"Major Matt Mason: Moon Mission!"

 

All Major Matt Mason's equipment is based on official space program designs. This equipment must help him deal with violent temperature extremes, radiation, meteorites, and strange, rough terrain.

- Mattel's Major Matt Mason catalog

Obviously science fiction is full of examples of bases, settlements and cities on the Moon, but let's demonstrate a little brand loyalty, and take a look at how my favourite astronaut does it, as laid out in my battered Major Matt Mason Big Little Book*, Moon Mission - published in 1968, the year before the Apollo 11 moon landing.

First, I'd like to comment on how relatively mature the story actually is - the Whitman Big Little Books were aimed at a pre-teen age group, but the plot of Moon Mission doesn't come across as notably juvenile.

 

Second, I'm pleased that the cast of characters includes Jo Ann Harvey, a female astronaut who is a psychiatrist - pretty advanced stuff for 1968, but then, the original lineup of Major Matt Mason action figures included an African-American astronaut, Lieutenant Jeff Long, a concept which was literally the stuff of science fiction** in the late 60s.

Unlike the current toy market, which relies heavily on movies, TV shows and comic books as source material for action figures, the Major Matt Mason line had no narrative to support it, which gave author George S. Elrick a free hand to create his story of missing lunar explorers, moon worms, mind-invading alien life forms***, and giant space bunnies. His sole stricture was probably the need to include as many of the Major Matt Mason toys and accessories as possible, and to be honest, the brand placement isn't overwhelming.

It's interesting to speculate as to whether or not any of these toys would actually be feasible as real-world equipment, regardless of Mattel's claim that they were based on "official space program designs". Obviously, tread-based transporters like the Cat Trac or the Unitred would work, but would the multi-legged Space Crawler, just off centre to the right in the image above, be a practical all-terrain vehicle?  Would the Jet Propulsion Pak, Space Sled or Reconojet provide enough lift for flight in 1/6 gravity?

In the book, the Major's lunar base is underground, but there's an impression that it's only temporary.  The story mentions an earlier mission that had left markers and constructed foundations for power plants and permanent habitats, and one of the characters looks over the construction site where "skilled work crews" are building those habitats, then pays a visit to the hydroponic farming facility.

 

There are admittedly some doubtful scientific aspects to the story:  ignoring whether or not you could (or should) bioengineer giants rabbits to survive on the moon, they wouldn't be sniffing things in vacuum - at least not successfully - and the effects of minimal lunar gravity are pretty much ignored.  Not only that, but Elrick seems to consider vacuum as being relative in the same way that temperature is, in that the further you are from the opening to a cave, the more air there will be, whereas I'm reasonably confident that if you're in a cave that's open to the vacuum, you're in a vacuum, period.

However, I may just not be the right target audience for giant moon bunnies.  It's entirely possible that if you pitched the idea to the current American executive branch, the Moon base schedule might quickly hop forward, so to speak.

- Sid

* Whitman Publishing first produced the Big Little Books line in the 1930s.  They were about 3.5 x 5 inches in size, and about an inch thick, depending on content.  The product line went through a variety of changes over time - my Big Little Book was part of their television and comic book themed lineup that was published from 1967 to 1969.

** Most notably in the character of Lieutenant Uhura from the original Star Trek series, as played by the legendary Nichelle Nichols, who also participated in the first interracial kiss on network television with Captain Kirk.

 

*** But not in a bad way.
 

Does "moonies" still have negative connotations?

"Well...we're Loonies."

Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

In the fullness of time, when there's a permanent habitat on the lunar surface, we'll need to come up with some kind of colloquial term for people who live on the Moon.  Sad that "loonie" is already taken for the Canadian one-dollar coin, although we may be willing to share that under the right circumstances.

- Sid
 

Giant Steps II: We Built this City.

In the previous posting, we looked at the basic aspects of constructing a permanent sustainable moonbase, and the reasons for such a base.  Now let's give some thought to how such a base would be designed, and the question of how we would go about actually building it.

