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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

#61

Post by Someone »

oh_sigh wrote: post #20
jamestimmins wrote: post #9

I 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…

To be fair, he only snuck a golf club head aboard. He used the lunar soil sampler as the makeshift club.

And a few golf balls.

Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it

#62

Post by Someone »

jamestimmins wrote: post #9

I 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…

There was a regulated way for astronauts to take personal stuff with them (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_preference_kitb http://spaceflownartifacts.com/flown_ppks.html. Note that these bags had a part number, showing how well planned this was).

That likely was done because it helped, psychologically.

What you put in those bags had to be approved, so things got smuggled in, too (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_items_smuggled_into_sp...). I think that was somewhat known, and ‘allowed’, again for psychological reasons.

Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it

#63

Post by refurb »

phs318u wrote: post #40
gbear605 wrote: post #33

Earlier 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…

So you don’t live in the US and only get your information from the media (who don’t sell clicks by saying everything is fine) but you’re willing to make bold statements about how we’re on the edge of a civil war?

Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it

#64

Post by Cthulhu_ »

jamestimmins wrote: post #9

I 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…

It'll become a thing again I'm sure. Since the moon missions, at best we've had people goofing around in the ISS for err, educational purposes.

But nowadays, the richest people have space companies, money, and Ambitions.

Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it

#65

Post by refurb »

ryandrake wrote: post #57
jamestimmins wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your point, but don't think the Walmart/Meth comparison is fair. Walmart is full of hardworking people doing honorable work that provides for their families and contributes to their communities.

Agreed--not making them equivalent. It's a deliberately wide spectrum for folks with few opportunities. The overall point is that what the dean perceived as risk aversion may instead be the chilling effect of the growing lack of opportunity for all but the top 1% of the next few generations. If people want to nit pick about two words, I can't stop them.

What you said is horribly offensive and pretty eye opening about how you see the lives of middle and lower class Americans.

There are plenty of hard working, proud Americans of all races who never go to a fancy school or maybe never go to college at all, yet the have good paying jobs (maybe not good paying to you), live in good neighborhoods (again, probably ones you look down on), raise respectable kids who are kind (again, people who you’d never hang out with) and yes, they even shop or work at Walmart.

Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it

#66

Post by samizdis »

RandallBrown wrote: post #22
jamestimmins wrote: post #9

I 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 believe he had approval from NASA. https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/articles/2019/02...

Yes, and he's quoted talking about it in an article in The Smithsonian Magazine [1]:

> While stories have persisted that Shepard sprung this stunt on his own—or smuggled the club head and balls to the lunar surface, he had indeed gotten permission.

> It took him a while, though, to convince Manned Spaceflight Center director Bob Gilruth, who was not keen on the idea.

> “Absolutely no way,” Shepard recalled the initial response.

...

> Shepard explained he’d bring the modified Wilson Staff 6-iron club head and two balls in a tube sock “at no expense to the taxpayer.” And he promised not to even try it if anything on the mission went wrong. For that reason, he waited until the end of their lunar visit.

[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/when-...

Edited to add: Of course, later missions had toys built-in - lunar rovers for Apollo 15, 16 and 17. Real-time footage of the complete Apollo 17 mission is at https://apolloinrealtime.org/ and I can't recommend it highly enough :-)

Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it

#67

Post by redis_mlc »

refurb wrote: post #65
ryandrake wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed--not making them equivalent. It's a deliberately wide spectrum for folks with few opportunities. The overall point is that what the dean perceived as risk aversion may instead be the chilling effect of the growing lack of opportunity for all but the top 1% of the next few generations. If people want to nit pick about two words, I can't stop them.

What you said is horribly offensive and pretty eye opening about how you see the lives of middle and lower class Americans. There are plenty of hard working, proud Americans of all races who never go to a fancy school or maybe never go to college at all, yet the have good paying jobs (maybe not good paying to you), live in good neighborhoods (again, probably ones you look down on), raise respectable kids who are kind…

> What you said is horribly offensive

No, it actually wasn't.

Without any statistics, your reply is simply virtue signalling.

Also, your attitude is why people can't debate in a productive manner online anymore.

We do know that the prescription opioid crisis in middle America is related to lack of job opportunities, which contradicts your point.

Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it

#68

Post by akhilcacharya »

mmglr wrote: post #48
ryandrake wrote: post #29

Earlier 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…

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.

I had pretty good grades but I couldn’t get into any great universities with my stats. Best I could do was UNC-CH.

The bifurcation is extremely real in my experience, and I’m not in the charmed class.

Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it

#69

Post by dmurray »

simonh wrote: post #60
hedora wrote: post #12

Earlier 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…

There's a British children's adventure film called "Swallows and Amazons". A family of children want to go on a sailing trip without adult supervision to camp on an island. Their mother sends a telegram to her husband, who's an officer on a navy ship asking his advice (or permission, it was another time). He sends a telegram back "If not duffers won't drown, if duffers better drowned".

It was originally a book, or actually a series of books, written and set in the 1930s. Great reading as a child, but to have such permissive parents - they barely make an appearance while their kids as young as 7 spend days at a time boating and camping - seemed as fanciful to me as Harry Potter. I wonder if it was really like that in the 30s.

Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it

#70

Post by prennert »

LetThereBeLight wrote: post #49

To 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.

Also the excellently produced podcast "13 minutes to the moon" by BBC world service.
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