The Apollo Project

[debodun]

With the publicity last week of it being the 49th anniversary of the first Moon landing and EVA, I rooted around for my NASA and Moon memorabilia. At that time I was between my junior and senior year in high school and attending Syracuse University on a special program for high school students.



I watched on a 12" B&W TV in the dorm. My dad taped it on an reel to reel tape recorder. I still have the recorder and the tape. This was decades before VCRs and the Internet, but who knew then?

 

[KingsX]

.

My brother was a NASA scientist at the Houston spacecraft center during the Apollo moon landing.
He helped create the lunar sample analysis lab where he [and other scientists] analyzed moon rocks
brought back from the moon by Apollo 11 and later Apollo missions. He and others working on the
first lunar landing project received a special medallion from NASA made from metal from Apollo 11.
Before he retired after 42 years with NASA, he was one of NASA's last remaining Apollo era scientists.

 

[moviequeen1]

HI Deb and KingsX,thanks for sharing your Apollo/NASA pictures. KingsX,fascinating to learn how your brother was involved in the Apollo missions.
To get our astronauts up to the space station now,we need help from the Russians,very strange Sue

 

[debodun]

.

My brother was a nasa scientist at the houston spacecraft center during the apollo moon landing.
He helped create the lunar sample analysis lab where he [and other scientists] analyzed moon rocks
brought back from the moon by apollo 11 and later apollo missions. He and others working on the
first lunar landing project received a special medallion from nasa made from metal from apollo 11.
Before he retired after 42 years with nasa, he was one of nasa's last remaining apollo era scientists.

Cool !

 

[KingsX]

HI Deb and KingsX,thanks for sharing your Apollo/NASA pictures. KingsX,fascinating to learn how your brother was involved in the Apollo missions.
To get our astronauts up to the space station now,we need help from the Russians,very strange Sue

Ironic how we now have to hitch a ride with the Russians to the International Space Station.

As my brother told me, both the Russian and American space programs emerged from
German scientists, many of whom left post-war Germany for both the USA and Russia.

Right after Apollo 11, my brother gave an over the phone interview with Russians. He said,
they were amazed how much he was free to converse. Of course he had a secret clearance
so he knew what and what not to say.

Before my brother retired from NASA, younger scientists who are planning missions to Mars,
would question him about the quarantine procedures used during Apollo. I was a teenager
when my brother took me to the Lunar Receiving Lab building in Houston to show me the
quarantine equipment and his lab [the astronauts returning from the moon were first taken
to that same LRL building]. He was afraid someone might break quarantine when he was
NOT in his lab [and would be unable to get back in for awhile.] My brother taught himself
how to blow glass so he could make special size test tubes needed for analysis. Not only
the astronauts, but also all the scientists, were true pioneers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Receiving_Laboratory

 

[rgp]

HI Deb and KingsX,thanks for sharing your Apollo/NASA pictures. KingsX,fascinating to learn how your brother was involved in the Apollo missions.
To get our astronauts up to the space station now,we need help from the Russians,very strange Sue

Not arguing..as I do not know...But I have heard that we do not 'need' help from the Russians...but do 'accept' it. The reason being, we are / [NASA] is ,concentrating their efforts & most resources on the next big mission...going to Mars!?

Frankly...I'm not sure it's all worth it?? Yes many things are a positive result [of] our space missions so far but....do we really need another bad tasting imitation orange drink?...

 

[KingsX]

Not arguing..as I do not know...But I have heard that we do not 'need' help from the Russians...but do 'accept' it. The reason being, we are / [NASA] is ,concentrating their efforts & most resources on the next big mission...going to Mars!?

Frankly...I'm not sure it's all worth it?? Yes many things are a positive result [of] our space missions so far but....do we really need another bad tasting imitation orange drink?...

If humans had no passion, no "what if" dreams and no ingenuity... and had not repeatedly through the ages invented new and improved ways of doing things, pushed the limits and "boldly gone where no man has gone before"... we would all still be living in the stone age, and liking it.

 

[debodun]

What amazes me is that on almost every astronomy-based TV documentary, they give the impression that all we are interested in is finding life like our own on other planets. We may best not be in such a hurry for that - other beings may not be very friendly.

 

[RadishRose]

I had a souvenir pack of Apollo-Soyuz mission cigarettes. Never saved it.

 

[Radrook]

Finding creatures with the same mentality as humans could definitely prove to be extremely problematic. Especially if they turn out to be technological far more advanced.

 

[Radrook]

Stranger still would be that to get our astronauts to a moon base we would need our astronauts to hitch a ride with the Chinese.