Ah. What was I thinking? It's all his fault...
We're gonna make it after aaaallllll...
Posted on 09/11/2002 10:32:28 AM PDT by TomB
Edited on 04/29/2004 2:01:14 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
BEVERLY HILLS, California (Reuters) -- A man who publicly confronted astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin over whether he actually went to the moon said that the Apollo 11 hero almost sent him into space with a punch to the jaw.
Bart Sibrel, an independent filmmaker from Nashville, Tennessee, said he was trying to conduct an ambush interview with Aldrin outside a hotel in Beverly Hills when the astronaut punched him and ran away.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I quote from the source: As a means of comparison, think of that great old sitcom, the Mary Tyler Moore show. The newsroom consisted of management , creative staff and hardworking technicians. But the face of it was Ted Baxter.
It should all be perfectly clear now. Can't understand how you missed it.
From the article:
The encounter with Aldrin was Sibrel's third...
How many times would you have him deal with this crackpot? Would it satisfy your sense of outrage at NASA if it were a weekly event? Daily?
It's more than Mary can stand.
Mary needs to get out of the house more...
Ah. What was I thinking? It's all his fault...
We're gonna make it after aaaallllll...
The running laff on the MTM show, though you wouldn't catch it if you're too young to remember, was how Ted got all the glory and all he did was manage to read the news that a staff writer (Murray) wrote for him. Some of the time, he didn't even manage to read the news right, and then the sound crew and cameraman helped him out.
Nasa had better than Ted to work with, but the fact remains that the fliers lived a life of training to operate equipment, innovative equipment, that others designed, built and tested. When the fliers managed to work the equipment that they were trained for years to operate, the public and wannabe astronauts could scarcely contain the joy at such accomplishment. Think of how frustrated Murray and Lou and Mary were at times, which also provided much of the newsroom humor.
How is it that people get it in their minds that Dan Rather makes and writes the news? He just reads it, and manages to distort it. Yet, some magic takes place in much of the audience that somehow Dan makes it all happen. The support staff in Houston knew all too well that the astronauts operated equipment, but the responsibility for the mission was the burden of the ground crew.
How the people on ground in Houston chewed their nails just in hopes that the astronauts wouldn't wreck the fragile merchandise before they had a chance to use it.
And I'm not outraged, YOU are, at my temerity to say, "They were little more than passengers." I'd like to add..."They were little more than trained passengers." Many trained for years and never flew--no glory for *them*.
Three times a charm...now the crackpot has an issue.
Congratulations - you've discovered that some people make good engineers, while others make good drivers. Oh, the injustice. How horribly unfair it is that trained chimps like you and I are allowed to fondle the brilliant equipment that the Olympian giants in Detroit have brought to us. Who are we, sullying their brilliant creations, and praising ourselves for our monkey achievements, as though we were somehow worthy to set foot in such a pinnacle of engineering?
Oh, that's John Glenn's purview. His and Bernie Schartz's and Loral. And Clinton gave him a Last Free Joy Ride on the shuttle for his pains. That's when I gave up on the airborne bums once and for all. Right Stuff, bah!
All a bunch of chimps, I know - the brilliant engineers just load the hairy little bastard into the capsule, lob him up there, and catch him on the way back down. If your local bus company killed as many passengers, percentage-wise, as NASA did with its "passengers", you'd hang those engineers from a tree. How many NASA engineers died for the space program, Mme?
Astronauts have lost much cachet, so perhaps I shouldn't cavil. Sort of like the Kennedys. Nobody cares about the shuttlenots, launches are only televised after the fact and much edited, and unmanned exploratory craft were always a better buy, anyway. If a self-indulgent rich guy can buy a ride, riding isn't something that important anymore.
Once again, you equate thrill-seeking and risk-taking with courage, to which I'd observe is a shallow attitude. I'd find more to admire in an astronaut if I'd ever seen one buck Nasa authority. Here's another story...you know why Nasa started arranging some of the conjugal visits? The noughts wouldn't sleep with their wives, wouldn't even kiss them. They were TERRIFIED of catching colds. It's awful hard to blow your nose in a space suit, so they'd scratch any who came down with any infection. The flier, once clued that he was part of a planned crew, would immediately avoid all contact with his family. Nasa did not approve, so they'd try to well--encourage things along.
Sibrel is the definition of "kooky", a kook with a swollen jaw that is....
So long as those brilliant engineers remember how to perform metric-to-english conversions, and don't augur the thing into, say, the surface of Mars. Not that such a thing could ever actually happen, though...
Once again, you equate thrill-seeking and risk-taking with courage, to which I'd observe is a shallow attitude.
Ah, that's all it is, then - thrill-seeking? Where's the thrill there? Haven't those masterful engineers figured out how not to blow astronauts up yet?
I'd find more to admire in an astronaut if I'd ever seen one buck Nasa authority.
Right. Like how NASA and Thiokol engineers bucked authority to have Challenger scrubbed. Thank God for their willingness to buck authority - someone might have been killed if that launch had gone off as scheduled...
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