Posted on 01/09/2009 11:50:27 AM PST by EPW Comm Team
January 08, 2009
Inconvenient Astronaut:
NASA Moonwalker Joins Skeptics Despite Gore's Claim Skeptics Believe Moon Landing was 'Staged'
Gore’s frequent comparison of global warming skeptics to people who "believe the moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona" was delivered a major blow when Moonwalker and Award-Winning NASA Astronaut/Geologist Jack Schmitt who flew on the Apollo 17 mission declared he was a skeptic. “The ‘global warming scare’ is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making. It has no place in the Society's activities,” Schmitt said. See: Astronaut Jack Schmitt Joins Skeptics & For Gore, a very inconvenient moonwalker.
The question looms: How can Gore claim skeptics are akin to people who believed the moon landing was “staged” when one of the moonwalkers himself is a skeptic?
Schmitt is featured in the U. S. Senate Minority Report: More Than 650 (and rapidly growing) International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims
Below is Schmitt’s full entry in the Senate’s 650 Plus Scientist Report:
Award-Winning NASA Astronaut/Geologist and Moonwalker Jack Schmitt, formerly of the Norwegian Geological Survey and the U.S. Geological Survey, who flew on the Apollo 17 mission, has received numerous awards in his career including the Space Center Superior Achievement Award and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. Schmitt, a member of the Geological Society of America, American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, rejected man-made climate change concerns in 2008. “The ‘global warming scare’ is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making. It has no place in the Society's activities,” Schmitt wrote on November 17, 2008. “As a geologist, I love Earth observations. But it is ridiculous to tie this objective to a "consensus" that humans are causing global warming when human experience, geologic data and history, and current cooling can argue otherwise. ‘Consensus,’ as many have said, merely represents the absence of definitive science,” Schmitt explained.
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The pictures of polar bears being threatened by icebergs in An Inconvenient Truth were staged.
This is good. But, the headline is awful. I had to read the story to find out what the heck they are saying.
thanks. I tried for a snappy headline, but it is a bit awkward. If you have a better one that captures the concept, please let me know.
Someone’s throwing Schmitt in the game...
Me too, I thought they meant someone who walked on the moon thought the moon landing was faked! I was like...ok, I was wrong, if THEY think it was faked it must have been!
Al Gore is guilty of killing the Colombia astronauts. His foolish decision to have the propellant used to spray on the external tank foam is the reason the ice chunks formed and flaked off to shatter the leading edge of the shuttle wing!
Uninended consquences when doofis politicians go where no right minded individual would care to go!
I bit long.
How about:
"NASA Moonwalker proves Gore's a Moonbat"?
I was not aware of this about Al Gore and the external fuel tanks. Can you elaborate? Thanks.
Now the Schmitt has hit the fan.
They went with a weak foam that didn’t stick like it used to for PC reasons.
http://www.pardonmyenglish.com/archives/2005/07/did_enviromenta.html
For a second there, I was thinking that the moonwalker was skeptical he had walked on the moon. Poorly written title.
Jack Schmitt was always my favorite astronaut. I loved the enthusiasm he expressed while on the moon.
Al Gore as President of the Space Council, (one of the VEEPs duties in the White House), accepted the warning of the evironuts who wanted to ban freon because it was damaging the ozone layer. The EPA ordered that all AC units be converted from freon. and they were.
The SOFI, (Spray On Foam Insulation) that is used to insulate the external tank was applied with freon being the propellant. Building 10 tanks per year would release a minisule amount of freon when you consider the the hundreds of thousands of cubic miles that comprise the atmosphere. But it was done. Bob told me that the new propellant didn't do the job as well given that the SOFI formulation hadn't changed. When NASA inspected the tanks they noticed that as the SOFI cured cracks would form. The "fix" was to carve out the area where the crack occurred and using a trowel the SOFI material would be applied just like you would fill a crack in a plaster wall.
When the shuttle was hauled out to the launch pad it might sit there for days before launch. The mist and rain would cover the vehicle. When the tank was filled with the cryogenic O2 and H2 the water in the cracks would freeze. The ice would expand in the cracks and "loosen the patch. Ice formed on the tank when fuel was loaded and at launch the vibration would shake loose the ice and underlying patches and voila a barrage of ice chucks.
NASA had painted the first seven tanks and then stopped painting the tank to save about 2 tons of paint which would increase the shuttle payload.
If NASA would pay for the tank to be painted the underlying problem would be fixed!
NASA liftoff studies of shuttles show that there was little damage when the shuttle was first flown. But the Freon issue and tank painting were additive problems. Go figger!
He knows what it’s like to buck an entrenched system - geologist Schmitt endured hell from the test-pilot dominated astronaut corps after joining NASA in 1965, fought for almost six years to maximize the science return from the Apollo missions, and never gave up in the long attempt to get himself assigned to a mission. He did a phenomenal job on Apollo 17, both as a lunar module pilot and a scientist.
I haven’t seen Jack Schmitt since his unsuccessful senate re-election campaign back in 1982. He shook my hand in the Owl Bar in San Antonio NM, and asked for my vote. Which he got. Very nice guy.
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