ApolloHoax.net
Apollo Discussions => The Reality of Apollo => Topic started by: Dalhousie on October 31, 2015, 03:37:52 AM
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There have been some harsh works recently on some of the Apollo astronaut biographies. As I contemplate exanding my library, I wonder if I could have some ranking on a scale of 1 (worst) to 5 (best).
Lovell - Apollo 13/lost Moon
Borman - Silver Arrow
Stafford - We have capture
Cernan - Last man on the Moon
Collins - Carrying the fire
Bean - Apollo
Aldrin - Magnificent desolation, Men from Earth, Reaching the Moon
Have I missed any?
Mitchell - Earthrise
Scott - Two sides of the Moon
Irwin - To rule the night
Worden - Falling to Earth
Slayton - Deke
Cunningham - All American boys
O'Leary - The making of an ex-astronaut
Nothing (AFAIK) from Anders, Young, Armstrong, Conrad, Gordon, Swigert, Shepherd, Roosa, Mattingly or Evans
Thanks
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Biography or autobiography? There's a biography of Pete Conrad called Rocketman by Nancy Conrad and Howard Klausner.
I haven't seen most of the ones you listed, but I will say that of the ones I've read Carrying the Fire by Collins is definitely my favorite. He's got a great sense of humor.
I tried to work my way through a couple of Aldrin's books but never finished them; that probably says something.
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Biography or autobiography? There's a biography of Pete Conrad called Rocketman by Nancy Conrad and Howard Klausner.
I haven't seen most of the ones you listed, but I will say that of the ones I've read Carrying the Fire by Collins is definitely my favorite. He's got a great sense of humor.
I tried to work my way through a couple of Aldrin's books but never finished them; that probably says something.
Autobiography. I am after their own words.
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Gotcha. Yeah, Collins is definitely the best I've seen. Aldrin is just too self-indulgent and, quite frankly, rather humorless -- certainly when compared with Collins.
Lovell's book was the basis for the movie Apollo 13 so you're probably already quite familiar with the story. But it's still worth a look.
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Biography or autobiography? ...Snip.
Autobiography. I am after their own words.
You'll still get their own words from biographies, such as "First Man", the biography of Neil Armstrong.
Like others, I give "Carrying the Fire" by Mike Collins 10 out of 10.
There are plenty of direct quotes from Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins and others about Apollo 11 and everything that led up to it in the marvellous 1970 book, "First on the Moon - A Voyage with Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Edwin E. Aldrin Jr", written with Gene Farmer and Dora Jane Hamblin, epilogue by Arthur C. Clarke. Michael Joseph Ltd, London (1970).
Farmer was senior editor and Hamblin was staff writer at "Life", and they lived with the astronauts and their families. Being such an early book, the astronauts' memories have not been dulled or altered by time, as we sometimes see now, such as a doco of this century where Frank Borman tells a yarn and Bill Anders cracks an expression that is probably saying, "No, Frank, it didn't really happen like that..." But he keeps quiet and lets it pass.
"First on the Moon..." is an incredibly good book which I refer to often, but I found it very, very jarring on my first reading because it does things like halting at a nailbiting phase of the mission and telling us what the wives and kids are doing back on Earth, such as on page 227:
All systems performing well... Now about forty-five seconds from reacquiring... CAPCOM Charlie Duke putting in a call to the crew...
COLUMBIA (Collins): Houston, Columbia. Down-voice backup, do you read?
HOUSTON (Duke): Roger, we read you. Columbia, did you call, over?
COLUMBIA (Collins): Affirmative. Calling you on down-voice backup. How do you read me?
HOUSTON (Duke): Roger, better, Mike... We're satisfied with this COMM configuration. Let's stay with where we are. Over.
Eleven in the morning, Houston time; and it was Sunday...
Jan Armstrong spent the morning in her El Lago home, just waiting for the coming afternoon. In Nassau Bay the Collins daughters, Kate and Ann, served their mother breakfast in bed; their father had always brought Pat her breakfast on Sunday when he was home. Then Pat Collins, the three children and Pat's sister, Ellie Golden, attended the ten-thirty Mass at St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church.
