Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)

[gtvc]

Neil also visited troops in Afghanistan with Lovell and Cernan, August 17th 2011 you can check here

[LunarOrbit]

Thanks for posting that video, gtvc.

[Chew]

Neil also visited troops in Afghanistan with Lovell and Cernan, August 17th 2011 you can check here

"Golly! What the heck happened?"


"Or words to that effect."

[ipearse]

On BBC2 yesterday, they showed an hour-long documentary called Neil Armstrong - First Man on the Moon. It looks like it was a collaborative feature, as NOVA/WGBH was listed in the credits. If you haven't seen it yet, and get the chance to do so, watch it. It's a wonderful programme, very moving in places, with input from family and friends, lots of newsreel and other bits of film thrown in, and very well narrated.

[Rob260259]

An interview with Neil Armstrong that I didn't know about:

Awesome, really!

[Allan F]

What a charming and humoristic man he was.

[sts60]

44 years ago today.  "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

[Laurel]

I'm going to watch In The Shadow Of The Moon for the anniversary.

[raven]

I hope I live to see the beginning of the next step, the next giant leap, that takes us from camping in space to being a true spacefaring species.

[Glom]

I hope I live to see the beginning of the next step, the next giant leap, that takes us from camping in space to being a true spacefaring species.

If not that, what else do you hope?

[raven]

I hope I live to see the beginning of the next step, the next giant leap, that takes us from camping in space to being a true spacefaring species.

If not that, what else do you hope?

Humans learn how to be a technological species without messing up the planet.

[Kiwi]

What a charming and humoristic man he was.

This delightful bit of Neil Armstrong's dry humour back in 1969-70 seemed to deserve recycling.  It's from "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), pages 123-125

Following some comments about rhetoric and gobbledygook, the writers ask, "Had the language of space acquired, in ten years, its own protective patois? Neil Armstrong sometimes was inclined to think that it had..."

The language of engineering has always been a very precise language. Though a lot of technical words were used, a great effort was usually made to define them clearly so that the audience or the reader should be aware of precisely what had been meant by the statement or by the sentence. We used to make a lot of fun about those other professions which were less careful with their phraseology and terminology — particularly the Madison Avenue approach to speech and writing. However I guess that in recent years we have tried to out-Madison Madison Avenue. If we can't find a word to misuse properly, we'll make one up. An example of misuse is our use of the word 'nominal,' which most of the English-speaking world interprets as meaning small, minimal — and we usually use it in the sense of being average or normal, for reference value. I think that most of the English-speaking world would say that a nominal tab for dinner would be a dollar or less. To a space scientist a nominal tab would be maybe six or seven dollars. The difference is that most people think of nominal as being small, and we tend to use it as average.

We can degrade further the usefulness of a word like 'nominal' by adding modifiers — for example, 'nominalize,' which might be translated into 'make standard' or 'make normal.' And 'denominalize' might mean make abnormal, or make unusual. This kind of chicanery, when carried to the extreme, might produce such useful words in the English language as 'denominalizationmanshipwise.' We have even become a bit careless in our use of technical terms — for instance the word 'perigee,' which comes from the Greek, means the closest point to the earth in a trajectory. But it is frequently used as the lowest point in an orbit about any body — for example, the lowest point to the moon might be called a perigee even though it is more correctly called 'perilune.' I think the astronomers who originated these terms are perhaps turning over in their graves because of our flippant use of their very carefully determined words.

Then there are those abbreviations. Like CSM for command and service module, LM for lunar module, MCC for mission control center, RCS for reaction control system, ECS for environmental control system — and so on. NASA encourages, in fact practically demands, that such abbreviations be used throughout the system. This has led to literally thousands of phrases and groups of initials, insuring that the newcomer and the layman are going to be confused by the use of abbreviations and acronyms scattered liberally throughout the sentences spoken or written by anyone who is attempting to explain what's going on.

