posted 08-29-2016 12:30 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Orthon:
Maybe the American people never deserved the gift that such a talented, dedicated group of exceptional people gave them.

---

But history is odd, in that the loud and obnoxious folks get the ink after the fact.
Most people in the 60s were not hippies and when you account for all the protests of civil rights and the Vietnam war, for example, they constitute a very small percentage of the US population. Most people, in any generation, just go along to get along. I bet most thought the Moon landings were 'cool,' or didn't care much either way. The percentage of people who actively wanted that money to go to the poor were likely very small, too.

posted 08-29-2016 12:57 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by p51:
The percentage of people who actively wanted that money to go to the poor were likely very small, too.

---

At the end of 1965, the New York Times reported that a poll conducted in six American cities showed five other public issues holding priority over efforts in outer space. Polls in the 1960s also consistently ranked spaceflight near the top of those programs to be cut in the federal budget.

posted 08-31-2016 11:52 PM               

• Apollo 10 had the lunar module snap into a violent manoeuvre during LOR.

• Apollo 11 had powered decent issues and program alarms, fuel pressure issue post landing, broken circuit breaker.

• Apollo 12 had lightning strike during launch.

• Apollo 13 had the CSM O2 tank failure.

• Apollo 14 had docking problems, Lunar Module abort light, landing radar fault, problems during EVA with astronaut exhaustion.

• Apollo 15 had the S-1C shutdown issue, hatch seal problem, lunar module landing near crater tipping risk, LM Oxygen leak, astronaut heart issue and CSM landing parachute issue.

posted 03-11-2017 03:00 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jim_Voce:
But who was responsible for cancelling Apollo 18 and 19? Was it a NASA decision or Congressional?

---

I have heard it said that Congress canceled the Apollo 18 and 19 missions in September 1970. But was it really Congress? Congress cut NASA's budget for 1971 so it seems it was at NASA's discretion to decide where to make the cuts. So they canceled the Apollo 18 and 19 missions.

posted 03-20-2017 12:24 PM               

In a notice to the National Academy of Sciences' Space Science Board and to his own advisory board on lunar and planetary missions, NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine asked for a recommendation by Aug. 24 on the course of future lunar landings. Paine asked the two groups to decide between these alternatives:

• Continue with the Apollo manned lunar landing missions as now scheduled - Apollo 14 through 19.

• Delete two of those missions - Apollo 15 and Apollo 19 - for reasons of economy and to preserve plans for a significant shift in emphasis of manned space exploration away from the moon and back to earth-oriented areas of interest by the mid-1970s.

posted 04-26-2017 09:31 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
There are now alive two generations of Americans who were not around for the moon landings...

---

posted 04-27-2017 02:24 PM               

To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This year¹s space budget is three times what it was in January 1961, and it is greater than the space budget of the previous eight years combined. That budget now stands at $5,400 million a year--a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year.

posted 04-28-2017 06:45 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fra Mauro:
So why do some people think the human race is advancing?

---

Because we have self-driving vehicles that are on the verge of not only revolutionizing human transport but making that travel safer for all. Because we have rocket stages that can be returned to the launch site intact, serviced and re-launched.

Because there are 16 year olds walking around today who don't know a time in their life when there hasn't been humans living and working in space. Because human built spacecraft have visited and surveyed every planet in our solar system and Pluto. Because a rover the size of a car is currently exploring Mars and a probe has just flown between Saturn and its rings for the first time.

posted 04-28-2017 07:37 AM               

At the end of 1965, the New York Times reported that a poll conducted in six American cities showed five other public issues holding priority over efforts in outer space.

posted 04-28-2017 12:39 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
...then there should be no hand wringing over the cancellation of Apollo 18 and Apollo 19, as they were born out of a (cold) war.

---

posted 04-28-2017 01:16 PM               

Humanity, in the current epoch, has reached an incredible level of technological advancement in so many fields of endeavour. And yet today we are still dealing with the twin scourges of chemical and nuclear weapons, threats from God Kings in hermit kingdoms, genocide, famines, and disease.

Cash incinerated in the hot Vietnam war and cigarette ash could easily have paid for Apollo 18 and 19.

posted 05-15-2017 07:30 PM               

We could of had lunar missions until 1975, still had Skylab in 1976-77 and have heavy lift capability today. Spreading out the flights would have stopped the brain drain, and would have helped with expenses both yearly (one major mission per year) and developmentally (i.e. shuttle funds would have been used for missions and building new Saturns).

posted 05-15-2017 07:55 PM               

There was no need for heavy lift after Skylab.

posted 05-15-2017 09:48 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jim Behling:
Even if other missions flew, there is no way that Saturns (heavy lift) would exist 40 years later.

---

posted 05-17-2017 04:11 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jim Behling:
There was no need for heavy lift after Skylab.

---

Also remember production line capability brings costs way down. R&D costs on the Saturn family (or any new rocket) was tremendous. Seems a shame to scrap it after R&D was spent and it was on the verge of production line capability, then develop something totally new. The relatively inexpensive although not perfect man rated rocket you can produce is better than the perfect rocket that exists only on paper.

posted 05-26-2017 05:19 PM               

Ward: Were you involved in the decision at the end of Apollo, at the end of the program, to end the mission at 17 rather than continue on with the hardware we had 18, 19, and 20?

