Don Arabian passing

[bknight]

Fraser at Conquest had a thread on this.

https://forum.cosmoquest.org/showthread.php?175635-Remembering-Don-Arabian-the-%C2%91Mad-Genius%C2%92-Behind-NASA%C2%92s-Apollo-Engineering-Team&p=2518348#post2518348

Jay I'll address this ost at you since you have met with many of the Apollo astronauts, did you know Don?  Is Frasers depiction/personal quotes accurate in determining his character/personality?

Thanks

[Obviousman]

Vale Don Arabian.

[JayUtah]

No, I didn't know him.  But I'm sad he's gone.

[Obviousman]

The tales I have read about him are fantastic.

[bknight]

The tales I have read about him are fantastic.

It was those types that helped make the missions a success.

[bknight]

No, I didn't know him.  But I'm sad he's gone.

OK, I'm also sad to see another Apollo name pass away.  Soon there will be none and all that we will know all what historians write about them.

[Obviousman]

You know, I sometimes wonder if Apollo was some type of aberration. The coalescing of so many incredibly gifted people towards a common goal. Somehow I don't think we are ever going to see anything like it ever again.

[JayUtah]

I've always argued it was an aberration, and I know people in the program who argued it was.  It was the perfect confluence of talent, technology, resources, and political will.  It's unlikely anything like it will occur again as far as space exploration is concerned, but I hope it will occur in other areas.

[bknight]

I've always argued it was an aberration, and I know people in the program who argued it was.  It was the perfect confluence of talent, technology, resources, and political will.  It's unlikely anything like it will occur again as far as space exploration is concerned, but I hope it will occur in other areas.

It likely was an aberration begun by Kennedy to have a goal to beat the Russians.  Most of the rest of the country got behind the effort in ensuring that the program would not fail and everything would be fixed to beat the Russians.  With time running short the full stack was tested successfully twice although the second test had a number of issues easily corrected, then NASA got a scar when images from space showed a massive Russian launch vehicle on the pad. Managers hastily changed A8 to orbit the Moon.

Remember how the public support began to dwindle after A11 landed.  A13 couldn't even garner support for a TV broadcast during the trip out to the Moon.  You see we had beaten the Russians

[Zakalwe]

I've always argued it was an aberration, and I know people in the program who argued it was.  It was the perfect confluence of talent, technology, resources, and political will.  It's unlikely anything like it will occur again as far as space exploration is concerned

I'd agree with most of that. I think that it was the last throw of the dice for the truly great national efforts following WWII. The Manhattan Project was similar, though by it's nature much more secretive. However, people leaned of the efforts to create the A-bomb and in many respects the Apollo program will have tapped into that emotion- a huge nationwide effort to defeat a national threat.

but I hope it will occur in other areas.

One can never say never, but I cannot see anything like this happening in the short or medium term future. Politics on both sides of the Atlantic are being driven by some pretty horrible forces, forces that thrive on division, hatred and the false illusion that "my opinions are the same or better as your facts". Look at the mess the US is in regarding corona-virus. If ever there was an opportunity to drive a national effort then a proper pandemic response was just that. Instead you have an idiot in charge who is doing his utmost to drive division and conspiracy theories in a tawdry effort to secure personal power.