck you. You apparently just made Walmart and meth equivalent. That is so deeply offensive I don’t even know where to begin.
I will try to assume that it is not malicious. So I will simply ask you to rethink what you said or perhaps explain a little better why you seem to have decided they are pretty much the same thing.
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#48Earlier 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…
Very little truth to what you wrote here. You can get into great universities with solid A’s. And you can certainly graduate from a state school with minimal to no debt.
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#49To anyone interested in early space flight and the Apollo missions, I strongly recommend reading Michael Collins's memoir Carrying the Fire. It is quite amazing all the training that the astronauts had to go through so they could manually perform various tasks and measurements, since the computing capacity was extremely limited.
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#50Earlier 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 if they're lucky Taking a deep breath here. This is a teachable moment. Because what I really want to say is, fuck you. You apparently just made Walmart and meth equivalent. That is so deeply offensive I don’t even know where to begin. I will try to assume that it is not malicious. So I will simply ask you to rethink what you said or perhaps explain a little better why you seem to have decided they are…
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