CAPTAIN EUGENE CERNAN

Another good man, one of the rarest, has stepped into the clearing at the end of the path. He was the last man to step foot on the moon when he followed Jack Schmitt into the lunar lander for liftoff and return to earth. I join most of the Americans of my generation who never thought that the last man on the moon would be Cernan in the year 1972. It took years for me to accept that the lightness of being that had one time gripped America had slipped away, almost unnoticed until the Challenger brought the fact home to us all that America had given up on the space race and was no longer interested in pushing out the phyical frontiers.

EUGENE CERNAN SALUTES THE FLAG ON THE MOON DECEMBER, 1972

MR GORSKY AND MUSTBESO

Perhaps his signal achievement as President was to launch the United States on a mission to land mankind on the moon and he set a deadline. This country used to be able to accomplish the most amazing technical feats in very short periods of time and with limited budgets. I wonder what happened to change all that? Me? I blame computers.

One of the apocryphal stories related to mankind's descent upon the moon was the story of Mr. Gorsky. I will let it unfold from this space.

Did Neil Armstrong really say “Good Luck Mr. Gorsky” on the Moon?

I have heard, that upon standing on the moon, Neil Armstrong at some point said "Good luck Mr. Gorsky". The story being that while a child, playing baseball, through an open window he heard Mrs. Gorsky yell at her husband: "Oral sex, you want oral sex? When the kid next door walks on the Moon!"
Is that just made up, or real?

It's a cute story, an urban legend, but that's all it is. According to NASA HQ Apollo 11 Lunar Surface Journal that includes full transcript and MP3 audio clip (52 MB) of all the conversations between Apollo 11 astronauts and mission control, as a note near the beginning of the page, there it stands:

Me? I think it's funny. I wonder just how NASA managed to hang onto the transcripts and the audio recordings of all conversations on the moon even though they destroyed all the high resolution video recordings of man landing and walking on the moon.

Still, a day to remember. Well, two of them actually.

ASTRONAUT EDGAR MITCHELL (CAPTAIN USN, RET)

Another good man has stepped into the clearing at the end of the path. He was one of a tiny handful of men who rode ships to another world and returned to talk about it. I can't do better than NASA on his accomplishments there and elsewhere so, NASA on Astronaut Edgar Mitchell.

Astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell, Apollo 14 lunar module pilot stands by the deployed U.S. flag on the lunar surface during the early moments of the mission's first spacewalk. He was photographed by astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr., mission commander. While astronauts Shepard and Mitchell descended in the Lunar Module "Antares" to explore the Fra Mauro region of the moon, astronaut Stuart A. Roosa, command module pilot, remained with the Command and Service Module "Kitty Hawk" in lunar orbit.

Credits: NASA

And some more from NASA.

Edgar Dean Mitchell (Captain, USN, Ret.)
     (Astronaut, NASA, Ret.)

Born September 17, 1930, in Hereford, Texas, but considers Artesia, New Mexico, his hometown. Resided in Palm Beach County, Florida since 1975. Divorced. Four daughters: Karlyn Mitchell, Ph.D Elizabeth Kendall, Kimberly Mitchell, Mary Beth Johnson. Two sons: Paul Mitchell, Adam Mitchell. Nine grandchildren. 

Honors and Awards: Presidential Medal of Freedom. USN Distinguished Service Medal. NASA Distinguished Service Medal. NASA Distinguished Service Award. Three NASA Group Achievement Awards. USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School, First in Class Award. Medal of the City of New York. American Astronautical Society, Flight Achievement Award. Arnold Air Society, John F. Kennedy Award for Space Exploration. Carnegie Mellon University Alumni, Outstanding Man of the Year (1972). Kappa Sigma, Man of the Year Award (1972). Adventurers Club, Gold Medal Award for Exploration. Explorers Club, Lowell Thomas Award for Explorations in Human Consciousness (1980). Drexel University, Engineering and Science Award for Explorations in Consciousness (1974). Space Hall of Fame (inducted 1979). Astronaut Hall of Fame (inducted 1995). Nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize (2005). 

Captain Mitchell's experience includes Navy operational flight, test flight, engineering and engineering management, and experience as a college instructor. Mitchell came to the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston after graduating first in his class from the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School where he was both student and instructor. 

