Launch date: March 3, 1969 Landing date: March 13, 1969
This year we will celebrate the 50 years anniversary of the first human walking on our Moon. In my opinion, this is the pinnacle of human exploration so far and I would like to contribute to the celebrations with a series of posts talking about the Apollo missions on that year 1969.
The first one was Apollo 9 mission. The second and last Earth orbiting mission (not reaching the Moon) and the first crewed Lunar Module (LM) test.
The primary objective of the mission was to test all aspects of the LM in Earth orbit, including operation of the LM as an independent self-sufficient spacecraft and performance of docking manoeuvres. Basically the goal was to simulate an actual lunar mission. The mission will also test what might happen if, for some reason, a command module and landing module could not redock at the end of lunar operations: could astronauts bridge the gulf by making an emergency spacewalk?
The docking and rendezvous simulations between the LM and command module were successful giving a huge amount of data for the next mission Apollo 10; in which these manoeuvres were planned to be done in Moon orbit. The tests on spacesuits and spacewalks (EVA) were determinant for future missions and gave us amazing pictures (photo1, photo2).
One anecdote of this mission was on March 6. While the vehicles were docked, Schweickart crawled out of the LM front hatch but his ambitious schedules was simplified at the last moment because of a nasty attack of motion sickness he suffered a few hours earlier! Instead they spend most of the time taking pictures. Luckily Schweickart recovered his equilibrium in time for six-hour solo performance the following day, successfully carrying out almost all the planned tasks for a lunar touchdown.
On March 13, Apollo 9 splashed down in the Atlantic ocean 180 miles east of Bahamas.
To sum-up, the mission proved the Lunar Module worthy for crewed spaceflight and ran the latest tests for the ultimate goal of landing on the Moon.
James A. McDivitt – David R. Scott – Russell L. Schweickart
I have to be honest here. In the last two days I’ve been feeling quite down and morally sick due to the recent news.
Firstly, the horror shocked the world once again. This time the macabre lottery fell in New Zealand when a human (not a person) killed 50 people shooting them. Sadly this kind of horrific events have been relatively common recently and I know that some people would say “this is not new, this has been happening always; even worst in the past”. But I would reply: “Ok, but is this less serious then? are we comparing killing number of people now?”. When something like this happens I can hear people trying to normalize what it is absolutely not normal; trying to show a perspective that is sick and cold, not thinking and respecting who really suffer this: the victims.
There is something new this time: the shooting was planned to be live-streamed and make it viral. Never happened before. Leaving aside the problematic of how things like this can be stopped and blocked (which is a good conversation of the technology side), the fact is that the video went viral showing publicly the failure of Facebook to detect this kind of videos (the New Zealand police were the one to notify Facebook that a massacre was being streamed live in their platform).
I watched the video; unfortunately. I could see how horrible this was and how someone can calmly do something like this. Also I could see that there is no ideological reason, no manifesto, no social culture or religion can someone lead to this. The news said he is a supremacist, he is anti-islamist, etc., but the reality is that he wanted to kill. That is all. Do not get fooled by people, media, institutions saying that his motivations were this or that… The only real motivation was to kill; no matter who was the victim.
Secondly, another act of horror happened. This was in Spain where a young couple killed their two little kids (3 years and 6 months). How on Earth a mother and a father can kill their own children? Similar to the first event above, in the news appeared multiple reasons why they did this: they are under psychiatric treatment, they are drug addicts, etc. Again, another attempt to normalize the fact that it is anti-natura. Specially when is about killing a child, I do strongly believe there is absolutely no redemption with someone who does this. In my opinion, these humans should not be allowed to live.
I saw and felt the dark side of human race these last days. It is a painful feeling indeed, but nothing compared to what the poor victims of these acts have felt; I cannot imagine it… We must not try to normalize these acts. This is really wrong and we must do something to stop it. This is what is really important and must be first priority to everyone who works for the society (politicians) and not Brexit, elections, economy, etc.
It is very sad to think that in a week from now (and probably less time) these two acts will be forgotten in the news and political debates.
