Apollo

At the earliest opportunity, I plan to watch the Apollo 11 documentary by Douglas Todd Miller. You can stream it (or buy it) from various sources, including Amazon Prime Video. I’ll probably rent it from VUDU. Considering that renting is is about $5.99 and buying is $7.99, buying is a definite option.

I’ve heard good things about this and I’m pretty sure it’s a can’t-miss documentary. It includes a lot of never-before-seen 70 mm color footage. The reviews at Amazon suggest that this is an artfully done documentary, including the accompanying music.



I like the idea of no narration.

Trailer

Apparently there is some kick-ass footage of just that in HD.

That sucks. The first thing I was going to do when I had Elon Musk money was to build a couple of those and shoot them off on the 4th of July.

It is interesting to note (as I read recently) that they had the hardware completely built and available for what I think was the two cancelled Apollo missions. One set of Saturn V's boosted Apollo-Soyuz, I think. Maybe someone could dig around a bit and see if there is still one sitting around or if it has already (as I think it has) been turned into a museum piece. It's gotta be that one in Alabama that you mentioned.

One of the challenges of online communication is having something to say. One of the rules of human nature is that when something becomes cheap and easy, it becomes cheap and easy. If the only way you could get your written word published was via a Letter to the Editor, chances are you would polish that letter to a shine before sending it in the mail…with no assurance it would even be published.

Now people routinely publish what they are having for breakfast. I rest my case.

But this does present an interesting challenge in terms of what to say about Apollo 11 that, while perhaps even true and meaningful, won’t cause one’s eyes to glaze over because you’ve heard it all so many times before.

One thing I will say is that the entire space program was too big for one to have understood much more than the tip of the iceberg. You can research any one element (such as all the geology schooling — classroom and field trips — that Aldrin, Armstrong, and Collins undertook) and it would fill a book.

Kennedy offered a challenge. We spent a lot of money. We sent men to the surface of the moon and returned them safely. That’s the equivalent of “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” A big project indeed. But the details must have been enormous.

That there are plenty of people who deny it happened at all, or parse it as some kind of “anti-woman” thing, is a sign of how badly we are cracking up as a people. Obama’s mandate for NASA was to have Muslims feel good about their contributions to science.

Can man have a grand purpose other than grievance or elevating oneself by picking at the bones of America? NASA is doing some good work with robotic exploration. The Hubble might have been the best bang-for-the-buck bit of space science ever done, even while the International Space Station is the worst.

Thinking back, when they started hitting golf balls on the moon and singing “I was strolling through the park one day,” lunar exploration had jumped the shark. The grand purpose was gone. It became perhaps a fine (and expensive) geological expedition. And although we might have learned something about lunar origins, the majesty was gone. These trips had become trivialized.

One can thus respect the attitude of Aldrin and Armstrong. “One small step for a man…” and “Magnificent Desolation” are memorable quotes, as is Aldrin’s quip about not locking the LEM door on his way out. There’s nothing wrong with a little well-placed humor.

Before the golf balls and the singing there was an Apollo trinity that remains highly moving and meaningful: The first is the photo, Earthrise, taken by astronaut William Anders on December 24, 1968, during Apollo 8. That visually brought an entirely new perspective to our home planet.



Original

The second part of the trinity also occurred on December 24, 1968, when the crew of Apollo 8 (Bill Anders, Jim Lovell, and Frank Borman) took turns reading from the Book of Genesis as they orbited the moon. It was the most-watched television show up to that time.

The third stool of the astronautical trinity was, of course, Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for a man…”. It marked the boundary of “We’ve done it.” Interestingly, in American fashion, at the culmination of the winning of the space race we took a universalized approach. Armstrong read from the plaque placed on the descent stage of Lunar Module which included the words: “We came in peace for all mankind.” Humility combined with triumph? Does anyone of have the kind of class today?

With Apollo, we look back at a time that was by no means perfect. But it seems to me in many ways it was a damn sight better than we are today. “And God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”

I find it hard to wrap my mind around that. It’s more than fine to be skeptical of any scientific theory. But it should occur to anyone that if landing on the moon was a fraud, the Russians would have spilled the beans on it long ago.

I will say it’s become reflexive to be a “smarty pants,” to denigrate whatever beliefs, facts, or data are preexistent. Yes, surely a part of that stems from a cynical habit of thinking wherein one thinks it’s all a lie.

But I think the real cause is Ego-meets-Ignorance. The fact is, people these days are not very well educated about the basics. The first thing to go upon being marginally educated is the pleasing thought that one knows it all. When faced with the vastness of human experience, history, and knowledge, a more honest reaction is “Geez….I don’t know much about anything at all.”

There are still many people doing extraordinary things in science, mathematic, engineering, technology, manufacturing, etc. Truly amazing things. But there is a growing Slobocracy of people who want everything in shortcuts. They don’t want to work for anything, including knowledge. For them, conspiracy theories are instant access to a PhD. They don’t have to actually know anything. All they need do is smugly sit back and announce to the world that something that is a great accomplishment by others is but a lie.

Yes, Earthrise is a nice photo. As noted, it was taken by William Anders of Apollo 8. Here's a higher resolution image of it at a NASA page. Here's a good article on the subject: 'Earthrise' Picture—How Apollo 8's Famed 1968 Photo Was Made

Also of interest to Amazon Prime Video subscribers is the very good documentary, Moon Shots: Inside the Lost Apollo Archive. If you're not a subscriber, it's available for renting in HD for a very reasonable $2.99. I think it's worth it. You get a good overview of the Apollo missions and some stunning panoramic views from some of the later Apollo missions.

I was thinking in terms of the original deniers.  Obviously, this would be different today.  I suspect that as with many cults, they pick it up from others, often their parents.  You're probably right about Nixon being unimportant to modern skeptics, most of whom probably know virtually nothing about him.