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Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

magazine.uc.edu

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Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#141

Post by nemomarx »

arrowsmith wrote: post #131
peeters wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Passports please! British paratroopers met by French customs after D-Day airdrop Err, D-Day anniversary airdrop. That headline has only one correct literal interpretation, and it's wrong (not ambiguous, wrong).

I don't know about the US, but in the UK you can definitely say "D-Day" to mean "an anniversary of the original D-Day", not strictly 6/6/1944. It's not wrong. Just like you can say "Independence Day" to mean July 4th of any year, not only the specific historical date on which the US declared independence.

This would make sense if there's often D Day ceremonies. In the us I think that's all moved to memorial Day, so D-Day pings only as the original event here

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#142

Post by codetrotter »

9rx wrote: post #137
codetrotter wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was plenty of pirates around still in the 1800s AD. Aka "pre-1900" AD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy

There are still plenty of pirates around to this very day; a "significant issue" according to your own link. Despite that, the aforementioned statement doesn't make me think it has anything to do with today. What, specifically, makes you think it has something to do with the time leading up to 1900 CE rather than 1900 BCE?

> What, specifically, makes you think it has something to do with the time leading up to 1900 CE rather than 1900 BCE

Normally when someone says "1900" they are referring to 1900 AD. Unless BCE had already been mentioned, which here it had not. And if they were referring to 1900 BCE they normally would specifically say 1900 BCE. That's why.

And furthermore, the parent comment above the one talking about "pre-1900" was talking about modern passports. Why would anyone immediately jump from modern passports to 1900 BCE? That don't make no sense at all. Jumping to 1900 AD however, that does make sense. You see?

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#143

Post by dmix »

GCA10 wrote: post #133
perihelions wrote: post #6

These things were mainly publicity stunts. The supposed biohazard quarantine for returning Apollo astronauts was a theater performance, too. https://www.livescience.com/space/the-moon/the-apollo-moon-l... ( "The Apollo moon landing was real, but NASA's quarantine procedure was not" ) https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/09/science/nasa-moon-quarant... ( "A review of archives suggests that efforts to protect Earth from con…

My father was one of the scientific Principal Investigators (PIs) who analyzed the Apollo 11 lunar samples, back in 1969. Flipping through some of his notes from back then, it sounds as if a rotating assortment of bureaucrats injected themselves into the chain-of-custody with weird and embarrassing effects. To wit: Some Agriculture Department folks decided that their legal authority to quarantine soil samples brought…

> They insisted on building a three-week quarantine facility with slivers of lunar samples

There was a ton of money flowing in for space and it was the big new thing of the future. Makes sense other agencies would try to insert themselves and try to seem relevant to the new popular thing in the news and latch themselves onto any future spending/authority.

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#144

Post by dmix »

nickff wrote: post #90
cgriswald wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual claims of the paper are not that this was 'for show', but that NASA considered the risks unlikely and prioritized the more likely risks to the astronauts lives. I see how the authors got to 'so it was all for show', but it simply isn't true. There is plenty of evidence that the risk was taken seriously (regulations and treaties surrounding the issue, ICBC activities in the years prior to launch, the expens…

On one of the Apollo documentaries (I can't remember which one), the astronauts joked that it was the least effective quarantine ever; they talked about how there was a stream of ants going in and out of the Airstream they were in.

They quarantined in an Airstream van? That's hilarious. Very 1960s

Found the wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_quarantine_facility

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#145

Post by scottyah »

joezydeco wrote: post #111
cgriswald wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual claims of the paper are not that this was 'for show', but that NASA considered the risks unlikely and prioritized the more likely risks to the astronauts lives. I see how the authors got to 'so it was all for show', but it simply isn't true. There is plenty of evidence that the risk was taken seriously (regulations and treaties surrounding the issue, ICBC activities in the years prior to launch, the expens…

Seems incongruous to take your national heroes and make them sit in a hot trailer for a few days "for show" instead of whisking them home for their debrief and ticker-tape parades. Unless it was not for the benefit of the astronauts, but the skeptical public back home? Hmm.

I assume the "hot trailer" was better than the small capsule in space, which was also just "for show".

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#146

Post by bigfishrunning »

joecool1029 wrote: post #102
ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insanely misinformed. What kind of tech do you imagine is needed? Have you heard of Hadrian's Wall? The Great Wall of China? Or more generally: forts, outposts, coastal batteries, scouts, patrols?

Do you think they will be shocked to find out color wasn't invented in the 1900's?

It has always existed in the merry old land of Oz.

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#147

Post by guywithahat »

bigyabai wrote: post #43
guywithahat wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Source? Or are you just extrapolating from the businesses you've worked at?

Yeah just my experience from my time at NASA. People would joke that "they're going to send you to safety" if your skills are obsolete

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#149

Post by 9rx »

codetrotter wrote: post #142
9rx wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are still plenty of pirates around to this very day; a "significant issue" according to your own link. Despite that, the aforementioned statement doesn't make me think it has anything to do with today. What, specifically, makes you think it has something to do with the time leading up to 1900 CE rather than 1900 BCE?

> What, specifically, makes you think it has something to do with the time leading up to 1900 CE rather than 1900 BCE Normally when someone says "1900" they are referring to 1900 AD. Unless BCE had already been mentioned, which here it had not. And if they were referring to 1900 BCE they normally would specifically say 1900 BCE. That's why. And furthermore, the parent comment above the one talking about "pre-1900" wa…

Absent of any other context one might reasonably assume "1990" Refers to 1900 CE. But we have additional context, such as:

"Cities had guards.", "you were mostly at the whims of thieves and pirates."

What in that speaks to 1900 CE over 1900 BCE? There is evidence of pirates in both time periods, so that feature alone isn't telling. But the context doesn't end with that feature in a vacuum, does it?

Re: Neil Armstrong's customs form for moon rocks (2016)

#150

Post by caseyohara »

rob74 wrote: post #148

Yes, the form really does ask if a person is bringing in snails. Even more curiously, it asks for animals in general, and then specifically for snails. I wonder what it is about snails specifically that US Customs are/were so interested in?

Biosecurity/agrosecurity. Some snails are highly invasive and destructive to crops so they are banned or tightly regulated by the USDA.
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