Note: I regret watching the shooting live video. Although it made me to realized the crudity of it, it should never happen. I think of all the victims, their families and friends.
Although it’s been several months since it was released and it’s been few weeks since I watch it, I want to make a post talking about this great movie.
This year we will celebrate the 50 years anniversary of the first human walking on our Moon. In my opinion, the pinnacle of human exploration and achievement as I already talked about last year. It will come several posts about this during the year so, I am sorry for the ones who are bored about it!
To the point… the movie First Man is the Hollywood biopic of Neil Armstrong focused from the years he was part of the Gemini and Apollo projects until the end of Apollo 11 mission. Since years I was waiting to watch a biopic about Neil Armstrong (since I was a little child in love with the space exploration) and finally it arrived!
The movie is great, very well done and it gets you since the first scene (amazing start inside a X-15 experimental aircraft) until the last one. The movie has fast-faced scenes and recreates perfectly all scenery (reason why it is nominated to 4 Oscar awards, one of them to Best Visual Effects) and it is also very personal. And I think this is the reason why it did not have a massive welcome and great reviews from people.
The director (Damien Chazelle) and writer (Josh Singer), instead of making an Oscar-winner blockbuster epic story, they decided to focus the movie in the person rather than in the myth. I have to admit that I was also waiting for a more epic movie, but I love the way they made it. We all know the feat, the history and the hero of this; but most of the people do not know the man behind. An extraordinary performance of Ryan Gosling in the role of Neil Armstrong, share with us the pain and frustrations of a man watching his little daughter die of cancer and starting a grief, mourning and healing process through his career to become the first man to walk on the Moon.
I think it is an extraordinary movie, one of those that will get more value throughout time, and it does justice to the man who pushes all of us further in our goals.
At least there is something that everyone is agree with this movie (and getting several awards): the soundtrack. It is one of the best I have hear in many years. Justin Hurwitz has done an amazing job here; beautiful themes and great instruments such as the theremin! Awesome.
https://www.eretit.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/neil-armstrong-armstrong-astronaut-space-suit-41952.jpeg15131280SumotaYhttps://www.eretit.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Logo_wd.pngSumotaY2019-02-02 00:34:002019-02-02 00:34:02First Man
Apollo 9 – Testing Lunar Module
Launch date: March 3, 1969
Landing date: March 13, 1969
This year we will celebrate the 50 years anniversary of the first human walking on our Moon. In my opinion, this is the pinnacle of human exploration so far and I would like to contribute to the celebrations with a series of posts talking about the Apollo missions on that year 1969.
The first one was Apollo 9 mission. The second and last Earth orbiting mission (not reaching the Moon) and the first crewed Lunar Module (LM) test.
The primary objective of the mission was to test all aspects of the LM in Earth orbit, including operation of the LM as an independent self-sufficient spacecraft and performance of docking manoeuvres. Basically the goal was to simulate an actual lunar mission. The mission will also test what might happen if, for some reason, a command module and landing module could not redock at the end of lunar operations: could astronauts bridge the gulf by making an emergency spacewalk?
The docking and rendezvous simulations between the LM and command module were successful giving a huge amount of data for the next mission Apollo 10; in which these manoeuvres were planned to be done in Moon orbit. The tests on spacesuits and spacewalks (EVA) were determinant for future missions and gave us amazing pictures (photo1, photo2).
One anecdote of this mission was on March 6. While the vehicles were docked, Schweickart crawled out of the LM front hatch but his ambitious schedules was simplified at the last moment because of a nasty attack of motion sickness he suffered a few hours earlier! Instead they spend most of the time taking pictures. Luckily Schweickart recovered his equilibrium in time for six-hour solo performance the following day, successfully carrying out almost all the planned tasks for a lunar touchdown.
On March 13, Apollo 9 splashed down in the Atlantic ocean 180 miles east of Bahamas.
To sum-up, the mission proved the Lunar Module worthy for crewed spaceflight and ran the latest tests for the ultimate goal of landing on the Moon.