But that's what I've come to like about the book. It reinforces that there were a lot of ordinary people and some extraordinary people who were all in extraordinary circumstances, but normal life had to go on. It's not only about Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, it's about the humanity involved with Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, and that makes it a brilliant book. It might be hard to find a copy, but I have heard a rumour that a digital copy fell off a truck somewhere.
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Thanks, I read that one years ago. I left it off the list because it was all three. Glad you liked it too.
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I gather that the 1994 book by Shepard, Slayton, and Barbree"Moon Shot" isn't well regarded, is that correct?
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Has anyone read John Young's book "Forever Young"?
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I gather that the 1994 book by Shepard, Slayton, and Barbree"Moon Shot" isn't well regarded, is that correct?
Actually, I thought it was quite good.
What about Frank Borman's COUNTDOWN? That was good.
FALLING TO EARTH was excellent.
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Collins is the best as many have said. It's quite cinematic in its structure what with it building to the mini-climax of Gemini 10 then a build to the big climax of Apollo 11. It's also very light hearted and fun to read. His description of his Gemini 10 spacewalk is particularly good.
Cernan's is pretty good too. There's also a nice inclusion of what his first wife was going through at the time.
Deke's I was okay. I was kind of hoping for more detailed insight into why he made the crew choices he did. Not as much gossip as I thought there'd be.
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Deke's I was okay. I was kind of hoping for more detailed insight into why he made the crew choices he did. Not as much gossip as I thought there'd be.
I would like to know the preference ranking also, but that has gone forever. :(
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What about Frank Borman's COUNTDOWN? That was good.
How is it different to SILVER ARROW?
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What about Frank Borman's COUNTDOWN? That was good.
I don't know about SILVER ARROW, so I couldn't say, sorry.
How is it different to SILVER ARROW?
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Silver Arrow Books published Countdown.
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Silver Arrow Books published Countdown.
Whoops, thanks! :-[
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What's the best book in the Aldrin corpus?
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I found Mitchell's Earthrise to be heavy going, because of the writing style. Very choppy, short sentences and statements thrown together with no flow.
"Before we set foot on the Moon, there was still a lot of work to do inside the spacecraft. For the next five hours Alan and I read over the checklists for what we were supposed to do next. This way we wouldn't waste precious time once we were walking on the Moon. We also made sure all our equipment and spacesuits were in tip-top condition. We then had a bite to eat. I know we were both famished and some-how all our plastic bags of freeze-dried food tasted better than ever."
What did you do at the weekend, children? "We went to the seaside. I had a sandwich. My brudder went for a swim. Mummy got angry with Johnny."
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I found Mitchell's Earthrise to be heavy going, because of the writing style. Very choppy, short sentences and statements thrown together with no flow.
"Before we set foot on the Moon, there was still a lot of work to do inside the spacecraft. For the next five hours Alan and I read over the checklists for what we were supposed to do next. This way we wouldn't waste precious time once we were walking on the Moon. We also made sure all our equipment and spacesuits were in tip-top condition. We then had a bite to eat. I know we were both famished and some-how all our plastic bags of freeze-dried food tasted better than ever."
What did you do at the weekend, children? "We went to the seaside. I had a sandwich. My brudder went for a swim. Mummy got angry with Johnny."
That's an excerpt? Wow, it is pretty poor.
Reminds me of First Light, the book by Geoffrey Wellum about his experiences in the RAF during the Battle of Britain. Was certainly more lyrical than that but there were a few hokey bits and structurally, it was not particularly coherent for a linear story (loads of arbitrary time skips). Obviously a fascinating story to tell but not told as well as it could be.
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I found Mitchell's Earthrise to be heavy going, because of the writing style. Very choppy, short sentences and statements thrown together with no flow.
