Category Archives: Space

To infinity…

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President Trump is struggling to find a place in history, other than being the worst president his country has ever had. On more than one occasion he has expressed views about returning to the Moon, sooner rather than later. My guess is that he sees an opportunity to make money from whatever resources people might find there.

It’s a bit Kennedy-esque, I suppose, certainly the commitment (if that’s not too strong a word).

We (mankind) landed on the Moon in 1969, and by late 1972 the whole programme was over. Nearly all the men who walked there are dead. The USA achieved something magnificent, but do not have the resources or technology to do it now. With the ending of the space shuttle, they do not have a proven method of getting humans into orbit even.

This is an interesting article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/nkzysaP3pB/to-the-moon-and-beyond

Leonov

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The death was announced of Alexy Leonov. Or Alexei.

Any regular readers will know how much I enjoyed all the space stuff this summer, celebrating Apollo 11. We remember some of the old school astronauts and cosmonauts: John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, John Young, Yuri Gagarin, Valentina Tereshkova and Alexei Leonov. Few of the original heroes are still alive.

In 1965, Leonov was the first person ever to do a spacewalk. It nearly ended in tears when his suit expanded so much he could not get back into the capsule. The landing was also fraught with difficulties, and there is a great film about it: Spacewalk/Spacewalker.

Had it happened, Leonov would have been the first Russian on the Moon. As it was, he commanded the Soviet half of the joint Apollo-Soyuz mission.

In later life, he became the grand old man of Russian space.

Men on the Moon

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Given that just 12 men have walked on the Moon, how many can you name. More than two is good. I can do most, but get the mission numbers a bit confused (mind, I don’t remember what I had for breakfast).

So here they are:

11 Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin

12 Pete Conrad, Alan Bean

14 Alan Shepherd, Edgar Mitchell

15 Dave Scott, Jim Irwin

16 John Young, Charlie Duke

17 Gene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt

As I write, four are still alive: Aldrin, Duke, Schmitt and Scott.

Apollo 13, of course, was due to land on the Moon but an explosion aborted the mission.

Did it really happen?

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Apparently, one American in 20 does not believe we went to the Moon. One in 10 does not believe we have ever been in Space. A similar number believe that the Earth is flat (and that the Easter Bunny is real too, I guess).

All the interest in space has brought all the nut cases out of the woodwork.

Some really are just nutty. I guess they actually believe it was all a conspiracy and a fake, filmed by Kubrick just like the film Capricorn One.

I don’t know why people listen to these folk. They talk nonsense. Just because you can say it, doesn’t mean it’s true. Here are some arguments the Discovery Channel is using to suggest it’s a fake:

  • the flag blows in the wind on the “Moon”
  • man would die when pasing through the van Allen belts
  • America couldn’t trust the astronauts to complete the task so they faked it
  • Wernher von Braun was a Nazi so we didn’t go to the Moon
  • there is no real evidence of going to the Moon
  • if they had gone into space, where are all the pictures of the Earth?
  • you can’t see anything on the Moon that proves we went

and so on.

I don’t know why the media give these stupid people the time of day. It’s a failing of our educational system that folk believe in nonsensical things.

Mythbusters categorically disproved every popular fake theory a few years ago. I am sure you can find it and others on YouTube.

And ask yourelf this question. Why would they fake it? It would need hundreds of thousands of people to be in on the conspiracy and for all of them never to admit such a fake existed.