Over the years, science fiction illustrators have happily drawn countless variations on the concept of a domed Moon city and there's a certain logic to the idea:  the idea scales well, from small to large, air pressure holds the dome up, it would be relatively easy to transport, and relatively easy to erect.  However, the down side of the dome is its relative fragility - on Earth, having a 20 pound chunk of metallic meteor punch through the roof is newsworthy.  On the Moon, it would be fatal.

It makes more sense to create a modular system, something that will require more time to put together, but which will be safer and more practical in the long run.  Modularity is a good thing - if there's a blowout in one module for whatever reason, you can hopefully seal off that module and maintain the integrity of the remainder of your habitat.

One option is to design some kind of standardized unit, a combination of cargo container and pre-fab housing, so that once they were landed on the Moon and emptied of supplies, they could be daisy-chained together with access corridors or air locks to create a sort of temporary trailer park.  As work went on, the modules could disconnected one at a time and buried or covered to provide protection from solar radiation.

NASA seems to be thinking more in terms of on-site construction, based on the concept of In Situ Resource Utilization, or ISRU, for short.  Research has been done into using lunar dust as a building material, a sort of moon concrete, possibly using sulphur* rather than water as a binding agent.  The resulting material would be used to build walls and foundations using a process like 3-D printing.

However, there are two very practical aspects of this process that have nothing to do with the design of the base, and everything to do with the actual process of building it:  personnel and resources.

Until now, space travel has been a game of elites, with two or three astronauts at a time being trained and then dispatched into space.  But the practicalities of building a Moon base would require dozens if not hundreds of people, people who will need to be transported to the lunar surface, where they will require spacesuits suited for the rigors of construction. They will need a place to live while they build a place to live. They will need food, water and oxygen, not to mention tools and materials.  They will need training so that they can perform their duties in an environment that will punish mistakes with death, and they will need to create an entirely new building process as they go.

Is this excessive?  Do we really need more people than the standard three-person NASA crew to build our base on the Moon?  That depends - what's our timeline for completion?  For that matter, what's our baseline?  How long does it take to build things on Earth?

In 1930, it took 3,400 people 410 days to build the Empire State Building, which is apparently very fast for a structure of that magnitude.  However, we're probably a long way away from skyscrapers on the Moon.  At the other end of the spectrum, it takes between three and six months to build a standard home, although the internet suggests timelines as long as 16 months for a custom structure - in other words, longer than the Empire State Building, but let's be fair, you're looking at a lot less than 3,400 workers.

Regardless, both of those examples are being built in an oxygen atmosphere, with standard gravity, and everything you could possibly need no further away than the closest Home Depot.  It also involves cranes, fork lifts, excavators, and bulldozers, and a specialized labour force of welders, masons, framers, dry wallers, roofers, plumbers and electricians working on it - not to mention painters, tile setters and cabinet makers.

The International Space Station is probably a better example. The ISS is made up of 16 modules:  nine American, four Russian, two Japanese, and one European, with a Soyuz attached for use as a lifeboat.  Construction on the ISS started in 1998, with the launch of the American Zarya module. Forty missions, 36 of which were Space Shuttle launches, were required to put all of the station's elements into orbit, with a two and a half year hiatus after the Columbia disaster in 2003. The final element was added in 2016, adding up to an 18-year construction program.**

What's the equivalent timeline for a base on the moon?  It only takes eight or nine minutes to get into orbit, as opposed to the three-day trip to the Moon, and I haven't seen any evidence of a planned equivalent to the Space Shuttle that will be able to act as a heavy lift cargo transporter. (The cancelled Obama-era Constellation program included plans for a heavy-lift cargo module, the Altair, which would have been capable of transporting six tons of cargo and four astronauts to the Moon's surface - NASA might want to look at pulling those specifications out of storage.)

The astronauts assembling the ISS also had the advantage of zero gravity, and tools like the Canadarm that streamlined the process.

Logic says that in the case of a lunar base, it will have to rely on prefabricated building elements of some sort, but even then, it will require some kind of heavy equipment on the Moon in order to create foundations, dig holes, and move the pieces into place.  The alternative is, of course, smaller pieces, but the smaller the pieces the more assembly and connection is required, and we're back to our crew of specialists.

