Two hits: 22 metres and 36.5 metres.
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
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought that was odd too. Maybe the middle one was a practice swing? edit - I watched it again more closely. Looks like he threw down the second ball and the middle shot was either a practice swing or he missed it altogether and it wasn't counted (which I think is fair given he was wearing a thick space suit in low gravity swinging one handed with a fishbowl on his head). edit 2 - Just seeing child post. Guess I go…
A ball is clearly visible at 46s. Watching it again, he swings 4 times. I don't see a ball for the second swing, but they are clearly visible for the other 3. I imagine the analyst found where 2 landed and the write up misunderstood that to be the number of shots.
And maybe the analyst didn't find the third ball because it did, indeed, fly "miles and miles and miles".
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#73Earlier 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…
Thank you for this comment. The elitist caste in America have gotten far too big for their britches. And then they wonder why Trump won and why we did not have a peaceful transfer of power for arguably the first time in our nation's history. Being born into comfort only takes a generation to wonder why doesn't everyone just "get more money?".
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#74Earlier 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…
I don't speak for the parent poster but it seems abundantly clear they're decrying the widening gap between those with access to good-paying jobs and those who are deprived of opportunity.
Frankly, it seems like you're on the same side.
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#75Earlier 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…
> Had NASA not allowed this, the landings would have continued for at least a few more years.
Hardly. The number of missions was primarily capped by budgetary constraints [0] and the fact that they had only budgeted to build 15 Saturn 5 launchers. Flights after Apollo 17 were used for Skylab and the Apollo-Soyuz mission.
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#76Earlier 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…
> the A students maybe will finish college hamstrung with mountains of debt, and the rest? Walmart/Meth if they're lucky, prison if they're not.
This is the false dichotomy that’s causing students to incorrectly go to college when it might not be the best path. There is a massive gulf of the middle class you just glossed over between college and Walmart/meth: the trades. Working in skilled blue collar fields (electrician, contractor, plumber, diesel mechanic, etc) will likely give you a better life financially than someone who graduates with a 4 year BA.
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I don't speak for the parent poster but it seems abundantly clear they're decrying the widening gap between those with access to good-paying jobs and those who are deprived of opportunity. Frankly, it seems like you're on the same side.
No, it’s the implication that without a college degree you have some shitty life deprived of opportunity. This is both paternalistic and condescending.
There is nothing wrong with making 80k a year in Iowa as an electrician and paying down a mortgage on a 250k house. That’s not a deprivation of opportunity.
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#78Earlier 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, in large part because it got more professionalized. This seems plausible, but I wonder if what you calculated is the best way to measure it. First, since you mentioned "Americans and the rest of the world", does the same trend hold for the people on the other side of these conflicts? At least in the past 20 years' examples, t…
> First, since you mentioned "Americans and the rest of the world"
Given that we’re discussing American test pilots/fighter pilots, this makes sense.
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#79To 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.
> I strongly recommend reading Michael Collins's memoir Carrying the Fire
Can confirm. Read it a couple of months ago and decided it was the best of the Apollo-era biographies and autobiographies that I've read.
Re: Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the problem with DR... > While those distances may appear underwhelming, it is still an astonishing feat by Shepard > The pressurised suits severely restricted movement, and due to their helmet's visors they struggled to even see their feet. > I would challenge any club golfer to go to their local course and try to hit a six-iron, one-handed, with a one-quarter swing out of an unraked bunker. > Then imagine b…
Thank you, I missed that part of the article entirely. I was on my phone, and scrolled down to read the article, but those images took up a large part of the screen and I sort of half-consciously took that to signal the end of the article, thus prompting me to ask here.
It happens. NBD. My initial response was perhaps more snide than I intended, I should have at the very least ended it with a smiley to show I was only being playful. FWIW I don't feel your comment deserves to be downvoted, and this one where you acknowledge it certainly does not.