He entered the Navy in 1952 and completed his basic training at the San Diego Recruit Depot. In May 1953, after completing instruction at the Officers Candidate School at Newport, Rhode Island, he was commissioned as an Ensign. He completed flight training in July 1954 at Hutchinson, Kansas, and subsequently was assigned to Patrol Squadron 29 deployed to Okinawa. 

From 1957 to 1958, he flew A3 aircraft while assigned to Heavy Attack Squadron Two deployed aboard the USS BON HOMME RICHARD and USS TICONGEROGA; and he was a research project pilot with Air Development Squadron Five until 1959. From 1964 to 1965 he served as Chief, Project Management Division of the Navy Field Office for Manned Orbiting Laboratory. 1965-1966 was spent at the U.S. Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School in preparation for astronaut duties, and certification as test pilot. Mitchell served as an instructor in advanced mathematics and navigation theory for astronaut candidates.

With NASA, Captain Mitchell was a member of Group 5, selected for astronaut training in April 1966. He served as a member of the astronaut support crew for Apollo 9 and as backup lunar module pilot for Apollo 10. 

On January 31, 1971, serving as lunar module pilot, Dr. Edgar Mitchell, then a U.S. Navy Captain, embarked on a journey through outer space of some 500,000 miles that resulted in becoming the sixth man to walk on the moon. That historic journey terminated safely nine days later on February 9, 1971 and was made in the company of two other men of valor Admiral Alan Shepard and Colonel Stuart Roosa. 

Maneuvering their lunar module, Antares, to a landing in the hilly upland Fra Mauro region of the moon, Shepard and Mitchell subsequently deployed and activated various scientific equipment and experiments and collected almost 100 pounds of lunar samples for return to Earth. Other Apollo 14 achievements included: first use of Mobile Equipment Transporter (MET); largest payload placed in lunar orbit; longest distance traversed on the lunar surface; largest payload returned from the lunar surface; longest lunar surface stay time (33 hours); longest lunar surface EVA (9 hours and 17 minutes); first use of shortened lunar orbit rendezvous techniques; first use of color TV with new vidicon tube on lunar surface; and first extensive orbital science period conducted during CSM solo operations. 

In completing his first and only space flight, Captain Mitchell logged a total of 216 hours and 42 minutes in space. He was subsequently designated to serve as backup lunar module pilot for Apollo 16. In 1972, Captain Mitchell retired from NASA and the U.S. Navy.

Dr. Mitchell founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences in 1973, one year after retiring from government service. It is a foundation organized to sponsor research into the nature of consciousness. He is also co-founder of the Association of Space Explorers, an international organization founded in 1984 for all who share the experience of space travel. Both are educational organizations developed to provide new understanding of the human condition resulting from the epoch of space exploration. 

Dr. Mitchell is author of Psychic Exploration: A Challenge for Science, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1974, a major reference book; and The Way of the Explorer Putnam 1996. He is also author and/or interviewee in dozens of articles in both professional and popular periodicals. 

As a lecturer, Dr. Mitchell delivered 25 to 50 addresses annually on cosmology, human potential and topics relating to the evolving future of the species on planet Earth. His last lecture series discussed the implications of recent discoveries in science as they affect our individual lives in the home, the workplace and society-at-large. He was a frequent guest on radio and television talk shows and has been featured in several documentary films relative to his interests.

As I read here and there through the tubes tonight to learn more about the man, I found that he was one of almost all the astronauts who brought back souvenirs from the moon or from space. He had the somewhat surreal experience of being sued by NASA and the Federal Government for keeping a camera that he had been told to leave behind and let crash into the moon inside the lunar module when it de-orbited and crashed after they started the return to Earth. Yep, NASA, who destroyed or lost all the mission tapes of the first moon landing, wanted/needed/pined for a 40 year old camera.

Reading the story about the camera I was struck by an interesting parallel. What if, 40 years after a man had boarded a lifeboat from off his sinking ship, maneuvered it around to pick up other distressed seamen and then sailed it 3000 miles to the nearest land, the shipping company that owned the sunken ship came after him in court for "stealing" the sextant from that lifeboat?

An interesting man. Hail fellow and farewell.