"Before we set foot on the Moon, there was still a lot of work to do inside the spacecraft. For the next five hours Alan and I read over the checklists for what we were supposed to do next. This way we wouldn't waste precious time once we were walking on the Moon. We also made sure all our equipment and spacesuits were in tip-top condition. We then had a bite to eat. I know we were both famished and some-how all our plastic bags of freeze-dried food tasted better than ever."
That's an excerpt? Wow, it is pretty poor.
Reminds me of First Light, the book by Geoffrey Wellum about his experiences in the RAF during the Battle of Britain. Was certainly more lyrical than that but there were a few hokey bits and structurally, it was not particularly coherent for a linear story (loads of arbitrary time skips). Obviously a fascinating story to tell but not told as well as it could be.
We aren't reading these for the prose though, are we, but for the first hand accounts.
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Agree.
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I'm surprised there's no mention of Charlie Duke's "Moonwalker". Not many reviews but they are all 4's or 5's except for some hoaxnut giving it a 1. I found it to be right up there with Collin's book in some ways:
http://www.amazon.com/Moonwalker-Astronaut-Enough-Satisfy-Success/dp/0840791062/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
I know you can get an autographed copy from his site as well. Too bad the economy has gone to hell up here in Alberta. Be nice to get along with the "Apollo: The Panorama's".
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I'm reading Frank Borman's "Countdown" right now. He mentions how they checked the dosage readings after passing through the VAB's. Well within expectations and then he mentions about how a lot of scientists thought they would get fried by the radiation. What? Which scientists is he referring to? Surely they had this all figured out so why would scientists think that? I know one scientist was still insistent about there being very deep dust despite the Surveyor landings but that was one guy. Borman makes it sound like quite a number of scientists were worried about the VAB radiation.
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... I know one scientist was still insistent about there being very deep dust despite the Surveyor landings but that was one guy. ...
There is reasonability in this estimate, since there were only 5 missions that landed successfully and at those 5 locations the regolith was rather thin, but it MAY have been different is some other locations.
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There is reasonability in this estimate, since there were only 5 missions that landed successfully
6
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There is reasonability in this estimate, since there were only 5 missions that landed successfully
6
No, five if he's talking about Surveyor missions, which I think he is...
Surveyor 1 – Launched May 30, 1966; landed on Oceanus Procellarum, June 2, 1966
Surveyor 2 – Launched September 20, 1966; crashed near Copernicus crater, September 23, 1966
Surveyor 3 – Launched April 17, 1967; landed on Oceanus Procellarum, April 20, 1967
Surveyor 4 – Launched July 14, 1967; crashed on Sinus Medii, July 17, 1967
Surveyor 5 – Launched September 8, 1967; landed on Mare Tranquillitatis, September 11, 1967
Surveyor 6 – Launched November 7, 1967; landed on Sinus Medii, November 10, 1967
Surveyor 7 – Launched January 7, 1968; landed near Tycho crater, January 10, 1968
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Since mako88sb referenced the Surveyor program that is what I was referencing also, sorry for the bit of confusion, but seven Surveyors did land, but only five soft landed successfully.
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... I know one scientist was still insistent about there being very deep dust despite the Surveyor landings but that was one guy. ...
There is reasonability in this estimate, since there were only 5 missions that landed successfully and at those 5 locations the regolith was rather thin, but it MAY have been different is some other locations.
Sorry, I don't have the book handy were I read about this scientist but the impression I got was that he still thought the majority of the moon was covered in several feet of dust.
Kind of strayed off my main point about how Borman didn't think much of the scientists that were sure they would get fried going through the VAB's. Which scientists is he referring to? I've done some searching but no luck. I hope it's not something so easy to find that even Neil Baker could do it. lol
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... I know one scientist was still insistent about there being very deep dust despite the Surveyor landings but that was one guy. ...
There is reasonability in this estimate, since there were only 5 missions that landed successfully and at those 5 locations the regolith was rather thin, but it MAY have been different is some other locations.
Sorry, I don't have the book handy were I read about this scientist but the impression I got was that he still thought the majority of the moon was covered in several feet of dust.