The bottom line is that NASA actually has complete control over the timeline.  If the US government supports it, they have the expertise to create the necessary tools and processes, and there will be a significant base on the Moon by the planned date of 2028.  But really, NASA doesn't need to do any of this to meet that target.  They could just drop the equivalent of a Airstream trailer onto the Moon's surface, and voilà, we have a permanent Moon base, done. But is that really enough?  Could this be the moment that history will look back upon as the real beginning of our expansion from Earth into the solar system?

For a long time, NASA was as much a political tool as anything else, but over time it's evolved into the scientific enterprise that it should always have been.  Now it's time to apply the results of its research to the practical aspects of man living in space. The next step in their evolution is here: let's hope that they - and the government that supports them - are up to the task.

The first generation of astronauts was made up of risk takers: test pilots, ex-military fliers, people whose experience lay in performing in life-threatening situations.  The second generation needed scientists, people who could perform experiments and conduct research.

The third generation will need to change again.  Creating a permanent presence on the Moon will require builders: engineers, geologists, safety specialists, construction experts, people who can pave the way for the permanent residents of the fourth generation: the colonists.

- Sid

* No, seriously, this is an actual thing:  

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0950061811005903 

Now you know what they did with those samples that the Apollo astronauts collected from the surface of the Moon, although in some cases experiments have been conducted with moon soil "simulants" based on analysis of actual moon dust, rather than the real thing.

** There are still a couple of planned modules to be added, and eight other modules were cancelled, but the station is obviously in operation in its current configuration.
 

Giant Steps I: Walking on the Moon.

 

"Giant steps are what you take, walking on the Moon."

The Police, Walking on the Moon.

As part of its Artemis series of lunar missions, NASA plans to create "a sustainable human lunar presence" on the surface of the Moon.  Which sounds great, but what do we mean when we use the word "sustainable"?

Current usage would suggest that they're looking at creating an eco-friendly community with access to affordable housing and good public transit, but really, what they're talking about are the more practical aspects of sustainability - a settlement that would be able to exist independently of Earth.  It's an intelligent approach to the process, but there are a few hurdles to cross before we get there.

The first step in the process is picking the right location. The Apollo missions concentrated on the Moon's equatorial region, but NASA's plan is for the Artemis missions to land at the South Pole, thereby taking advantage of the water ice which has been observed in craters around the pole.  And that's the second step:  access to water. 

As Chris Hadfield pointed out in his Exploration show, once you have water, you have everything:  oxygen to breath, water to drink, and oxygen and hydrogen for fuel.  "Everything" is perhaps an over statement, I think you need to get some nitrogen in there for the air supply, but it's certainly the place to start.

The other thing that lunar ice gives us is a source of water for possible plant cultivation, which will be a crucial aspect of sustainability, acting as a source of both food and oxygen.

The third step is designing our base, which, given that form follows function, leads to a question which should possibly have come first:  why are we even building a base on the Moon? We've already got the planned Gateway Station, which can act as a hub for travel from Earth to Mars - why are we bothering to build anything on the surface?

I suspect that in reality, part of the answer to this question is "because the President said we were going to" - very similar to the reasons for the first Apollo landing, when you think about it.  However, there are probably better reasons than that.

One of the problems with the Gateway station will be radiation.  The Earth's magnetic field gives astronauts on the ISS some protection from solar radiation, but the Moon doesn't provide a similar barrier.  As a result, the Gateway Station will not be manned on a permanent basis.

The Moon suffers from the same problem, but constructing a base on the surface allows for a much more robust structure, possibly underground, that will act as a shelter from radiation, thereby allowing for permanent occupancy.  Not only that, but the Moon also has at least some gravity, which will hopefully help to reduce the negative long-term effects observed in the zero-gravity environment of the ISS, and the ready supply of water starts us down the path to sustainability, something that Gateway could never achieve.

It's easy to see the Moon base as the staging area for the exploration of the solar system, a kind of jumping off point for future missions.  A permanent base would be part dry dock, part storage depot, part fueling station, and, ultimately, part community - a city on the Moon, a place where people would live their lives and make their homes.