NASA'S LETTER OF MARQUE

I heard about the private effort to reestablish control over a NASA spacecraft a couple of weeks ago on NPR and then it faded from my view. Well it looks like the crew were successful in regaining control of a spacecraft that journeyed around the sun on its own and returned.

That's pretty cool. We build good spacecraft.

One of the many things I liked when I visited Space College's site was this picture they have of their Mission Control. It's not just the pirate flag, it's the venue. I had business that took me to Moffet Field a couple of times a month. I usually stopped by the enormous aircraft hangers built for the Navy's airships and then I'd eat at McDonalds and then get a haircut at the Base barber shop which shared the parking lot.

ISEE-3 MISSION CONTROL (formerly McDonalds)

Navy Airship Hangers. I used to see half a dozen C-130s tucked in a corner of one of these structures. That's a C-130 above.

SPOTTED FROM ORBIT

WE ARE NOT AFRAID

Some people can be terrifyingly stupid. Why do they become Secretary of State in this country?

Secretary of State John Kerry, who will travel to Kiev Tuesday, promised harsh consequences for the Russian government if it continued its aggression in Ukraine—and hinted at the economic retalation to come.*

“There could even be, ultimately, asset freezes, visa bans. There could be certainly disruption of any of the normal trade routine. There could be business drawback on investment in the country. The ruble is already going down and feeling the impact of this,” Kerry said Sunday on Meet the Press.  “And the reason for this is because you just don’t invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests.”

Wasn't Obama going to order our Army to invade Syria unless Assad caved and let the Iranian backed terrorists and Al Quaida kill him in a gory pointless horrific way?

Could we trade Kerry for one of NASA's highly trained chimpanzees? I'm sure the least of NASA's astronauts has more smarts and international savvy then John Kerry.

We showed Japan just how serious we were about their aggression by initiating an economic war against them and stupidly persisted in the idiot belief that war by another name is not war. It took Pearl Harbor to convince some morons that war means war. Kerry wouldn't know anything about that though since he qualifies as terrifyingly stupid. He's probably hunting around right now for the reset button he saw his predecessor holding onto during her conversations with the Russians.

*My colleagues in the Newsweek neighborhood of the press business are not so smart with the proof reading. You can see all their other gaffs if you visit the link.

GREAT LEAP FORWARD VERSION 2.0

I think it is great that China's Orbital Bombardment System trial is going so well as it almost achieves a milestone set by JFK back in 1961 for putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade. The United States is the only nation on Earth to have landed men on the moon. It was a revolutionary time in the affairs of men.

The Great Leap Forward was Mao's and China's attempt to jump start industrialization without all the pesky capitalism that let money stick to the hands of the people or non-party leaders. It was very painful but nothing compared to the Cultural Revolution that destroyed every vestige of progress civilization made in 2000 years in an orgy of denunciations and deadly punishments. This was swept under the carpet later by Deng. I view it as an exceptionally evil time but both are well beloved by socialists, communists and progressives. (Yes, yes, redundant).

I am genuinely happy to see China put a rover on the moon. I am disappointed that my Chinese made iPad or even iPod camera takes better pictures then what I'm seeing from their rover now. They should absolutely have the coolest video and camera systems ever landed on the Moon and with the number of iPhones I've seen mishandled, you could just about drop-kick a Chinese made small camera to the moon without harming it.

Heinlein and so many other writers thought of the Moon as the High Ground in the struggle for dominance over the Earth. I'm pretty happy to let those that want it, have it. The U.S. claimed it in the name of all mankind but I'd be happy to see just about anybody colonize the moon. Anybody. I had hoped to see it well begun in my lifetime.

On the other hand, I think memory of time changes as we grow older. When I look back at some of these pictures I dimly recall that time, when I was so young, and was allowed to watch mankind land on the moon for the first time. It's easy to forget how close some of the world is to the Industrial Revolution. A revolution that, almost 200 years later, has still left most of the world in the past.

Remote driving on the Moon 2013

Pu-Yi, Last Emperor of China, 1909 - 1912

CHANGE II

UPDATE: Chinese spacecraft arrives at the moon today!

China launched a moon rover at the moon today (December 2nd). It is expected to drive around the surface of the moon after finding the safest place to land from orbit. That will be nice. I expect they already have the ADIZ advisory written and prepped to go.

 I trust the Feng shui will be appropriately considered.