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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. "
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
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.