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NASA Was Prepared to Silence Stranded Moon Astronauts
LarsWestergren writes "The BBC has an interesting article about some NASA documents which have been secret for 30 years, which reveal that if the astronauts of the first moon landing had been stranded because of some technical problem, communications would have been cut and they would have been left to die in silence. Richard Nixon even had a patriotic speech prepared for the possibility. The astronauts, however, did not know about this. "
Remember, according to the BBC, the astronauts had no knowledge of this plan. So, we are supposed to take the one confirmed fact-that Nixon had a speech ready in case the LEM didn't make the ascent, and blow in up into a conspiracy. This is worse than the shuttle. For all of this be true, we have to assume that.
1) The LEM was equipped with a remote kill on the transmitter. Note that the crew had a full set of schematics on board. If it was in the schematics, they'd find it. If it wasn't, they wonder what the hell that thing in the transmitter was.
2) That Collins was either in on it, or could be browbeaten into submission. He'd worked with Armstrong and Aldrin for years. I seriously doubt that he'd abandon them to silence if something happened. Of course, the conspiracy buffs will say "Collins would die too..."- but that assumes that we're willing to accept that the LEM and the CSM, currently seperated by about 50-100 miles, would fail at the same time.
I can belive that NASA did have a plan for a failed LEM ascent, and it most likely was "Bring Collins home, mourn Armstrong and Aldrin"-there wasn't much choice if the LEM didn't work-it would be months before another Saturn V/Apollo CSM/LEM would be ready to launch. And I can believe Nixon had a speech prepared for the event. He probably had one read for a failure at launch, a failure at recovery, ect. ect. ect.
Furthermore, a failed ascent would have involved one of four scenarios.
1) The engine didn't fire. NASA wouldn't cut off communcations-they'd pull late nighters to fix the damn thing. Witness Apollo 13. They might have failed, and died-but we'd have heard it live. If they did die, you could bet that Apollo 12's sole mission, if it flew, would be to bring Armstrong's and Aldrin's bodies back home. Medals of Honor, Arlington Cemetary, the whole shebang.
2) The engine fires, but without enough power to put the LEM into an orbit. Armstrong and Aldrin get a few minutes to say goodbye, then suffer an "Uncontrolled Flight into Lunar Terrain". Apollo 12 get to do the science jobs that 11 missed, and lays a wreath. If there was enough left over, see 1) above.
3) The engine blows up. Two smears on the landscape. Communications do get cut off, and Nixon makes his speach, but for obvious reasons. Wreath time again-maybe a return of remains, but not likely to be very much to return.
4) The engine fires enough to put the LEM into an orbit, but not the correct one. Here, it depends on food/air/fuel states aboard the LEM and CSM. Co mputers churn, and either they dock and rescue, or they fail and Collins comes home. Apollo 12 goes and get the remains later.
Occam's razor, gentleman.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
This is simply false. When the orbiter failed structurally, there were no reactant tanks to feed the fuel cells that power the orbiter. No power, and there's no way that Challenger could have sent back anything. (As it was, the final frames of telemetry were not send back via radio, but instead extracted directly from the magnetic core memories used by the computers.)
They were pioneers of a new land and new, untested technology. Physicists and aeronautical engineers can only do so much with the information given, and it's up to testing and fate to decide the outcome. The chance of failure on the mission was astronomical, and it is only natural that the government was prepared for the worst.
The men had to know, deep down, that, in the event of technological failure and complete radio silence, there would be absolutely no way NASA could scrape together the resources required to save them before their all too short air supply ran out.
Either in failure or victory, the men would have been heroes, daring to explore new worlds with shaky means of exploring it. They knew in their hearts that the rest of their lives would not amount to that experience, and I believe they would have done it again, even if they knew they could have been stranded.
Who is to say astronauts didn't get stranded on the moon? NASA could :)
have made up the rest of several of the voyages in a studio. For all
you know, NASA established a permanent base and left astronauts behind
on purpose!
All my life, the moon shots have been the subject of television
commercials. I appreciate the enormity of these events, but when I
see an astronaut bounding along to surface of the moon, luxury cars
and life insurance spring to mind.
Look, what the hell would you expect NASA to do in such a situation?
Stranded astronauts begging for help which would never arrive while
they run out of air is not how you, me or any of the thousands of
people involved in those projects would want them to be remembered.
Frankly, I am forever amazed by the fact that no one did die on the
moon. Fretting over NASA's contingency plans for the very likely
possibility of someone being stranded on the moon is the sort of naive
ignorance that provides millions of lawyers with gainful employment.
Perhaps it provides an incite into the reasons why, after thirty some
odd years, we haven't made it any further.
In short, those of you who feel a chill crawl up your spine when you
consider these matters; grow up. Sometimes people in hopeless
situations have to be left behind or put down. I am certain that if
NASA's horrible plot was known to the astronauts before hand not one
would have hesitated to go anyhow.
