In each of the accidents there were people who believed that the programs were proceeding into unsafe territory. These people tried with varying degrees of success to alert the management of their concerns. In some cases, they fell silent quickly. In other cases, they were overruled and gave up. Later, in all three of the accidents, the top leaders unanimously said ‘we didn’t know anybody was concerned’.
The lesson to take away here is not to give up. If it is unsafe say so. If overruled, appeal. If denied appeal, make your case to the highest level manager you can find. Do not give up until you have been heard at the very top.
Because you might be the only one that sees what no one else can.
Counting calories is mindless, and generally useless, if not actually counterproductive. The calorie counts on fast food menus are pretty much meaningless.
So maybe Apollo went too far too soon and set an impossible target against which everything since has been measured. It wasn’t about primarily about exploration, although that did happen, and it certainly wasn’t about sustainability, but it has cast a long shadow over what has come since.
Am I committing some sort of heresy by saying these things? Well, all I can say is that the people who made Apollo happen are still my heroes. I still get a lump in my throat when I think what they did, the risks they took and the certainty they had in their belief that it was worth it. Armstrong himself has now left us, his surviving fellow moonwalkers are now old men – still active, still advocating the next big step, but a vivid reminder of the time that has passed since Apollo.
I guess my conclusion is that the further we get from those days, the more anomalous Apollo appears – an amazing adventure that will stand out as future generations look back on the twentieth century, but not something that can be repeated. We live in a different world now.
Yes. We need to stop trying to do Apollo to Mars. It isn’t going to happen, and moreover, it shouldn’t.
Yes. I grew up driving in all manner of winter conditions. The most important thing is to go out to a vacant parking lot and practice, so you’ll know what to do in an emergency.
The end of January is a time of remembrance for NASA human spaceflight, starting with the Apollo 1 anniversary on Wednesday, the Challenger anniversary (30th) on Thursday, and Columbia a week from tomorrow. Here’s one of the first pieces at Florida Today, by James Dean, on the Challenger anniversary, with some quotes from Yours Truly.
Someone will be or is being threatened by the FBI with a long vacation in Club Fed over this. I suspect that someone isn’t going to be willing to take the fall for Her Highness.