Crew
Mission Insignia
Demons exists
I have to be honest here. In the last two days I’ve been feeling quite down and morally sick due to the recent news.
Firstly, the horror shocked the world once again. This time the macabre lottery fell in New Zealand when a human (not a person) killed 50 people shooting them. Sadly this kind of horrific events have been relatively common recently and I know that some people would say “this is not new, this has been happening always; even worst in the past”. But I would reply: “Ok, but is this less serious then? are we comparing killing number of people now?”. When something like this happens I can hear people trying to normalize what it is absolutely not normal; trying to show a perspective that is sick and cold, not thinking and respecting who really suffer this: the victims.
There is something new this time: the shooting was planned to be live-streamed and make it viral. Never happened before. Leaving aside the problematic of how things like this can be stopped and blocked (which is a good conversation of the technology side), the fact is that the video went viral showing publicly the failure of Facebook to detect this kind of videos (the New Zealand police were the one to notify Facebook that a massacre was being streamed live in their platform).
I watched the video; unfortunately. I could see how horrible this was and how someone can calmly do something like this. Also I could see that there is no ideological reason, no manifesto, no social culture or religion can someone lead to this. The news said he is a supremacist, he is anti-islamist, etc., but the reality is that he wanted to kill. That is all. Do not get fooled by people, media, institutions saying that his motivations were this or that… The only real motivation was to kill; no matter who was the victim.
Secondly, another act of horror happened. This was in Spain where a young couple killed their two little kids (3 years and 6 months). How on Earth a mother and a father can kill their own children? Similar to the first event above, in the news appeared multiple reasons why they did this: they are under psychiatric treatment, they are drug addicts, etc. Again, another attempt to normalize the fact that it is anti-natura. Specially when is about killing a child, I do strongly believe there is absolutely no redemption with someone who does this. In my opinion, these humans should not be allowed to live.
I saw and felt the dark side of human race these last days. It is a painful feeling indeed, but nothing compared to what the poor victims of these acts have felt; I cannot imagine it… We must not try to normalize these acts. This is really wrong and we must do something to stop it. This is what is really important and must be first priority to everyone who works for the society (politicians) and not Brexit, elections, economy, etc.
It is very sad to think that in a week from now (and probably less time) these two acts will be forgotten in the news and political debates.
First Man
Although it’s been several months since it was released and it’s been few weeks since I watch it, I want to make a post talking about this great movie.
This year we will celebrate the 50 years anniversary of the first human walking on our Moon. In my opinion, the pinnacle of human exploration and achievement as I already talked about last year. It will come several posts about this during the year so, I am sorry for the ones who are bored about it!
To the point… the movie First Man is the Hollywood biopic of Neil Armstrong focused from the years he was part of the Gemini and Apollo projects until the end of Apollo 11 mission. Since years I was waiting to watch a biopic about Neil Armstrong (since I was a little child in love with the space exploration) and finally it arrived!
The movie is great, very well done and it gets you since the first scene (amazing start inside a X-15 experimental aircraft) until the last one. The movie has fast-faced scenes and recreates perfectly all scenery (reason why it is nominated to 4 Oscar awards, one of them to Best Visual Effects) and it is also very personal. And I think this is the reason why it did not have a massive welcome and great reviews from people.
The director (Damien Chazelle) and writer (Josh Singer), instead of making an Oscar-winner blockbuster epic story, they decided to focus the movie in the person rather than in the myth. I have to admit that I was also waiting for a more epic movie, but I love the way they made it. We all know the feat, the history and the hero of this; but most of the people do not know the man behind. An extraordinary performance of Ryan Gosling in the role of Neil Armstrong, share with us the pain and frustrations of a man watching his little daughter die of cancer and starting a grief, mourning and healing process through his career to become the first man to walk on the Moon.
I think it is an extraordinary movie, one of those that will get more value throughout time, and it does justice to the man who pushes all of us further in our goals.
At least there is something that everyone is agree with this movie (and getting several awards): the soundtrack. It is one of the best I have hear in many years. Justin Hurwitz has done an amazing job here; beautiful themes and great instruments such as the theremin! Awesome.