I did not make up the Smart Sounding Information contained in this Blog Posting. My source is the Smithsonian Magazine and the Smithsonian Magazine does not make things up.
A computer-generated illustration shows the trajectory of the Apollo 11 mission and the stages of the spacecraft from launch to orbit and return. (Claus Lunau / Science Source)
I stand behind what I said about President Kennedy in the above Subject. Simply stated, I believe that a person who sends hundreds of thousands of his countrymen scurrying around in all directions on an impossible mission is not too smart.
On May 25, 1961, Kennedy directed NASA to Land on the Moon before the end of the 1960s and that, my Dear Readers, was a Mission Impossible…Or was it?
I can see that you are sticking by JFK and I can also see that you are getting mad at me. OK, I will prove what I am contending about President Kennedy’s Smarts. (I just love it when I put my Dear Readers in their proper place after they look at me like so many of you just looked at me.)
To begin proving my point, I must take you back to the world as it actually was on May 25, 1961. When President John F. Kennedy declared that the United States would go to the Moon, he was committing the nation to do something we simply couldn’t do…
Ø We didn’t have Rockets that could go to the Moon.
Ø If we had the Rockets, we didn’t have the Launch Pads to launch the Rockets from.
Ø We didn’t have Spacesuits that would keep the Astronauts alive during a trip to the Moon.
Ø We didn’t have a Computer portable enough to guide a spaceship to the Moon and back.
Ø We didn’t have a Spaceship to land astronauts on the surface of the Moon.
Ø We didn’t have a Moon Car to let the astronauts drive around and explore the Moon’s Surface.
Ø We didn’t have a Network of Tracking Stations to communicate with the astronauts in route.
Ø We didn’t even have the Micro-Gravity Food.
We didn’t even know what we would need to get to the Moon. We didn’t have a List of what we would need. No one in the world had a List of what we would need.
Ø We didn’t even know how to fly to the Moon.
Ø We didn’t know what course to fly to get to the Moon from Earth.
Ø We didn’t know what we would find when we got to the Moon.
Ø Physicians worried that people wouldn’t be able to Think in Micro-Gravity Conditions.
Ø Mathematicians worried that we wouldn’t be able to Calculate How to Rendezvous Two Spacecraft in Orbit (bring them together in space and dock them in flight).
Ø Moon Dust was a mystery. Some very smart scientist on Earth warned NASA that the dust had been isolated from oxygen for so long that it might well be highly chemically reactive.
>If too much dust was carried inside the lunar module’s cabin, the moment the astronauts repressurized it with air and the dust came into contact with oxygen, it might start burning, or even cause an explosion.
>Other very smart scientist warned NASA that the dust might be so deep that the lunar module and the astronauts themselves could sink irretrievably into it.
>The Moon Dust turned out to be so clingy and so irritating that on the one night that Armstrong and Aldrin spent in the lunar module on the surface of the Moon, they slept in their helmets and gloves, to avoid breathing the dust floating around inside the cabin.
>If too much dust was carried inside the lunar module’s cabin, the moment the astronauts repressurized it with air and the dust came into contact with oxygen, it might start burning, or even cause an explosion.
>Other very smart scientist warned NASA that the dust might be so deep that the lunar module and the astronauts themselves could sink irretrievably into it.
>The Moon Dust turned out to be so clingy and so irritating that on the one night that Armstrong and Aldrin spent in the lunar module on the surface of the Moon, they slept in their helmets and gloves, to avoid breathing the dust floating around inside the cabin.
That, my Dear Readers, is a long way of saying that a Trip to the Moon and Back was Impossible in 1961.
Maybe President Kennedy was smarter than I give him credit for being smart because he said, “We choose to go to the Moon” but he did not say, “We choose to go to the Moon and I choose to go along for the ride”.
Would I kid u?
Smartfella
A computer-generated illustration shows the trajectory of the Apollo 11 mission and the stages of the spacecraft from launch to orbit and return. (Claus Lunau / Science Source)
1 comment:
No, not smart at all.
Little did he know the huge cost of the project. Some might say the money was wasted on the moon. Maybe they took a few coins that are still there, but that money went all, and I mean all, to hardworking technicians, engineers, workers in many fields.
Little did he know what we would get from that project. He could not even image the microchips that we now carry with us daily by the dozens and more, the technology that has lead to our interconnectedness, even this very blog.
Little did he know that this very project would lift this country to preeminence in science and technology.
A smart man would not have risked that much money on the unknown. Nowadays we know better. We don't waste our resources on such harebrained ideas.
No not smart. Just a visionary.
I just wish we were not as smart as we are and instead had little bit of that visionary imagination, drive, and daring of those pioneers all those decades ago.
Thank you Smartfellow, you have seen through all that.
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