"It wasn't a big deal. It just coincided with the fact that Moon was farther away from the Earth."
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Artemis II broke Fred Haise’s distance record, but he is happy to pass it on
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If nothing else, I'm sure Haise is glad that the Artemis crew were out there because, you know, they planned to be.
Obligatory reminder that the Apollo 13 movie is fantastic and the actual transcripts/recordings are even more unbelievably impressive owing to the level of coolheadedness and control at both Mission Control and in the capsule. I can only hope that that institutional spirit lives on where it counts.
Obligatory reminder that the Apollo 13 movie is fantastic and the actual transcripts/recordings are even more unbelievably impressive owing to the level of coolheadedness and control at both Mission Control and in the capsule. I can only hope that that institutional spirit lives on where it counts.
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Just a little typo: "decent engine" should be "descent engine" in the interview with Fred Haise. It's in the paragraph starting with "Then we did a second maneuver, the biggest one,..."
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ubercurmudgeon
Ars Tribunus Militum
Well, it was the one engine they knew to be decent, compared to the probably busted one on the service module.
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.. or one can basically listen to the entire mission in realtime (i loved when these came out; at least apollo 11 is also out there)...
https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/
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I too enjoyed Lovell's greeting. It was great of him to take the time to do that before he died. I do wonder though what would have happened if one of the crew had to be swapped out? Did he record four additional versions using the names of the backup crew members? Would they have just broadcast it with shoutouts to the wrong people? Would NASA have shelved the greeting and we'd never know about it? Would they have edited it down? Would they have 'fixed' it using AI?
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Neat interview. I appreciate his 'test pilot' perspective, which most of the time is about following a picayune checklist of maneuvers and operations designed to characterize the performance of the test article. For instance, for airplanes those stall speed charts in the operators' manuals culminate data collected from a test pilot going, "now, at FL250, record the airspeed where the nose falls into the stall... rinse and repeat at FL260..."
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The engine was decent. Not exceptional, but not deficient, either. Decent.
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Bear in mind that astronauts pronounce “ascent” and “descent” with the emphasis on the first syllable to improve clarity of radio communications.
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What a gift to the world to have the perspective and words of a lunar pioneer all these decades later as we finally take another go at the moon.
The Apollo XIII crew were my childhood heroes and one of my most prized possessions is my great-grandfather's visitor badge for the launch. Mr. Haise's comments about the funding and support and consistency that could make this all happen so much more reliably are important and I wish we were in a place to prioritize projects for collective curiosity - and collective well-being - like that.
The Apollo XIII crew were my childhood heroes and one of my most prized possessions is my great-grandfather's visitor badge for the launch. Mr. Haise's comments about the funding and support and consistency that could make this all happen so much more reliably are important and I wish we were in a place to prioritize projects for collective curiosity - and collective well-being - like that.
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I don't see how this number can possibly be considered right. It is crews true that twelve walked on its surface -- crews of Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17. Each of those six missions had two men on the surface and one in orbit. That's 18. Apollo 8 circled the moon in a way similar to Artemis. Apollo 10 did a practice for a lunar landing but did not touch down. And Apollo 13 was... Apollo 13. But it went on a trajectory to the moon; it just didn't orbit or land. I could envision a total of 18 (counting only the crewmen who were on missions that landed), or 21 (those 18 plus the crew of Apollo 10, who did everything but land, including entering lunar orbit), or 27 (adding Apollo 8 and Apollo 13), but I can't see any reasonable definition that makes it 24.
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During Apollo 27 astronauts did travel to the moon but three of them did twice. Jim Lovell (8 and 13), John Young (10 and 16) and Eugene Cernan (10 and 17).
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Yeah, and I knew that, too -- John Young, for reasons I cannot recall, was my favorite astronaut during the 1970s or so, and Jim Lovell was #2 (that one might have been because he survived two missions with Frank Borman.
). But, as I said above, I didn't think of it.
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In a box somewhere, I have the cassette version of Lovell’s Lost Moon. I listened to it on a Stamford CT to Cape Cod run on a Friday night in the mid 90s in a Mazda 323, averaging about 80mph.
