I’m going to reserve judgment until I see the film. I think that the proximate cause of the uproar wasn’t the decision to leave out the flag planting, but the Canadian actor’s idiotic explanation of it. As I note in comments, the movie is a biopick of Neil Armstrong, not a history of Apollo, and his great achievement was not in planting a flag on the moon, but in simply being present on its surface.
I could never understand why the Bush administration let Iran get away with so much. They were waging war on us (and have been since 1979), and the administration did essentially nothing. And then Obama came along and bent us over for them and didn’t even ask for lube. Thanks, Valerie!
This is terrible, and a huge loss to the lunar development community. I just saw him in January at the lunar landing science workshop at Ames. He had finally come around to oppose SLS. Condolences to his family and other friends, RIP, and ad astra.
[Update a few minutes later]
More from Leonard David, who was as shocked by the news as I am. I hadn’t been aware that he had lung cancer.
[Update on June 8, 2021]
Paul’s widow, Anne, asked me to update this post to note that, contra a comment here, Paul had quit smoking in 1988, and was informed by his doctors that it was not the cause of his cancer.
I just realized that I forgot to publish this post on Tuesday morning.
On the plane, for what I hope is my last trip for the purpose of selling the house. Be good in comments.
[Friday-night update]
I’ve been living in the house while we’re fixing it up, but Patricia is flying in for the weekend, and we’re renting more comfortable quarters for a few days, on the beach in Gulfstream.
And NASA is now saying that the first crewed flight, scheduled for spring of next year, may be operational. And no more Soyuz flights after that. Should have happened long ago, though.