McDivitt: No, I was adamantly opposed to that. And everybody knew it. And nobody asked me. And I think it was unfortunate. You know, we had this tremendous investment. We had probably $30 billion plus of 1962 dollars invested in Apollo at that time. We had the command modules built. We had a number of the lunar modules under construction. I think we had lunar modules up through Apollo 25 under construction. Some of them were just a few pieces, you know; but then as you got closer back down to 17, there were more and more of them. And we had — let's see — yeah, we had 20 — up through 20 all in, contracted for, and everything was ready to go.

We were even looking at reusing the command modules after we dumped them in the ocean. I spent six months trying to figure out how to do that, and I finally decided it was totally unsafe, so that we could continue the program. And we even looked at landing on the back side of the Moon, putting satellites up in orbit, and that was too hairy. I don't think we should have ever done that. But we had all these other things. And it was — you know, it was all there. I mean, it didn't cost much to fly one more flight. And then we chickened out.

I think that NASA top management just ran out of adrenaline, and they — you know, NASA's been accused of this a lot, and I think it's true, is that they want to get on with the next program. But I think that there were certain people who got the manned space program going who were afraid we were going to kill somebody and it would jeopardize the rest of the program.

Killing somebody on that — in that program was something that was so very highly likely that we, you know — you had to sort of accept that at the beginning. And to start worrying about it at the end, I think, was a abdication of your responsibility. And they did cut it from, you know, it went up to 20. And they cut 19 and 20 out I think it was, at one time. And then we had an 18 programmed. Then we cut the 18 out. I think a lot of people would have liked to cut — [Recorder turned off.]

McDivitt: The contracted spacecraft on the lunar module went out to 25. The — one of the conceptual spacecraft went out to 25. The contracted for went out through Apollo 20. And when we started cutting the programs back, they didn't cut from 20 back to 17. They cut either 20 to 19 out at one time, and then later 18. Or we cut 20 out and then 18 and 19. I don't remember the order. But we cut two out at one time, and one out at another time to get us back to where we were. And quite frankly, I think that a lot of people would have just as soon seen us end the program in the 12, 13, 14 area and not do any of the other ones, because it was very dangerous.

They didn't want to lose a spacecraft. They didn't want lose a crew. And they were afraid that it would jeopardize the future of the whole space program. But I don't — I personally don't think it would have. I think that a lot of people were — most of the people in the program were — would have easily accepted, this sounds kind of hard but would have easily accepted a loss of a crew and still continued on with the program because I think when we all got into it, we expected something like that. It never occurred except for the fire, but I know I personally expected a lot of failures, maybe losing crews, along the way. And if you didn't think that was going to happen, you shouldn't even have been in the program.

So, it was really unfortunate that we didn't continue on. I think we could have gained really great scientific knowledge up through 25. I mean, you look at a face — look at the picture of the Moon and there's a few little dots on it. That's hardly — just think what that would have looked like if we had two times that many, or even more than two times that many, which would have been easy to do.

Ward: And so, what you're saying is that: the public perception today that the Apollo Program was curtailed at the point it was because Congress cut the funding really isn't the total story.

McDivitt: No. I don't think so at all. I think it was a lack of drive on the part of NASA management and a concern over killing somebody.

Ward: And the damage —

McDivitt: It shouldn't have been a concern, because that should have been a concern the whole way through.

Ward: So, you think the desire to get on with the Shuttle Program and Space Station were factors?

McDivitt: You know, I think so. Yeah, I think so. I had a lot of difficulties keeping the Apollo money in Apollo.

..

Ward: One thing I did want to ask you, it takes you back a ways, but you mentioned that we were going to have the hardware to do 20, 25 Apollo missions as opposed to the 17 we actually flew. Do you think that we could’ve maintained public and Congressional support for that many flights if we’d kept going with them?

McDivitt: I think the news media interest was waning as we got deeper into the program. And could we have done 25 lunar-landing flights? I think we could have. We’re doing shuttle flights today, which are a hell of a lot less exciting than landing on the Moon. But still, you know, the enthusiasm for spaceflight in the United States today has waned a lot. And a lot of people don’t even know when there’s a flight up there, including me sometimes. So, it’s—you don’t have this “wow!” enthusiasm that we had early on.

I remember on Apollo 14 I think it was, after the fire, Apollo 14’s on its way to the Moon; and they’re having trouble docking the command module back on the lunar module when the lunar module’s still in the S-IVB. They’re on translunar flight. And we had live TV of this stuff, and you could see the—I’m sitting down at the Launch Control Center, and you can see the probe come in and bounce around the drogue. And it’s coming down a live feed. And I’m looking at the three big channels. There’s a golf match on one, there was a baseball game on the other, and there was a soap opera on the other one. And nobody was getting this live feed of us possibly losing an Apollo mission. And when I saw that, I— “Um-hmm, I think the bloom’s off the rose!”

But we went ahead and flew—I’m quite sure that was 14. Because 15, 16, 17, you know, we were still doing it. And I think that we could’ve done it.

Ward: Maybe it’s a mistake to equate public interest with public support.

McDivitt: Yeah. I think—well, no. I think it’s a mistake to equate press interest with public support. You know, public interest can be significantly different than press interest. You know, it—the press wants sensationalism. If it’s not blowing up or dying or something else like that, it’s—sometimes they lose it.

posted 05-29-2017 10:08 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by SaturnV:
Not sure how you can say we have no need for heavy lift since what is now being developed (SLS) is supposed to have heavy lift capability...

---

Saturn I or IB would be useless. Greatly undersized and too expensive. A "production line" only really reduces costs for high production rates and not a few article per year. We would not be using the Saturn family, payloads would be too expensive.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jimsz:
Saturn wouldn't exist but something would have.

---