This takes us to the next question:  how do we go about building a lunar city - a colony as opposed to an outpost?  The next posting will take a look at the challenges of constructing a place to live on the Moon, a process which, if it's going to be done properly, will require a paradigm leap on the part of the international space community.

- Sid

 

Apollo 50: "Your dreams are our future."

“Make no small plans for they have no power to stir the soul.”

 - Niccolo Machiavelli

On the morning of July 20th, I attended a celebration of Canada's role in the exploration of space, presented by the Canadian Space Agency as part of the 50th anniversary celebration for the Apollo 11 moon landing.

In many ways, the celebration is well deserved. The Canadian space budget is large for a country of our population - or, as astronaut Jenni Sidey-Gibbons put it, "We punch well above our weight as a spacefaring nation."

However, that money has been well spent.  We're the 39th largest country by population, but we're in the top eight in terms of how many of our citizens have visited space, and our name has become synonymous with space robotics technology - literally, in the form of the Canadarm.  In fact, the first manmade object to touch the moon was made in Canada:  the landing feet of the Eagle lander were designed and manufactured by Héroux-Devtek, a company based in Longueuil, Quebec.

The cross-country event featured presenters scattered across Canada:  Jenni Sidey-Gibbons in Vancouver, Dave Williams in Regina, Jeremy Hanson in Ottawa, and Joshua Kutryk in St. John's.

Retired astronaut Robert Thirsk acted as MC for the morning from the Ontario Science Centre*, and David Saint-Jacques, recently returned to Earth after 204 days in space, was the main speaker for the event at the Montreal Science Centre in Quebec.

Speaking in a mix of English and French**, Saint-Jacques painted a fascinating and evocative picture of the current state of the art in space exploration, starting with the way in which the dream of being an astronaut had molded his life, and then looking at the actuality of that dream, finally boarding the Soyuz rocket, entering space, and gaining a whole new viewpoint on planet Earth.

"You know, you grow up as a child, and all you know is your family, and then you get a bit older and you realize there is a city outside. There’s a country. There’s a planet.  And there’s another step that we take back in our perspective of the whole universe."

He then went on to discuss the International Space Station, describing it as "The most complex machine ever built by mankind", but also commenting on the collaborative nature of the ISS, a project shared between countries that were at war for much of the 20th century: "But in space, we work together. And that’s perhaps the strongest thing for me about space exploration. "

For David, one of the most noteworthy things about the ISS is the manner in which it has allowed us to become permanent inhabitants of space, pointing out that, "Rather than go there for a few days and come back a bit dazed, now we live in space - for months!" He noted that there has been a constant human presence away from Earth for 15 years on the ISS:  "That's not science fiction, that's reality!"

He then discussed the degree to which the impossible environment of outer space is hard on the human body, and the manner in which research on the ISS examines the challenges of life in zero gravity, information which will be vital as we move forward in exploring the solar system, and undertake longer missions in space.

"It’s a bit like testing our camping equipment in the backyard before we say, okay, it’s ready.  I know how it works. Now I can go for real and do future exploration, and that is our future. "

One of the highlights of David's extended stay on the ISS was a spacewalk, "A highlight for any astronaut."

"I assumed I would feel very small.  But actually, it’s very strange – not at all. The feeling it gave me… I was in my suit alone  floating around Earth and I thought, wow, it’s amazing how big it is, the reach of the human mind.  When you look at Earth, you try to imagine the size of a human being on Earth. It’s very small. But the human mind is able to go into space. The human mind invents machines that keep us alive in that environment.  So I was a bit of a representative, a small piece of the human mind that is a huge, endless thing. And that really touched me."

He emphasized the degree to which future exploration will be performed in collaboration with robotic aids, an area where Canada has established itself as a world leader with the Canadarm, Canadarm2, and DEXTRE.

One of those areas of future exploration is the upcoming Gateway project. Canada's contribution to the new orbital lunar station will be the Canadarm3, the next generation of remote robotic manipulators.

"I think it’s a good example of the diversity of talent we have in this country.  And Canadians are known for our creativity, our sense of innovation, our spirit of adventure and discovery. So I’m proud to be part of that team."

