Post by PhantomWolf on Dec 4, 2006 17:02:24 GMT -4
Apparently some of them had rather foul mouths and thought a delay would have allowed the swear words to be taken out, since NASA denied them that , they had to behave, lol.
[As Al will comment later, in normal conversation Pete uses a great deal of profanity. His use of terms like "Good Godfrey" while he is on the Moon indicates that he is aware that the world is listening and that a little self-censorship is in order.]
[In 1997, Andy Chaikin called my attention to the following comment by PAO's Brian Duff during a post-Apollo interview.]
[MAUER: "Was the open program already in place when you came on board?"]
[DUFF: "No. That's why I mentioned this thing about Al Sehlstad and how it evolved. I was trying to describe how it actually came incrementally. I'll give an example of the other side, the temptation to not do it. Pete Conrad--someone else I'm very fond of--came in before his flight and said that we had to reinstate the ten-second delay (in providing audio to the media), which is one of the devices that protects television people from mistakes on the air. I said, 'Pete, I'm not going to do it. We worked too hard to get this. It's part of the tradition of the space program now. We do not have a delay, we have live air-to-ground with no delay. They hear it absolutely as it comes down, they hear it at the same time, and they see it at the same time you do.' I said, 'The scientists out JPL don't like it. They want to see this first. We're not going to do that. It's going to come straight down from the spacecraft they're going to see it the same time you see it.' He said, 'I'm going to embarrass you. We can't clean up our language, and we're going to embarrass our families and NASA and the whole space program.' He said, "You've got to do something to clean it up and cut out the swear words." I said, "Pete, we're not going to do it." He said, "Well, it's your problem. It's going to be your fault." I said, "No, it's going to be your fault." The result was--if you've ever listened to a tape of that flight, it is the most Boy Scout, full of expressions like "gee whiz, golly whiskers, holy smoke, gosh, isn't that a great big rock there?" and things like that. Of course there was no swearing."]
[As Al will comment later, in normal conversation Pete uses a great deal of profanity. His use of terms like "Good Godfrey" while he is on the Moon indicates that he is aware that the world is listening and that a little self-censorship is in order.]
[In 1997, Andy Chaikin called my attention to the following comment by PAO's Brian Duff during a post-Apollo interview.]
[MAUER: "Was the open program already in place when you came on board?"]
[DUFF: "No. That's why I mentioned this thing about Al Sehlstad and how it evolved. I was trying to describe how it actually came incrementally. I'll give an example of the other side, the temptation to not do it. Pete Conrad--someone else I'm very fond of--came in before his flight and said that we had to reinstate the ten-second delay (in providing audio to the media), which is one of the devices that protects television people from mistakes on the air. I said, 'Pete, I'm not going to do it. We worked too hard to get this. It's part of the tradition of the space program now. We do not have a delay, we have live air-to-ground with no delay. They hear it absolutely as it comes down, they hear it at the same time, and they see it at the same time you do.' I said, 'The scientists out JPL don't like it. They want to see this first. We're not going to do that. It's going to come straight down from the spacecraft they're going to see it the same time you see it.' He said, 'I'm going to embarrass you. We can't clean up our language, and we're going to embarrass our families and NASA and the whole space program.' He said, "You've got to do something to clean it up and cut out the swear words." I said, "Pete, we're not going to do it." He said, "Well, it's your problem. It's going to be your fault." I said, "No, it's going to be your fault." The result was--if you've ever listened to a tape of that flight, it is the most Boy Scout, full of expressions like "gee whiz, golly whiskers, holy smoke, gosh, isn't that a great big rock there?" and things like that. Of course there was no swearing."]
(like I can talk about spelling right?)
