Volume XVI, Issue XIX, Special Edition
A Close Call!
Apollo 10 Nearly Crashes into the Moon
(Or Maybe Not)...
[click to read]
The story keeps changing, it becomes embarrassing.
In 1969 Apollo 10 did a lunar landing test and something went wrong. Today there are several different versions of what exactly happened. On the Discovery Channel series "Rocket Science" Apollo 10 astronaut Cernan told how he saw the horizon come by 8 times in 15 seconds. However, in the sixties the story was told completely differently. (read more)
‘Added Excitement’
Did a Discovery Channel Video Rewrite Space History?
When the Apollo Program was laid out for putting a man on the moon, a sequence of lettered missions were proposed, beginning with the unmanned ‘A’ missions. The sequence proceeded from Earth orbit testing to more ambitious flights to the moon. ‘F’ missions would hone rendezvous and docking skills in lunar orbit prior to the ‘G’ missions – actual attempts to land on the moon. If a particular mission failed to achieve its objectives, another mission in the same letter category would follow. Assuming the Apollo 10 mission had indeed ‘almost crashed into the moon,’ another ‘F’ mission would have almost certainly been considered necessary. As it actually happened, it seems far more likely that the ‘double reset’ of ‘Snoopy’s’ program resulted in some uncomfortable moments for the crew but did not create the danger that the documentary alludes to. The ‘Discovery Channel’ animation, it would seem, created an exciting story that did not actually happen. Actual footage from the mission suggests that the error resulted in a loss of control but the astronauts quickly regained it. Still, the archives of NASA and even such lofty media giants as TIME[1.] perpetuate the ‘almost crashed’ story. [2.] [3.]
My ‘Rocket Summer’
Summer of 1969, it was the Summer of the great Saturn V. I was almost eighteen and as high school wound down, Gene Cernan and Thomas P. Stafford would fly Lunar Module ‘Snoopy’ to within 8.4 nautical miles of the lunar surface. This F mission was to be the final dress rehearsal for the actual landing in July. Though the Lunar Module was still too heavy for an actual landing and takeoff from the surface of the moon, all the systems needed for the actual landing were tested and proved. Rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit worked beautifully. The Saturn V booster proved itself reliable. We were going to the moon!
It was the last Summer of my youth. September would be when I registered for the draft. Vietnam was raging and all of us high school students knew that our childhood was coming to an end. Summer was an endless time of helping to bale hay, painting fence and the joy of open ended days in the Summer forest! It was a time to be savored. These astronauts were mostly Korean War veterans, aviators and pilots. We were young kids, untested save for the long days spent in farm work. Those astronauts made great heroes!
It was an exciting moment when ‘Snoopy’ docked with ‘Charlie Brown,’ the Command Module piloted by John Young, after its descent to low lunar orbit. They made it look so easy. Originally NASA had planned for a series of each letter designated mission in preparation for an actual landing but here this Summer they experienced a great series of successes. The next mission after Apollo 10 would be the first attempt at an actual landing. The Eagle would land not long after our county’s enormous Fourth of July celebration. The space race would be ‘won.’ It was an exciting time to be alive!
Volume XVI, Issue XIXa
Josiah
By Bob Kirchman
Copyright © 2019, The Kirchman Studio, all rights reserved
Chapter 5: In Fact It's Cold as Hell
In the darkness of the bunker, Allison and Josiah suspected something terrible had been attempted and thwarted. They now prepared to die. The bunker, however, had been provided with ample oxygen for more crew members than it now held and the two settled in to a routine as they waited for the radiation levels outside to subside. Then they donned pressure suits and pushed open the hatchway. Digging through the rubble they eventually emerged on the cratered surface. That night they watched the Great Northern arc across the Martian sky. “Tomorrow we’ll try to create an’S.O.S.’” Allison said. That night was the last time they saw Great Northern pass overhead.
Allison and Josiah looked hard at the suicide pills. There was a problem, however, as they would have to get into a pressurized space to remove their helmets and take them. Removing the helmets, they correctly surmised, would lead to a painful death if they did it in the rarified Martian atmosphere. The pathway back into the bunker was very unstable. “Let’s see if any greenhouses have survived past the ridge.” Josiah said as they began the long walk out. There might be a place where they could go in, remove the helmets and take the pills. Then they could sit in the gardens as their lives ebbed away.
They walked for most of a day. “I wonder what happened to the tractor?” Allison thought to herself as they trudged on.
Threading through a small crevasse in the ridge, they saw the tractor. A pressurized personnel trailer was attached to it and it sat parked at the airdock of the closest greenhouse. The greenhouses sheltered by the ridge had indeed survived and likely there would be others there. The helmet radios were short range by design so they would have to enter the airlock to find out. They proceeded to do so and soon stepped into a biosphere garden, lush with all forms of edible plant life.
The greenhouses were large, with pathways laid out in a grid and graveled so as not to become mud in the constant irrigation. Up ahead, Allison spotted a maintenance barn and the two colonists decided to investigate. Josiah cautiously opened the door. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw signs of encampment. Bedding and personal spaces seemed to have been established inside. “Hello,” he stammered. “Anybody home?” There was only silence. He and Allison stared at the makeshift living quarters for a long time. Had the survivors actually lived on? Were they able to avoid the radiation and somehow make a way for themselves?
Josiah and Allison stepped outside into the bright Martian sunlight filtering into the biosphere and made a meal of the vegetables growing in raised beds near the barn. The graveled paths did not yield clear or fresh clues as to movement within the biosphere so the two marked the position of the barn and set out in a likely direction.
(to be continued)
Alive from New York
New York's Largest Ever Pro-Life Event
Alveda Celeste King (born January 22, 1951) is an American activist, author, and former state representative for the 28th District in the Georgia House of Representatives. She is a niece of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and daughter of civil rights activist the Rev. A. D. King and his wife, Naomi Barber King.
The Day Abortion Died
[click to read]
By Kevin McCullough
On May 4th 2019, a near perfect 70 degree afternoon, in the middle of Times Square, in New York City, from three sound stages blasting thousands of decibels into the surrounding neighborhoods, the final speaker of the day said that, “Soon... Abortion will become... unthinkable!” The statement came after a 90 minute program that had been slated as a “public celebration of life.” Not content to believe the organizers, protestors attempted to disrupt the proceedings. But those protests, which began with profane chants, obscene signs, and thundering drums, ended with nary a whimper, and dispersed far more mysteriously than they had appeared. The reason why the 2,000 protestors evaporated wasn’t because the 20,000 life supporters had shouted them down. In fact the very opposite was what occurred. It was an amazing moment to observe yesterday. (read more)
PSALM 8
O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!” – PSALM 8
Building the Antarctic Research Station
And You Thought Getting a CO was Difficult Here!