Kind of strayed off my main point about how Borman didn't think much of the scientists that were sure they would get fried going through the VAB's. Which scientists is he referring to? I've done some searching but no luck. I hope it's not something so easy to find that even Neil Baker could do it. lol
Well the depth at the 11 locations successfully soft landed, the wasn't "several feet", so that individual was/is wrong.
I don't remember any scientist indicating crews would be "fried" travelling through the VARB considering the trajectory chosen for the missions. I can't even guess whom that may have been.
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I think the scientist in question was Thomas Gold of Cornell. He had a lot of, uh, "unconventional" views in those days.
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I think the scientist in question was Thomas Gold of Cornell. He had a lot of, uh, "unconventional" views in those days.
Ok. Thanks. Looks like his original prediction of the regolith depth was modified prior to the Surveyor program and he came up with a pretty accurate model. I guess his style was grating to some people thus the animosity towards him:
From wiki:
"From the 1950s, Gold served as a consultant to NASA and held positions on several national space committees, including the President's Science Advisory Committee, as the United States tried to develop its space program. At the time, scientists were engaged in a heated debate over the physical properties of the moon's surface. In 1955, he predicted that the Moon was covered by a layer of fine rock powder stemming from "the ceaseless bombardment of its surface by Solar System debris".[22] This led to the dust being jokingly referred to as "Gold's dust".[30] Gold initially suggested that astronauts would sink into the dust, but upon later analysis of impact craters and electrostatic fields, he determined that the astronauts' boots would sink only three centimeters into the Moon's surface. In any case, NASA sent unmanned Surveyors to analyze the conditions on the surface of the Moon. Gold was ridiculed by fellow scientists, not only for his hypothesis, but for the approach he took in communicating NASA's concerns to the American public; in particular, some experts were infuriated with his usage of the term "moon dust" in reference to lunar regolith.[31] When the Apollo 11 crew landed on the Moon in 1969 and brought back the first samples of lunar rocks, researchers found that lunar soil was in fact powdery. Gold said the findings were consistent with his hypothesis, noting that "in one area as they walked along, they sank in between five and eight inches". However, Gold received little credit for his correct prediction, and was even criticized for his original prediction of a deep layer of lunar dust.[22] Gold had also contributed to the Apollo program by designing the Apollo Lunar Surface Closeup Camera (ALSCC) (a kind of stereo camera) used on the Apollo 11, 12, and 14 missions.[22][32]"
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I think the scientist in question was Thomas Gold of Cornell. He had a lot of, uh, "unconventional" views in those days.
I had to look him up as I didn't know of him. Some correct and some incorrect assumptions of Lunar regolith.
BUT his beliefs of how/where petroleum is formed is way too bizarre and totally against current theories of petroleum from anorexic bacteria on the oceans floor, burial and undergoing transformation with heat and pressure into petroleum products.
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I'm reading Frank Borman's "Countdown" right now. He mentions how they checked the dosage readings after passing through the VAB's. Well within expectations and then he mentions about how a lot of scientists thought they would get fried by the radiation. What? Which scientists is he referring to? Surely they had this all figured out so why would scientists think that? I know one scientist was still insistent about there being very deep dust despite the Surveyor landings but that was one guy. Borman makes it sound like quite a number of scientists were worried about the VAB radiation.
That was good old Thomas Gold - never let data stand in the way of a good story.
Not just the Surveyor landings either, Luna 9 and 13 and Rangers 7, 8 and 9 all returned data inconsistent with Gold's theories.
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I think the scientist in question was Thomas Gold of Cornell. He had a lot of, uh, "unconventional" views in those days.
