Melvil quote about stars

[ka9q]

The following quote is a favorite of the hoax crowd, but I have never seen it anywhere but from them. Certainly never in a reputable source.

"Seeing the bright blue sky turning pitch-black and seeing stars appear while it is daytime is absolutely mind-blowing." Michael Melvil, SpaceShipOne

Now it just occurred to me that I could have said these same exact words after witnessing a total eclipse of the sun for the first time. Maybe I even did. I did indeed see the bright blue sky turn pitch black, and I did see stars come out in the daytime. But my feet were firmly on the ground at the time.

After all, the quote doesn't say where Melvil was when he described these sights. While he's certainly best known for being the pilot of Space Ship One, I'm fairly sure that's not the only thing he's ever done in his life. He's certainly old enough to have seen several total eclipses by now if he's into that sort of thing.

So if he was in fact referring to an eclipse, this would be one of the cleverest (ab)uses of quote mining of all time.

[Bob B.]

I’ve never heard this quote before and I don’t know what it is in reference to, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it where about his SpaceShipOne flight. Astronauts do sometimes see stars through he windows of their spacecraft and there are many records of them talking about them. The hoax crowd just can’t get their minds around the fact that sometimes one can see stars and sometimes one cannot. It all depends on the conditions, but the HBs seem to think it should be an all or nothing deal for all situations. They can’t distinguish between looking at the black sky through the window of a darkened spacecraft versus standing on the moon with the sunlit ground all around. They think any mention of stars by an astronaut contradicts quotes from Apollo astronauts saying they couldn’t see stars on the Moon. In their ignorant and warped way of looking at things, this means a conspiracy.

[ka9q]

You're quite right, Bob, and I'm baffled and astonished by the hoax crowd's continued obsession with this topic because the explanation is so simple, straightforward and intuitively obvious. I have a hard time accepting that they don't actually understand it, and I often wonder if they knowingly put forward arguments they don't even believe themselves. But then I try to remember that old adage of not assuming malice when stupidity is a sufficient explanation.

The Apollo astronauts saw plenty of stars while navigating. The Apollo 11 crew made this point in their answer at the press conference that has been quoted so often since. But suppose they had said they had seen lots of stars with their own eyes? What difference would that have made to the hoax crowd? It would have made a difference to me as knew stars are very hard to see with eyes that aren't dark adapted...

I think even many people who accept Apollo as perfectly real don't realize just how busy -- and sleep deprived -- those guys were. Stargazing simply wasn't in the flight plan, and considering that the moon was their destination, not the stars that look the same as back home, that makes perfect sense to me. But apparently not to everyone.

In all seriousness, I can accept that Melvil was talking about his SpaceShipOne flight. I noticed that it has a remarkable number of windows, and it's possible that he had a fair bit of time to look outside during the ballistic portion of his flight. That quote makes it sound like he decided ahead of time to make an effort, and with some minimal dark adaptation he might have seen a handful of first magnitude stars. But certainly not the full canopy you see in the desert late at night with full dark adaptation.


Interestingly enough, as part of debate with a hoaxer on another topic I was just looking at the transcript of Gus Grissom's press conference after his Mercury-Redstone flight, and he was also asked if he could see stars. Were they all asked this question? The actual question was why he didn't report seeing any stars, and his answer was that he didn't see any. But he was probably a lot busier than Melvil, and by his own admission he was far more interested in looking down at the earth. He was only the third human to have that opportunity.

[Grand Lunar]

A factor that might help is whether or not the cabin of SpaceShipOne was lit or not.
If it wasn't, or if there was very little light, then it's possible that Melvil could've seen stars easier than the Apollo astronauts could.

In any case, it is a ridiculous case the hoax believers bring up.

They probably would still claim it was a hoax even if the astronauts said they saw lots of stars.
The facts don't matter to them. If they can make a claim and have people spread it around, they feel good about it.