In answering questions from the audience, David spoke to the near future of space exploration, commenting that, "Space will surprise all of us in the next five years.  The first people who will go to Mars have been born, but are still children."

In his opinion, as time moves forward, we will use space more and more to monitor and protect our planet.

"That will keep getting more and more important, our space infrastructure and the fact that we use space in our daily lives. So space is here to stay, and I’m glad that Canada is keeping in the leading group of nations in space exploration."

Following the national videoconferencing segment, Jenni Sidey-Gibbons chatted with the Vancouver crowd and took questions from the audience.  When asked about whether she would prefer to pick a particular mission, her response was that "...there are so many opportunities, I'm just looking forward to it, I just want to go. I'm looking to the Moon, to Gateway, or to Mars."  In particular, she looks forward to that first moment of feeling zero gravity and seeing the earth from space.

Regarding Gateway, she explained that the Gateway station will not be manned all the time, and will be designed to be more autonomous than the ISS due to the higher radiation hazards of lunar orbit, wryly commenting that, "people are pretty fragile".

She also spoke to the astounding challenges that she's faced over the last two years of training, such as the rigorous physical testing:  "It's not 'can you do a pull up', it's 'can you get our of a crashed helicopter upside down underwater in the dark"?

She sees no reason for Canada to develop its own launch capability:  "We rely upon our international partners for launching, as they rely on us for robotics."

In her opinion, the international nature of the current exploratory environment is one of its greatest strengths.  The first moon landing was accomplished in a spirit of competition, "redefining what we thought of as possible".  She looks forward to seeing what comes as a result of cooperation instead of competition.

Her enthusiasm and commitment are inspiring.  Jenni, here's hoping you're the first Canadian to set foot on the Moon - or maybe the first person on Mars.

That's one small step for a woman...

- Sid

A full version of the video conferencing portion of the event can be viewed on YouTube:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Eehnnn3uWg&amp

* It seemed ironic that we had a breakdown in the video streaming almost immediately after Bob Thirsk spoke to Canada's premier role in telecommunications.   As my mother would have commented, "...and yet we can put a man on the Moon...".

** I think that closed captioned translation for both English and French would have been a useful addition to the process - I was quite pleased by how much of David's francophone commentary I was able to understand (it's been a LONG time since high school French), but I bet there were a lot of people in the Vancouver audience who didn't follow a word of it.

Apollo 50: Postscript.

Peace On Earth

Man has reached out and touched the tranquil moon. Puisse ce haut fait permettre a l’homme de redecouvrir la terre et d’y trouver la paix.

Pierre Eliot Trudeau, Apollo 11 goodwill message

There's a sad irony in the plaque that was mounted on the ladder of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, given that there were 549,500 American troops in Vietnam in July of 1969. (And a similar irony in Trudeau's message, which translates to "May that high accomplishment allow man to rediscover the Earth and find peace.")

To date, there have been 18 fatalities during space travel - three of which took place in orbit - and 13 deaths as part of related training.  At some point, we will witness the first extraterrestrial murder - which, sadly, may be the real proof that humanity has become a space-going species.

- Sid

Apollo 50+: The Next Giant Leap.

It's hard to believe that it's been 50 years since Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed the Lunar Excursion Module in the Sea of Tranquility, 50 years since Neil Armstrong announced that it was "one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind"* - 50 years since Apollo 11 opened the door to the universe.

We’ve been slow to go through that door, but as I've commented before, the Apollo moon missions weren't really part of a strategy for sustained exploration, they were markers in a game of political one-upmanship. After the United States had placed their flag on the lunar surface in advance of the USSR, there was actually no need to continue to proceed any further, as evidenced by the fact that the Soviet Union never bothered to make a manned Moon landing - that particular marker had been scored, and both sides moved on to another part of the board.

However, as time moved on, tensions eased, and the USSR fell apart, a more thoughtful and scientific approach was taken to the now-defunct space race. The development of orbiting space stations such as Skylab and Mir marked a shift from exploration to experimentation, eventually resulting in the cooperative initiative of the International Space Station. The ISS is essentially a huge experimental platform, but it's also an ongoing investigation into the long term effects of life in zero gravity on the human body, information which will now be invaluable as we once again begin to explore further into the solar system.

