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Apollo astronaut Frank Borman has died

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Re: Apollo astronaut Frank Borman has died

#71

Post by heresie-dabord »

billforsternz wrote: post #49

Apollo 8 by Jeffrey Kluger is one of my favourite books. It was basically extraordinary that NASA gambled so extravagantly, combining multiple steps in the planned sequence into one mega mission in order to get back on schedule after the disastrous fire and meet Kennedy's aspirational goal. Chances of success? (surviving the mission), maybe 50%. Thinking about Frank Borman being alive and well and still flying his pl…

It is thought-provoking to consider how much the success of the Apollo programme depended on courage as well as other qualities of character:

"When Shepard was grounded in October 1963, Grissom and Borman became the prime crew of Gemini 3.[41] Grissom invited Borman to his house to talk to him about the mission, and after a long discussion, decided that he could not work with Borman.[34] According to Gene Cernan, "the egos of Grissom and Borman were too big to fit into a single spacecraft".[44] Slayton therefore replaced Borman with John Young.[41]

Slayton still wanted Borman for the two-week flight [...] so Borman was assigned as backup commander of Gemini 4, with Jim Lovell as his co-pilot. [...] Prime and backup crews trained for the mission together, and Borman found the experience as a backup valuable, amounting to a dress rehearsal of their own mission.[49]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Borman#Project_Gemini

Re: Apollo astronaut Frank Borman has died

#72

Post by schiffern »

somenameforme wrote: post #61
chihuahua wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense; if you want to build a lunar base, you gotta have Venezuela and Azerbaijan on your team, otherwise it's basically futile.

In living memory of most of us, China was just a deeply impoverished nation known for little more than exporting cheap unreliable crap. Any achievement they did make was framed as being stolen from somebody else. Yet now, their successes in space, industry, science, and technology are completely taken for granted. Funny how quickly things change! The status quo of the world is constantly shifting. Those nations which…

  > Any achievement they did make was... stolen from somebody else. Yet now their successes in space, industry, science, and technology are completely taken for granted.
The two aren't necessarily in contradiction, you may note. Do we have reliable evidence showing Chinese IP theft has slowed?

Many nations "bootstrap" internal industry with organized mass IP theft. The US extensively (and quite intentionally) stole from Britain's industrial IP, for instance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater

Re: Apollo astronaut Frank Borman has died

#73

Post by inopinatus »

xwdv wrote: post #53
ianlevesque wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the United States the space race led to a ton of STEM education, and secondary technology use cases. It would amazing to get similar benefits in those countries.

We need those benefits for the US.

No, we need those benefits for the whole of humanity.

Re: Apollo astronaut Frank Borman has died

#74

Post by Shawnj2 »

szundi wrote: post #69
idlewords wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of that NASA plan depends on people figuring out how to put Starship into orbit, how to refuel it in orbit, and then how to safely land it on its tail on the moon. These are three enormous technical challenges that I can't imagine being solved by 2026, even if all the dysfunctions at NASA proper were to disappear tomorrow.

Maybe one could just decide that concrete blocks and debris can be collected any time int the future from a field area and just allow it to launch

The bigger issue is that part of the reason why Starship didn’t make it to orbit is because debris from the launch pad being destroyed was kicked back into the engines.

Re: Apollo astronaut Frank Borman has died

#75

Post by Shawnj2 »

unethical_ban wrote: post #26
aaronharnly wrote: post #20

I've been listening with my kid to the excellent BBC podcast "13 Minutes to the Moon"[1]. It does a great job describing both the astronauts' experience (including Frank Borman and Apollo 8) and the scale and speed of efforts on the ground. I highly recommend it. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xttx2

I listened to the first episode and it seemed to have what I call "Ted radio hour syndrome": an excess of quick cut audio, sound effects, and drawn out narration that had me, an enthusiast of manned spaceflight, bored. Maybe it was like season 1 of a TV show where you gotta give it a few shots. The book "A Man on the Moon" was quite well written though, and some day I may read "failure is not an option".

Unfortunately the entire thing is cut like that but I do think the actual content of the podcast is good.

Re: Apollo astronaut Frank Borman has died

#76

Post by eastof »

somenameforme wrote: post #61
chihuahua wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense; if you want to build a lunar base, you gotta have Venezuela and Azerbaijan on your team, otherwise it's basically futile.

In living memory of most of us, China was just a deeply impoverished nation known for little more than exporting cheap unreliable crap. Any achievement they did make was framed as being stolen from somebody else. Yet now, their successes in space, industry, science, and technology are completely taken for granted. Funny how quickly things change! The status quo of the world is constantly shifting. Those nations which…

Russia seems to be moving ever so slightly to the west and south as of late.

Re: Apollo astronaut Frank Borman has died

#77

Post by pyinstallwoes »

anjel wrote: post #57
77pt77 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, he got married to a much younger woman. Can't be in very bad shape.

Funny you should say that. The Buzz about Aldrin's Competency: https://lindleylawoffice.com/blog/2018/06/27/the-buzz-about-...

If the children had any sense they’d just drop the project based on his request. The fact that they press on shows deception in my opinion. Unfortunately people try to profit off of their family. It is beyond shameful.

Re: Apollo astronaut Frank Borman has died

#78

Post by ZaoLahma »

heresie-dabord wrote: post #71
billforsternz wrote: post #49

Apollo 8 by Jeffrey Kluger is one of my favourite books. It was basically extraordinary that NASA gambled so extravagantly, combining multiple steps in the planned sequence into one mega mission in order to get back on schedule after the disastrous fire and meet Kennedy's aspirational goal. Chances of success? (surviving the mission), maybe 50%. Thinking about Frank Borman being alive and well and still flying his pl…

It is thought-provoking to consider how much the success of the Apollo programme depended on courage as well as other qualities of character : "When Shepard was grounded in October 1963, Grissom and Borman became the prime crew of Gemini 3.[41] Grissom invited Borman to his house to talk to him about the mission, and after a long discussion, decided that he could not work with Borman.[34] According to Gene Cernan, "t…

> ... and after a long discussion, decided that he could not work with Borman.

This I wish was (still?) acceptable. It's like somewhere along the way we decided that everyone must be able to cooperate effectively and efficiently with everyone, and largely (do our very best to) ignore all the problems that brings.

I've only been at one company where they tried to address this, and actually let us form our own teams. It worked better than expected.

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