Ok. Thanks. Looks like his original prediction of the regolith depth was modified prior to the Surveyor program and he came up with a pretty accurate model. I guess his style was grating to some people thus the animosity towards him:
From wiki:
"From the 1950s, Gold served as a consultant to NASA and held positions on several national space committees, including the President's Science Advisory Committee, as the United States tried to develop its space program. At the time, scientists were engaged in a heated debate over the physical properties of the moon's surface. In 1955, he predicted that the Moon was covered by a layer of fine rock powder stemming from "the ceaseless bombardment of its surface by Solar System debris".[22] This led to the dust being jokingly referred to as "Gold's dust".[30] Gold initially suggested that astronauts would sink into the dust, but upon later analysis of impact craters and electrostatic fields, he determined that the astronauts' boots would sink only three centimeters into the Moon's surface. In any case, NASA sent unmanned Surveyors to analyze the conditions on the surface of the Moon. Gold was ridiculed by fellow scientists, not only for his hypothesis, but for the approach he took in communicating NASA's concerns to the American public; in particular, some experts were infuriated with his usage of the term "moon dust" in reference to lunar regolith.[31] When the Apollo 11 crew landed on the Moon in 1969 and brought back the first samples of lunar rocks, researchers found that lunar soil was in fact powdery. Gold said the findings were consistent with his hypothesis, noting that "in one area as they walked along, they sank in between five and eight inches". However, Gold received little credit for his correct prediction, and was even criticized for his original prediction of a deep layer of lunar dust.[22] Gold had also contributed to the Apollo program by designing the Apollo Lunar Surface Closeup Camera (ALSCC) (a kind of stereo camera) used on the Apollo 11, 12, and 14 missions.[22][32]"
According to Baldwin, Gold was adhering to his view even after the landings. He also retconned his views, trying to claim that minor local sinkage proved him right - it didn't.
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IMO, Gold was thinking along the lines of a similar scenario to that outlined by Arthur C. Clarke in his SciFi novel "A Fall of Moondust" . I doubt there is anyone here who hasn't either read the story or at least knows what its about, but for those who haven't, a brief summery...
The Sea of Thirst, (located within the Sinus Roris) is filled with an extremely fine dust, a fine powder far drier than the contents of a terrestrial desert and which almost flows like water, instead of the common regolith which covers most of the lunar surface. A specially designed "Dust Cruiser" named the Selene skims over the surface of the dust in the same manner as a jetski.
But on one cruise, a moonquake causes an underground cavern to collapse, upsetting the equilibrium. As the Selene passes over, it sinks about 15 metres below the surface of the dust, hiding the vessel from view, and trapping it beneath the dust.
Now that we know the nature of lunar "dust" we know that this scenario is nigh on impossible. Rather than being dust in the sense that we are used to here on Earth, lunar dust is made up of sharp-edged, highly abrasive particles. This is due to the lack of erosion on the lunar surface. It is extremely unlikely that anything would sink into it like that. IIRC, the astronauts had considerable difficulty in driving the flagpoles into it.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missions/apollo/apollo_11/experiments/smi/
"When astronauts inserted sampling tubes into the soil, they typically found penetration was easy for the first 10 to 20 centimeters and increasingly difficult below that depth. The deepest penetration achieved on a hand-driven core tube was 70 centimeters, which required about 50 blows with a hammer."
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IMO, Gold was thinking along the lines of a similar scenario to that outlined by Arthur C. Clarke in his SciFi novel "A Fall of Moondust" .
That's funny. I was actually thinking about that book a couple days ago for the first time in quite awhile. I read it in my teens so getting close to 45 years ago.
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I got my undergraduate degree from Cornell in 1978, but as far as I can remember I only heard Gold speak once, in Baltimore (my home town) while I was still in high school. I remember thinking at the time that his style was rather "unconventional". I think I already knew of his incorrect prediction of a sea of dust on the moon.
I also read somewhere that Gold ruffled some feathers getting his stereo closeup camera onto Apollo 11, when there were powerful voices arguing against carrying any scientific experiments on the very first landing. You'll see it in some of Armstrong's pictures, such as near the rim of Little West Crater during his brief excursion there.
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There is reasonability in this estimate, since there were only 5 missions that landed successfully
6
No, five if he's talking about Surveyor missions, which I think he is...
