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Originally Posted by Junkmale
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Hey JM, why did you modify the insulting message you posted earlier? Don’t worry mate, we are just having fun here.
The thing I never understood is how anyone could actually believe that NASA went from a program that was in complete disarray when it fried 3 astronauts to death in a *simulated* launch *test* that was to *prepare* for a *test* flight which was needed to *test* the Command/Service Module in *Earth* orbit (Apollo 1) to a successful landing of a man on the moon (Apollo 11) just 2.5 years later while managing 400,000 people and collaborating with over 20,000 firms and universities.
This narrative is so improbable, it is preposterous. This is like a company who accidently kills a test pilot in a fire in the cockpit during a simulation that was supposed to be a test to make sure that the first prototype of a plane could later be tested so it can attempt to fly 3 km, and, 2.5 years later, the same company transports passengers across the ocean routinely. The most ridiculous Hollywood scripts require less suspension of disbelief than this fable.
Actually, the Apollo 1 crew were so worried for their lives and so critical of the program that they presented this picture to their manager... a few months before they fried to death:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A1prayer.jpg
“I said, how are we gonna get to the moon if we can't talk between two or three buildings”
-A frustrated Grissom during the test that took his life.
“Every element of the program was in trouble and so were we. The simulators were not working, Mission Control was behind in virtually every area, and the flight and test procedures changed daily. Nothing we did had any shelf life. Not one of us stood up and said, 'Dammit, stop!' I don't know what Thompson's committee will find as the cause, but I know what I find. We are the cause! We were not ready! We did not do our job. We were rolling the dice, hoping that things would come together by launch day, when in our hearts we knew it would take a miracle. We were pushing the schedule and betting that the Cape would slip before we did.”
- Gene Kranz, NASA Flight Director, reflecting on the state of the Apollo program.
... and then 2.5 years later, 6 months before the “before this decade is out” deadline famously set by Kennedy, Neil shows up on the moon. I think Neil was great in this one. Did he also play in that other great movie about inducing a dream state to plant ideas in people’s head?... Inception, I think it was.
He doesn’t seem too comfy in the video below though. I feel a little tension and hesitation. I wouldn’t say Neil strikes me as the calm, assured and confident fellow ready to deal with any critical situation. It looks like he is going to drop to the floor at any moment. Buzz and Collins seem a little tensed too.
(just watch the first 3 or 4 min, starting at 1m30s):