The key to NASA's strategy for that exploration is made clear in the Apollo 50th anniversary logo, which features both the Moon and Mars. NASA plans to create a sustainable human presence on the Moon through its Artemis program, followed by manned missions to Mars.

 

The Artemis program is currently composed of seven missions, starting with unmanned tests of the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft next year, followed by a manned lunar flyby and the start of the assembly process for the Gateway lunar space station** in 2022. Once Gateway is complete in 2023, the Human Landing System will be transferred to it in stages by civilian rockets, with a manned lunar landing by Artemis III scheduled for 2024.

 

The next four Artemis missions will follow the same pattern of using Gateway as a transfer point from Orion to the HLS, and will presumably do the necessary groundwork (literally) to create a permanent sustainable human presence on the Moon by 2028. This exploration model will then be repeated for Mars, with a manned landing planned for sometime in the 2030s.

 

This all sounds very impressive, but it's important to remember that, regardless of international participation, NASA is the primary driving force behind Artemis, and as such, it is at the mercy of government funding and changes in political priorities.  As if to drive this point home, much of Artemis is made up of the remnants of cancelled NASA programs - the Orion capsule comes from the Constellation program, which was shut down in 2010 by President Obama, and the Power and Propulsion unit for Gateway is adapted from the Asteroid Redirect mission that was cancelled in 2017.

Hopefully Artemis will not suffer a similar fate, and we actually will see a permanent installation on the Moon, and subsequent missions to Mars.  After all, it's been 50 years - isn't it time for another giant leap?

- Sid

* I know, "one small step for man" is how this is normally written, but I honestly think that Armstrong's Ohio accent elides the missing "a" into the end of "for". Try repeating the statement in his voice and you'll see what I mean.

** The Gateway station has drawn some criticism as to whether or not an orbiting lunar platform is necessary, but intermodal stations like this allow for the use of dedicated space craft designed specifically for the role of launch from Earth, zero-g travel from the ISS to Gateway, and touchdown and return from the Moon.  I'd like to see a Mars space station for all the same reasons, but NASA hasn't mentioned that in their planning.

Apollo 50 Countdown: 5...4...3...2...1...

The Dark Side of the Moon.

“I am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life. I am it. If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the moon, and one plus God knows what on this side.”

Michael Collins, Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journey

Was anyone ever as alone as Michael Collins?

Not only was Collins left alone in the Command Module for 27 hours while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were on the Moon, he was cut off from contact with Mission Control and his fellow astronauts for 47 minutes every time that his orbit took him to the dark side of the Moon, alone, alone, alone.

Landing on the Moon almost seems easy by comparison.

- Sid

Apollo 50 Countdown: 5...4...3...2...

"IN EVENT OF MOON DISASTER."

Across the stratosphere
A final message, "Give my wife my love"
Then nothing more...

Peter Schilling, Major Tom

The most astonishing thing about the Apollo 11 mission is that they didn't all die.

Think about it: your task is to put a man - two men, as it turned out - on the Moon. The president has just publicly announced that the United States is going to do this by the end of the decade, and now you have to deliver on that promise.

You basically have to create the required technology from scratch. You've put men in orbit, so you know you can get that far, but now you have to build a system that transports a crew of some sort across the void between the Earth and its satellite, successfully lands on the lunar surface, lets an astronaut -  or astronauts - explore the surface on foot, then get back up into space and return to Earth.

You can test parts of it, but tests are just as expensive and time-consuming as the real thing, and the clock is ticking - who knows what the Soviets are up to.  But not testing could result in a historic failure, so tests have to happen.  Apollo 4 introduces the Saturn V launch system and does a successful unmanned test of the Command Service Module, and Apollo 5 tests the Landing Module - not by landing it, unfortunately, just getting it into space.  Apollo 6 suffers from launch problems but makes it into orbit:  that's the last unmanned test, now the stakes go up.

You can only imagine - literally - what the conditions on the Moon will be. There's no way to practice the landing: the only way you will find out if you've done everything right is by doing it, so you make your best guess based on what the scientists tell you, and hope that they know what they're talking about.