Surveyor 1 – Launched May 30, 1966; landed on Oceanus Procellarum, June 2, 1966
Surveyor 2 – Launched September 20, 1966; crashed near Copernicus crater, September 23, 1966
Surveyor 3 – Launched April 17, 1967; landed on Oceanus Procellarum, April 20, 1967
Surveyor 4 – Launched July 14, 1967; crashed on Sinus Medii, July 17, 1967
Surveyor 5 – Launched September 8, 1967; landed on Mare Tranquillitatis, September 11, 1967
Surveyor 6 – Launched November 7, 1967; landed on Sinus Medii, November 10, 1967
Surveyor 7 – Launched January 7, 1968; landed near Tycho crater, January 10, 1968
I am corrected. My apologies to bknight
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I am corrected. My apologies to bknight
Not to worry, I as others have made mistakes here. :)
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I got my undergraduate degree from Cornell in 1978, but as far as I can remember I only heard Gold speak once, in Baltimore (my home town) while I was still in high school. I remember thinking at the time that his style was rather "unconventional". I think I already knew of his incorrect prediction of a sea of dust on the moon.
I also read somewhere that Gold ruffled some feathers getting his stereo closeup camera onto Apollo 11, when there were powerful voices arguing against carrying any scientific experiments on the very first landing. You'll see it in some of Armstrong's pictures, such as near the rim of Little West Crater during his brief excursion there.
Odd looking critter!
(https://airandspace.si.edu/webimages/previews/5223p.jpg)
I had no idea A11 used this contraption; and I'm surprised those powerful naysayers didn't win that battle (for A11 at least).
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Was it used? I don't remember an image with either of them using something like that. I'll have to admit I haven't rechecked the image catalog.
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Yes, the photos returned from the Gold camera on Apollo 11 were on Magazine 45:
https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/images11.html#Mag45
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When the Apollo 11 exhibition came to London, part of it was a stereo viewer system set up so you could look at the soil close-ups for yourself.
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I got my undergraduate degree from Cornell in 1978, but as far as I can remember I only heard Gold speak once, in Baltimore (my home town) while I was still in high school. I remember thinking at the time that his style was rather "unconventional". I think I already knew of his incorrect prediction of a sea of dust on the moon.
I also read somewhere that Gold ruffled some feathers getting his stereo closeup camera onto Apollo 11, when there were powerful voices arguing against carrying any scientific experiments on the very first landing. You'll see it in some of Armstrong's pictures, such as near the rim of Little West Crater during his brief excursion there.
Quite a few scientific experiments were flown, so there were clearly more powerful voices arguing for a science program than those against. Gold was widely (and rightly) considered a crank by this time on the subject of the Moon, but it was a valid experiment.
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I also read somewhere that Gold ruffled some feathers getting his stereo closeup camera onto Apollo 11, when there were powerful voices arguing against carrying any scientific experiments on the very first landing. You'll see it in some of Armstrong's pictures, such as near the rim of Little West Crater during his brief excursion there.
My apologies for not reading the whole post and thereby asking a stupid question
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Quite a few scientific experiments were flown, so there were clearly more powerful voices arguing for a science program than those against.
There was a strong view that no experiments should be flown on Apollo 11, but a compromise was ultimately achieved. They would fly just those experiments that had the highest scientific value and wouldn't take too much time to deploy, while most waited for Apollo 12 and later landings. They were the laser retroreflector, the solar wind collector, the passive seismic experiment, the Gold camera and various sample collections.
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Is this another pic of the stereoscope camera?
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a14/AS14-66-9340HR.jpg
Sure looks like it.
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Quite a few scientific experiments were flown, so there were clearly more powerful voices arguing for a science program than those against.
There was a strong view that no experiments should be flown on Apollo 11, but a compromise was ultimately achieved. They would fly just those experiments that had the highest scientific value and wouldn't take too much time to deploy, while most waited for Apollo 12 and later landings. They were the laser retroreflector, the solar wind collector, the passive seismic experiment, the Gold camera and various sample collections.
Hence EASEP rather than ALSEP. The latter took like 4 hours to deploy.
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It seems Gene Cernan narrated his book for Audible.com