[Perseverando]

Another U.S. history lesson from American Minute.

[Freedom4US]

Astronauts back then (no disrespect intended for the later or current personnel) were a remarkable group of people.

In the very early stages of selection, many ideas were thrown around as to what type of individual should be selected for space exploration. Even Poets or Artists were suggested. I’ve read Eisenhower had to cut through all that nonsense, and declared that astronaut candidates would initially be selected from a pool of military aircraft pilots, his thinking was they were the only career field that made any sense due to the experimental and highly technical nature of the job. So they were drawn from aviation and particularly (mostly?) carrier naval aviators as a class, and further refined from the test pilots within that group. There was no shortage of volunteers.

At the time it must be remembered the American rockets had a regular habit of blowing up on the pad. I’d probably do a little praying myself. And who wouldn’t be a little humbled flying 225,000 miles away from the planet, and see your home, the entire world, everyone who ever existed or would exist - as a tiny blue dot floating off in the distance? I think it was Bill Anders on Apollo 8 who started reading from the Bible on Christmas Eve 1968 orbiting the moon with Frank Borman and Jim Lovell. Anders isn’t a preacher or anything like that, but he sure did a fine job on that. I vaguely remember seeing that live as a little kid. I thought it was great, but I couldn’t figure out why Grampa was crying. So they did a lot better than some goddamn Poet anyway ya slice it.

[Forgiven_Sinner]

Thanks for sharing this wonderful article.

Bookmarked, and shared on Facebook and Twitter.

[Yo-Yo]

"One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind," stated Astronaut Neil Armstrong,

That is what Neil Armstrong wrote before the flight, and what he fully intended to say on the Moon, but that is not what he said.

He inadvertently left out the "a" before "man," and no amount of revisionist history will change that fact, nor will excuses of an "overly sensitive VOX circuit" in his radio system that clipped the word.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Buzz Aldrin asked for radio silence because NASA was fighting a lawsuit brought by an intolerant atheist, Madalyn Murray O'Hair. She objected to the previous Apollo 8 crew reading the first chapter of the Book of Genesis in their Christmas radio transmission in 1968.

Wow, I did not know that. I remember this woman and all the trouble she was causing 50 years ago.

[ProtectOurFreedom]