And if you're wrong about anything, the astronauts will die, as you, their families, their friends, and the world listen helplessly from 238,900 miles away.

Think about all the places that it could have gone wrong!  If the Saturn V rocket had failed again during the launch, if one of the thousands and thousands of components had failed at any point in the mission, if there had been a leak in the capsule, if they had crash-landed, if the lunar suits had failed, or some completely unexpected aspect of the lunar surface had meant that they couldn't get back to Columbia, the command module.

The last one is the nightmare scenario, the one you really don't want to think about.  If something had gone wrong with the Ascent Stage of the Eagle, there would have been nothing Michael Collins could have done from his post on the orbiting Command Module - he would have had to abandon Armstrong and Collins to a slow death as their oxygen ran out, or to the more immediate conclusion of "deliberately closed down communications" - a euphimistic term for suicide.

In an acknowledgement of the grim necessities that would have followed, a speech was prepared for President Richard Nixon* by William Safire, the presidential speech writer:

Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.

These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.

They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.

In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.

In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations.

In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.

For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.

- Sid

* I always forget that it's Richard Nixon who is president when they land on the Moon, it should be John F. Kennedy, but Kennedy had been dead for six years when Armstrong took his one small step.

Apollo 50 Countdown: 5...4...3...

"Now it's time to leave the capsule if you dare."

After the launch from Cape Kennedy, the three members of the Apollo 11 crew spent the next four days crammed together in the Command Module, the only part of the rocket which would complete the round trip and return to Earth.

The command module had a full volume of 218 cubic feet, although I suspect that some of the space wasn't really accessible to the crew*.  Sources describe this as "the same interior volume as two midsize American cars", but obviously with less opportunity to roll down the window, get out to stretch your legs, or to visit a gas station men's room - which would have been a useful thing, given that the systems used for urination and excretion were messy and unavoidably public.**

In her excellent 2010 book Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, one of the topics addressed by author Mary Roach is the manner in which potential astronauts are observed and tested in regards to their psychological stability.  Looking at the Apollo moon missions reveals the critical nature of these tests. Imagine that you have to spend a week seated on a small couch with two of your co-workers - I'll even let you pick which two - and you all have to keep some part of your body in contact with the couch while you perform every possible physical function for those seven days. And at least one of you probably snores.

- Sid

* If you'd like a better idea of what this was like, the Smithsonian has created a fascinatingly detailed virtual model of the module's interior:

https://3d.si.edu/object/3d/command-module-apollo-11:d8c63e8a-4ebc-11ea-b77f-2e728ce88125

It doesn't look like two midsize cars to me, whether they're American or not.

** The Lunar Excursion Module made no provision at all for the astronauts' basic needs, relying instead on oversized diapers for Armstrong and Aldrin during their 21 hour excursion.  Wearing a set of Depends™ must have diminished their sense of history just a little bit.

Apollo 50 Countdown: 5...4...

"We have liftoff."

The Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo 11 mission into orbit is defined as a "super-heavy launch vehicle" - 363 feet tall, and weighing in at 6,540,000 pounds.

It took about five hours to move the rocket over the four miles from the gigantic Vehicle Assembly Building at Cape Kennedy to Launch Pad 39A on the back of a crawler-transporter, one of two, the largest self-propelled land vehicles in existence.

 

The first stage is equipped with five F-1 rocket engines, which utilized 203,400 gallons of kerosene and 318,000 gallons of liquid oxygen to create 7.5 million pounds of thrust.

 

The Saturn V took about two years to build, and cost $110 million dollars - that's about $696 million in current cash*.

It was used once for about 20 minutes, and then thrown away.

- Sid

* To add some perspective, that's actually a little bit less than the box office for an MCU Spider-Man film.

Apollo 50 Countdown: 5....

"We are still Go with Apollo 11."

 

Counting down - just five days left until the 50th anniversary of the first manned Moon landing by Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin in 1969.