Good times a lifetime away.
Good times a lifetime away.
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John Young was way cool! There was a kind of "science fiction space explorer" vibe to his career. He was on Gemini 3 (which included the infamous Corned-Beef sandwich Incident) and Gemini 10, and since he was the "Command Pilot" on Gemini 10, that means he actually piloted a Gemini capsule. Young also actually piloted an Apollo Command/Service Module (the good old Charlie Brown on Apollo 10) and then on Apollo 16, he piloted an Apollo LM (the Orion, so there's a connection there!). On Apollo 16, Young also drove a lunar rover. Then, years later, Young was the first person to pilot a Space Shuttle (Columbia, which he actually flew twice)--at least to the extent that any human being truly "piloted" a Space Shuttle. Fred Haise's remarks about test pilots definitely seem to apply: Gemini, Apollo CSM, Apollo LM, a lunar rover, and the Space Shuttle--John Young flew or drove a remarkable list of different vehicles out there.Yeah, and I knew that, too -- John Young, for reasons I cannot recall, was my favorite astronaut during the 1970s or so, and Jim Lovell was #2 (that one might have been because he survived two missions with Frank Borman.
It does make me happy that there's at least one Apollo astronaut still alive (and clearly still "there", mentally) to pass the torch. I can't help but hope that Buzz Aldrin or David Scott or Charles Duke or Harrison Schmitt will manage to hang on until humans walk on the Moon again. There's something about that sense of continuity and "passing the torch" that's not at all rational, but I think it's very human. There's a little tiny piece of the Wright Flyer on Mars, attached to Ingenuity. We are rational, intelligent beings--at least some of the time we are--but we are also a very emotional species.
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When Artemis II was farthest from the Earth, one of the four astronauts must have been further than the other three due to their positions in the capsule. Which one was it?
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I addition to what Tropper1138 said, John Young was so badass that during take off and landings while all of the other astronauts' heart rates raced way high, his remained barely elevated.Yeah, and I knew that, too -- John Young, for reasons I cannot recall, was my favorite astronaut during the 1970s or so, and Jim Lovell was #2 (that one might have been because he survived two missions with Frank Borman.
As for Lovell, he was the only one to have been to the moon twice, but never set foot on it. Also pretty cool to have Tom Hanks play yourself.
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At that distance, the difference of position in the cabin is so insignificant, I don’t really see much reason to try to measure it. Give all four the record and call it a day.
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Why the scepticism of piloting the space shuttle, a space craft that was famously landed in manual control? That's at least as much piloting as an airliner gets these days. If you're thinking it was landing on autopilot, I think you've confused it with Buran.
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The command module commanders also set another record (probably): farthest away from any other human being. While the LM was on the moon the CM was as much as 2228 mi (3585 km) from away from them. There's a possibility of a last survivor of some shipwreck in the South Pacific so it can't be 100% determined.
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They would need to know where all four crew members were for a period of time around that time. Not just at exactly that time. There would be a span where the capsule was within, say, an inch of its farthest distance from Earth. People aren't generally just sitting still, not moving an inch, while they're doing work.
I did think, after they first broke the record, but before setting the final record, they could each take turns at the far side of the capsule, so they would each be "setting the new record" for a period of time. But that only works while they know they are moving farther from the Earth at some non-negligible rate.
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Growing up on road trips when entering a new state my siblings and I would reach as far as we could so we'd be the first in the new state. It would be funny if one of the crew purposely did this at the exact second to be furthest from Earth. Being as they are all professionals, they'd probably all reach and touch the same point just so it's a group thing.
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Fred makes a very good point. So many people weren't even alive when Apollo 13 happened. It's ancient history to kids these days. I never really thought about it from that perspective.
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Well, fair enough. I don't think I was mixing up the Space Shuttle with Buran; more that--partly because of Buran--there's that longstanding sneaking suspicion that NASA only made it so the U.S. Space Shuttle required a manually piloted landing in order to make sure the astronauts actually had something to do.
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