TopSpin
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
During the early 80's that community was a tight family. There was excitement and pride. The piggybacked shuttle would do a victory lap around Clear Lake on its treck back from Edwards AFB to Kenedy Space Center. All the local schools would have televisions in classrooms and common areas so that students from that NASA community could watch that month's launch. Everything was becoming routine.
Students watched the Challenger launch from hallways and classrooms at Clear Lake Highschool. There was a sudden explosion. The entire school went deadly quiet. A few seconds passed. The shocked silence was broken by the wails of students who realized they had just watched their parents die on national television.
The torment was just beginning.
Clear Lake was beseiged by reporters. The local police force was mobilized to try and provide some privacy to horrified family members of the astronauts who had just died. But the reporters were tenacious; they were caught climbing into windows and even taking pictures into bathrooms. Clear Lake Highschool was forced to close for a week because of the disruptions caused by the press. And when it did re-open, the children of the slain astronauts fled there; the press didn't allow them the privacy to greive at home.
The press learned that NASA had copies of supposed transmissions from the shuttle during the incident. NASA had found the wreckage of the crew compartment. There were also body parts found by the disaster recovery crew. But the recordings, the wreckage, and the associated carnage were closed off to the media. The media howled. They would have their sound bites and shocking pictures! But NASA insisted on the dignity of the deceased and weathered all complaints. The press were denied.
How dare you call this a case of government coverup! This was a case of people trying to preserve the dignity of their friends, family, and the familys of those people who died.
You want something to get upset about? There's plenty of real issues involved with the Challenger incident.
Go after the media hounds who's appetite for sound bites drove them to invade grieving family members' privacy. Criticize inaccurate reporting as media organizations fumbled facts in an attempt to scoop competitors.
Criticize the American public's shock when they realized space travel, at least with current technology, is anything but a safe, routine function.
But mostly... go after the administration of NASA. Be critical of the leadership that very possibly squandered the entire future of a program that strove towards mankind's next great exploration endeavor.
Dig into why warnings were ignored. How politics played a more important role than technical considerations. And look very hard at the internal "machine" that was generated to keep this status quo functional.
Finally, and most importantly, ask... does that machine still exist today?
The deceased don't have the answers to these questions. Raising their spector does not serve the interest of truth.
I don't think it's justified to assume that the
plan was to cut communications at the first hint
of trouble.
Most likely they would have been allowed to say
their goodbyes to their families, in as much
privacy as could be afforded with the comm loops
they had at the time (probably the surgeon's
channel). But only after all efforts at
troubleshooting and repairing the problem had
been exhausted. It's probable that these efforts
would continue until the last possible window for
rendezvous with the command module.
At that point, of course, they would terminate
communications and allow the crew to die in peace.
What you wouldn't have would be a bunch of
reporters trying to ask them inane questions
about what it feels like to die a quarter-million
miles from home.
Personally, if I were stranded in the LM with only
a couple hours of O2 left, I'd see how far I could
hike on what was left in my suit...
This has already been done with the Challenger disaster. Despite the impressive pictures of the explosion, most of the "smoke" was water vapor. The crew of the Challenger were not killed in the explosion. The shuttle remained largely intact and only broke apart on impact of falling into the ocean. The crew were conscious until they hit the water. Radio communication was ongoing for several seconds after the explosion and NASA has refused to release the tapes. The screams of terror they hold are said to be horrifying. And NASA has refused to show photographs of the remains that were recovered because they are too horrific. From the start, NASA tried to cover up. And remember it was NASA who demanded that the launch go ahead despite the advice by lower level MT engineers.
One thing I found offensive about that article is the bit at the end where they refer to Michael Collins as "the crew member that did not take part in the lunar landing".
Shee-it, that bugs me for some reason. If he didn't take part in it, how the heck did Neil and Buzz get back?
In my view, Michael Collins deserves as much respect as Neil and Buzz, and its truly a shame that future generations will not be educated in the skill, professionalism, patience and understanding it took for him to be able to look down on the moon, oh so close, and do his job so that Neil and Buzz could do theirs too.
This is a perfect opportunity for media to teach humility and respect for true professionalism, yet it's missed every time.
Shee-it.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
When (nobel prize winning physicist, the discoverer of QCD amongst other things) Richard Feynman investigated the challenger explosion, he found that very specifically it was known inside NASA that the O-ring seals were not functional at too low a temperature.
:)
The engineers specified the lowest temperature the shuttle should fly at as being 53'F. On the day the challenger crew died, the temperature was 29'F. At his report to the commission, Feynman's rather low-tech demonstration of the O-ring material's behaviour was to put a piece of it into a glass of ice water, and show how it would not spring back to shape when deformed - as a seal should do.
Anyone interested in a very detailed story of what NASA knew should read Feynman's book: "What Do You Care What Other Poeple Think?". Feynman was one of the most brilliant people to live this century, as well as being a very interesting individual