It surprises me that there isn't more public attention being paid to the anniversary - the Apollo 11 landing is arguably the most significant accomplishment of the 20th Century.  Neil Armstrong's step onto the surface of the Moon is a clear demarcation point in the history of our planet, the moment when we truly became a spacefaring species.

In saying that, I don't mean to diminish the importance of the missions that preceded Apollo 11, but somehow it seems a game of incremental steps that eventually lead to the Moon - increasingly higher flights until Yuri Gagarin crosses the line and orbits the earth in 1961, followed by multiple orbits, unmanned test flights, longer duration manned missions, the first lunar orbits by Apollo 8, more orbital tests, and the final "small step" onto the surface of the Moon on July 20th.

However, in some ways that culminating footstep was as pointless as it was historic.

The competitive origin of the initial landing contained the seeds of the Apollo program's termination.  The sole purpose of the Apollo missions was political: for the United States to land on the Moon before the Soviet Union.  Once that goal was accomplished, the Apollo program was more than a little like a dog chasing a car - what do you do after you catch one?  And so, after five more landings*, distinguished only by Alan Shepard's Apollo 14 golf stunt** and a few lunar rover photo ops, the program sputtered out in 1972 after Apollo 17.

The fiftieth anniversary of that final landing will arrive in 2022, and it might well be just as important to acknowledge that landmark as it was to recognize the anniversary of the first landing.  Hopefully by then we will have permanently returned to the Moon, or perhaps bypassed it on the way to Mars, but if not, a reminder of that last point in time when impossible was made possible might revive the desire to do so again.

- Sid

* The ill-fated Apollo 13 mission would have made it six.

** Insert "Moon shot" joke here.

"War. War never changes."

 

If you looked at the picture of my Fallout 4 plasma pistol and thought to yourself, "I want that," Chronicle Collectibles may have what you REALLY want.  For a mere ten thousand US dollars (okay, $9,999.99, but what's an extra penny between friends) Chronicle will be happy to take your pre-order for 2020 delivery of a lifesized set of T-51b power armour based on the design in the game - seven feet tall, complete with plasma rifle, and only 50 to be manufactured.

Chronicle says that the suit is "not meant for wearability", and, really, if you can afford to spend ten grand USD on something like this, you can afford to get someone to make you a wearable suit of power armour if you really want one - this version would just be for show.

- Sid

! C A U T I O N !

 

When WIRED™ announced that ThinkGeek.com was closing its virtual doors as of July 2nd and that everything on their site was for sale at 50% off, my first thought was "Plasma rifle!".*

Sadly, that particular sample of  Fallout 4 replica weaponry was no longer in stock.  However, the  plasma pistol was, and at 50% off, it seemed like too good an opportunity to turn down, even at the current USD exchange rate.

I placed my order, and waited. I had to pay some additional import fees**, and as usual UPS failed to impress me with their skills as a shipping choice, but in the fullness of time, my purchase made its way to my workplace, and I toted it home for the unboxing.

The plasma pistol, created by Texas-based Chronicle Collectibles, has been lovingly distressed in order to match the post-apocalyptic style of the game, and at 15 inches in length and 11 inches tall, it's an impressively large replica (which makes me feel that the 45 inch long rifle version would have been almost ridiculous).

It's quite well made and doesn't feel at all flimsy, but I'm not sure that I'd want to give it to a small child to play with, it's obviously a game prop reproduction, not a toy.  That being said, I was amused to see that it's equipped with the standard orange muzzle that distinguishes toy pistols from the real thing - it's hard to imagine that the police would mistake this for an actual weapon and draw their own firearms in response.

 

AND IT LIGHTS UP. (Which, for some obscure reason, was disconcerting to Jaq the Cat the first time I tried it.)

Overall, I'm completely pleased with my purchase - I'd love to have it make a noise when the trigger is pulled, and I'd like the trigger spring to be a bit stiffer, but that's just nit-picking.  But why does a device that would shoot at 20,000° C need to be stored at "a moderate temperature"?

- Sid

* What, was that not your first thought?

 ** I bear the Canadian government no ill will for this. In the current political climate, I would put some kind of tariff on imported American plasma beam weaponry as well, lord knows what Trump is charging on softwood going the other way.