From a talking point of view these abbreviations probably do not help much. CMC, which means command module computer, takes up three syllables. The word computer itself also takes only three syllables, so you don't save much time in speech. It is true that you save some time, or some space, in writing and printing, particularly with respect to written notes back and forth between people at the working level. The problem is that this shorthand is used so much, and so frequently, that it becomes a crutch, and it is difficult to make any point without leaning on it. The computer people are reaching the absolute epitome of short-cut technical English. Of course they must speak in machine language when they are talking with the machines, but they carry over that kind of phraseology into their daily conversation.

And into their writing. In 1968 I received a copy of a memorandum which said in part: 'A small (but interesting) change in the interpreter makes it possible to call from interpretive, using RTB, in general any basic subroutine which may be called using BANKCALL: in particular any basic subroutine which (1) ends with a TC Q, or a TC K if it stores Q in K, (2) does not clobber BUF2 or BUF 2 + 1, (3) does not clobber interpreter temporaries LOC, BANKSET, EDOP, and of course such erasables as FIXLOC and PUSHLOC and PRIORITY with which no one should trifle. A TC Q from such a routine leads through SWRETURN to DANZIG. This amounts to a quantum jump in the sexiness of the RTB op-code; this change merges the RTB op-code with the larger set of basic subroutines callable using BANKCALL... This immediately opens a large virgin territory to interpreter users; and as TCF DANZIG routines are converted to TC Q subroutines a significant area may be opened to users of basic... [Some] subroutines which have required interpretive interface routines can now do without; for instance the SGNAGREE interface for TPAGREE can be dispensed with... Note that... Q points to SWERETURN: BUF2 to a TCF DANZIG.'

Understand?

No wonder that when they put a little cupboard in the wall of the Apollo 11 spacecraft to hold between-meals snacks they wound up calling it 'the smorgasbord mode.'

Doubtless Robert Benchley could make something of all this if he were alive. So could W. C. Fields.

[Allan F]

Part of an interview with Neil Armstrong.

[Peter B]

I happened to catch this program tonight: Neil Armstrong, The Enigma Explained.

http://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/303738435760/Neil-Armstrong-The-Enigma-Explained

It told his life story, with the obvious focus on Apollo 11, using interviews with friends, colleagues and family, including his sister, brother, both his wives, and his sons, as well as recordings from an interview in (IIRC) 2001.

I enjoyed it, for all that it had a slightly sombre tone (it was made in 2012), but also featured some thoroughly enjoyable bits:

- Some audio from Gemini 8 as they docked with the Agena, with both Armstrong and Scott sounding pretty pleased with themselves.

- Armstrong talking to a 2004 Star Trek convention, saying something along the lines of, "The method we used to get to the Moon...[pause]...worked [audience laughter], but it would have been a lot easier if we could've beamed down." On the way to the podium he stopped briefly to talk to a wheelchair-bound James "Scotty" Doohan.

- Armstrong singing and playing the piano at his 80th birthday party.

All in all a wonderful and respectful tribute.

[BazBear]

I happened to catch this program tonight: Neil Armstrong, The Enigma Explained.

http://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/303738435760/Neil-Armstrong-The-Enigma-Explained

It told his life story, with the obvious focus on Apollo 11, using interviews with friends, colleagues and family, including his sister, brother, both his wives, and his sons, as well as recordings from an interview in (IIRC) 2001.

I enjoyed it, for all that it had a slightly sombre tone (it was made in 2012), but also featured some thoroughly enjoyable bits:

- Some audio from Gemini 8 as they docked with the Agena, with both Armstrong and Scott sounding pretty pleased with themselves.

- Armstrong talking to a 2004 Star Trek convention, saying something along the lines of, "The method we used to get to the Moon...[pause]...worked [audience laughter], but it would have been a lot easier if we could've beamed down." On the way to the podium he stopped briefly to talk to a wheelchair-bound James "Scotty" Doohan.

- Armstrong singing and playing the piano at his 80th birthday party.

All in all a wonderful and respectful tribute.

Your link will only work in Oz, but I believe this is the same documentary, albeit with a different title for the UK.