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gillianren

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Re: Apollo post-flight press conference
« Reply #15 on Aug 12, 2009, 4:44pm »

Aug 12, 2009, 2:00pm, Mr Gorsky wrote:

Aug 12, 2009, 11:43am, gillianren wrote:

I will say, though, that my understanding is that quarantine was pretty much a joke, biologically speaking.

I suppose the point was that they had no idea it was completely unnecessary before the first mission to land on the moon.

Actually, no. The point was to appease a paranoid public. The quarantine was so loose that any theoretical alien microbe would have gotten out pretty much as soon as the capsule door opened to let the astronauts out in the first place. What's more, the odds of an organism which could have any effect on humans' evolving on the Moon are astoundingly low. However, the public didn't entirely see it that way, not least because of the idiots who don't understand how evolution works. Or climates. Or vacuum. Or radiation.

You see where I'm going with this.

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PhantomWolf

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Re: Apollo post-flight press conference
« Reply #16 on Aug 12, 2009, 8:00pm »

Aug 12, 2009, 4:44pm, gillianren wrote:

Aug 12, 2009, 2:00pm, Mr Gorsky wrote:

I suppose the point was that they had no idea it was completely unnecessary before the first mission to land on the moon.

Even eariler mayhaps. There was a value in the LM's enviroment system that was open whenever the pressure outside the capsule was above 5 psi, thus allowing fresh air into the capsule as it rentered the atmosphere to repressurise it on the way down rather than requiring extra tanks for this (it also depressurised the capsule on the way up by leaking the air out.) Once the capsule landed, the interior and exterior gases would have been freely exchanged through the valve even before the hatch was opened.

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grmcdorman
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Re: Apollo post-flight press conference
« Reply #17 on Aug 13, 2009, 8:07am »

Aug 12, 2009, 8:00pm, PhantomWolf wrote:

... There was a value in the LM's enviroment system that was open whenever the pressure outside the capsule was above 5 psi...

I think you mean CM, phantomwolf.

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gonetoplaid
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Re: Apollo post-flight press conference
« Reply #18 on Aug 13, 2009, 5:21pm »

He he. I know what he meant. LM, CM, REM, LEM, AM, PM, BDSM are just a few other similar acronyms. Hmm...this forum needs a "sticky" thread which lists all of the acronyms commonly used here on the forum. Pardon me if we already have such a list.

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Kiwi

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Re: Apollo post-flight press conference
« Reply #19 on Aug 14, 2009, 8:58pm »

Here's a comment on the press conference in typical Mike Collins fashion:

Quote:

Test pilots are taught to perceive, to remember, to record every impression in flight — so that later, on the ground, they can report, as fully and as precisely as possible, exactly what happened. No one disputed this point, so that what happened during a space flight was discussed publicly at the post-flight press conference in as much detail as the press could stomach. But, of course, that was not sufficient. What they really wanted to know was: beyond all that technical crap, what did the crew feel? How did it feel to ride a rocket, what thoughts were racing through your mind as you plummeted toward the sea with the parachutes not yet open? How scared were you, anyway? This is what Life paid to find out, and what others pried to find out without paying, and in truth, neither unearthed very much. Life's little extra certainly wasn't worth the money. I suppose this was mainly because, as technical people, as test pilots whose bread and butter was the cold, dispassionate analysis of complicated facts, we were frankly embarrassed by the shifting focus. It didn't seem right somehow for the press to have this morbid, unhealthy, persistent, prodding, probing pre-[<p53] [p54>]occupation with the frills, when the silly bastards didn't even understand how the machines operated or what they had accomplished. It was like describing what Christian Barnard wore while performing the first heart transplant. Furthermore, we weren't trained to emote, we were trained to repress emotions, lest they interfere with our very complicated, delicate, and one-chance-only duties. If they wanted an emotional press conference, for Christ's sake, they should have put together an Apollo crew of a philosopher, a priest, and a poet — not three test pilots. Of course, they wouldn't get them back to have the press conference, in all likelihood, because this trio would probably emote all the way back into the atmosphere and forget to push in the circuit breaker which enabled the parachutes to open.

Carrying The Fire — An Astronaut's Journeys, Michael Collins, Cooper Square Press, New York, 1974, pages 53-54

And again in the movie, "In the Shadow of the Moon":

Quote:

0:01:13 Mike Collins: We said earlier that being a military test pilot was the best background from a technical point of view, but was probably, I would add, the worst background from a public relations, of a public understanding, or an emotional point of view.
0:01:30 Mike Collins: We were trained to transmit vital pieces of information. If someone had said from the ground to me in space, "Well, how do you feel about that?" I'd have said, "What? Huh?" You know, I don't know how I feel about that. "You want the temperature? You want the pressure? You want the velocity? You want the altitude? What do you mean how do I feel about that?"
0:01:54 Mike Collins: It was not within our ken to share emotions or to utter extraneous information. Yes, things were terse, they were clipped. We were trained to give those essential pieces of information.
0:02:12 Mike Collins: It seems, maybe, rather short-sighted, almost cruel, you might say, not to want to share anything, but if, on the other hand, you think about a whole sky full of airplanes, you've got 30 or 40 jet fighters all up there all on the same frequency, and saying, "Blue Four, say your fuel state."
0:02:35 Mike Collins: "Well, I feel that my fuel state is just something that's so overwhelming to me I, I just am very reluctant but I have to report that I'm down to 1200 pounds."
0:02:45 Mike Collins: Well, that guy would get grounded. He's supposed to, "Blue Four, 1200 pounds."
0:02:50 Mike Collins: So, perhaps that helps explain why we were so "tight-lipped", you might say.

« Last Edit: Aug 14, 2009, 9:08pm by Kiwi »

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ka9q
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Re: Apollo post-flight press conference
« Reply #20 on Aug 27, 2009, 10:17pm »

Aug 12, 2009, 2:00pm, Mr Gorsky wrote:

I suppose the point was that they had no idea it was completely unnecessary before the first mission to land on the moon.

It was intensely controversial. Everybody pretty much agreed that if you wanted to design a place hostile to microbial life you'd come up with something resembling the moon's surface: no atmosphere, temperatures cycling slowly between -150 and +150C, unfiltered solar UV for 2 weeks at a time, absolutely no water.

But there was always that teeny tiny teensy little chance that they just might bring something back that could wipe out the whole planet. Hence the quarantine for the first few missions (except 13).

« Last Edit: Aug 27, 2009, 10:33pm by ka9q »

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ka9q
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Re: Apollo post-flight press conference
« Reply #21 on Aug 27, 2009, 10:23pm »

Aug 12, 2009, 11:43am, gillianren wrote:

I will say, though, that my understanding is that quarantine was pretty much a joke, biologically speaking.

Where did I hear that more than one person in Houston "accidentally" exposed themselves to moon material so they could live with the astronauts for a few weeks before the world got to them?

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ka9q
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Re: Apollo post-flight press conference
« Reply #22 on Aug 27, 2009, 10:42pm »

A few astronauts did eventually embrace the PR role; Gene Cernan comes to mind. I don't know of any who really avoid talking about their experiences as long as it's not the same old questions: "How do you go to the bathroom in space?" "What was it REALLY like on the moon?" "You didn't really go to the moon, did you?"

The Apollo Lunar Surface Journal credits every Apollo astronaut who landed on the moon with the exception of John Young and Al Shepard. I don't know why Young didn't participate, but I assume Shepard died before the project could interview him. Obviously they were willing to give much of their time talking about their missions when they knew it would be well spent accurately documenting every detail.

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