Posted on 02/10/2011 10:16:04 PM PST by george76
Apollo 14 -- the safely numbered one after that, um, other one -- splashed down 40 years ago today.
Since there were no dancing-on-the-edge death-defying dramatic escapes on this one, the mission is largely lost to history. It did get NASA back on track, of course, and paved the way for as many additional moon landings as the budget could afford (three).
But there were some oddities attached to Apollo 14. Here are six:
6. The astronauts got lost on the moon.
4. Astronaut Ed Mitchell became a raving UFO loon.
2. Shepard: Least-liked Apollo astronaut?
Shepard was a Machiavellian, cold, arrogant guy whose utter lack of people skills turned many off. Hard-partying Gordo Cooper ...
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.houstonpress.com ...
During the Apollo 14 flight he conducted private ESP experiments with his friends on Earth.
Ed Mitchell conducted those ESP tests
Ping.
I have no problem with that. As for UFOs, that’s gone all the way back to the Gemini missions. If an astronaut saw it and believed it, I’m with him until proven otherwise.
I agree. ESP and mind control was investigated during the Cold War. If it was properly funded it would have been a powerful weapon for the military.
Maybe so but he was always my favorite. When I was in 7th Grade I watched Shepard's Mercury launch—about 50 miles distant—from the grounds of my junior high in Orlando. Thirty years later I got to visit his launch pad at Kennedy Space Center. It was absolutely tiny compared to the sites used for the Saturn V and later the Shuttle.
I liked Al Shepherd a hell of a lot more than that fraud john Glenn. Al was a Navy guy and also friendly with conservative Coors family as he had I think a Coors beer distributorship.
“When reporters asked Shepard what he thought about as he sat atop the Redstone rocket, waiting for liftoff, he had replied, ‘The fact that every part of this ship was built by the low bidder.”
NASA was good when the Germans ran it.
I always thought the coldest astronaut was John Glenn, and that his 1964 bathtub injury thankfully kept him from a Moon mission.
Operation:Paperclip
Yeah I liked Shepard, Lovell and Schirra - all Navy guys. I also like low key Neil Armstrong - another Navy guy. Armstrong was also a great pilot.
Wow. That site is hard to load up.
Is it some kind of spyware distribution center?
After a nine hour launch delay, Shepard also reported that the US had launched “the first wetback into space.”
LOL! Navy humor. He was the first and the first is the most dangerous.
I think some of the most amazing stuff was:
1. Getting Apollo 13 back. Doing calculations and burns on the fly. Steering the LEM as doing the burns. I mean it is really a miracle they got back.
2. Armstrong saving a Gemini and the biggest Apollo mission because he was an incredible pilot who was cool as they come.
I watched it from mine in Tampa. Cool.
Those guys used to Party Down in Cocoa Beach when I was a kid.
What aches my heart is that the "resident" of the White House and at least 49% of the American population see these events as insignificant, wasteful and crimes against the rest of humanity.
Who can ever forget the Alan Shepard prayer from the first Mercury launch?
Of course, they are pilots.
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