apollo 11 – Allison Thurman

biweekly links 7-31-2019: the Soviet/Space Race edition

Pulled less from recent news and more from my current recreational reading:

Grab your Geiger counter: a trip to Chernobyl’s first rave: Actually more of an art installation, this article is from last fall but given the fresh interest created by the new HBO miniseries I thought it reasonable to include today. I’ve not seen the miniseries (no HBO, besides I doubt I could endure the “puppy scene”) but I’ve had a morbid interest in the catastrophe for years. I recently listened to the podcast [YouTube] about the show, and read the exhaustively detailed Midnight in Chernobyl. I also found a huge deck of photos at Imgur (warning: photos of radiation burns and mutated animals in the last third of the page). Though far from expert, I say with confidence that raving in Chernobyl is still probably a bad idea.

Detailed diagram of the Chernobyl reactor after the explosion taken from the Imgur set above. Drawings like this help me better envision what I read about in “Midnight In Chernobyl”.

What we know about Ron D. Moore’s For All Mankind so far: What if the Soviet Union had beaten the U.S. to the moon? The Space Race would have continued, aiming to be the first to Mars, Saturn, etc. Or at least according to Ron. D. Moore it would. I’m not sure what to make of this – on the one hand I love alternate history, on the other I can’t help but think the series is cynically timed to coincide with the Apollo 11 anniversary.

The Haunting Mystery of the USSR’s Lost Cosmonauts: How is it possible that a conspiracy theory that’s been around long enough for the Smithsonian to address it is something I’m only hearing about now? And from a nail-bitingly intense work of fiction rather than my usual weird sources, curiously enough. I think if the Soviet Union put people in space that they lost they would certainly have lied about it. I just doubt they could have kept it secret after the fall of the USSR. What do you think?

On Apollo 11

I was not alive for the Apollo 11 landing.

So I don’t remember seeing it on tv in real time. But I remember a book about the Apollo rockets we had when I was very small that I read until it was worn out, so I was clearly impressed as a child. As an adult, I dropped the ball on attending any of the 50^thanniversary celebratory events – it was too damn hot, and I was tired. So consider this post my feeble, late addition to the festivities.

For the past week I’ve been listening to documentaries on the Apollo program (hey, work is the only time I have to do this – I can’t watch, I can only listen). Fifty years on the technology still blows me away – an entire industry and science of space travel had to be invented within 10(!) years to meet Kennedy’s deadline. The spacesuits alone are masterpieces of high tech and high craftsmanship. But it’s not just the inventiveness, tenacity, and ambition of everyone involved in the Apollo missions that thrills me, but also the incredible amount of goodwill the successful landing generated around the world.

Every documentary includes people from the astronauts’ publicity tours congratulating them because “we did it” – as in “we”, the entire human species, succeeded. And despite clichés about how humbling it is to see the smallness and frailty of our little blue planet from outside, for one shining moment it felt like the whole of humanity was in something together.

Human beings do a lot of stupid, mean-spirited, destructive things, but Apollo wasn’t one of them. Arguably it was a high point in human science and ingenuity on a global scale, and a high point of international regard for the United States in particular.

I’m saddened that the 50th anniversary of this achievement should occur when the reputation of the United States is so poor, and that paranoia and “Google University” arrogant thought prevails over informed critical thinking. We’re better than this.

the return of biweekly links: 7/17/2019

Voynich Manuscript: Did Bay Area researchers decipher mysterious medieval book? – this time it’s Latin written in medieval shorthand. The article provides a quick review of all the latest scholarship. As I’m not a linguist or cryptographer I still abstain.
More Than 1 Million People Agree To ‘Storm Area 51,’ But The Air Force Says Stay Home – I’m amazed that Area 51 is still a “thing” on the pop cultural landscape this many years after “The X-Files” heyday, and while I suspect what people see there is bleeding edge human tech, I confess a curiosity about what lies beyond the black mailbox. I’m tickled that the Little A’Le’Inn is not only still in business but booked solid for that weekend, internet joke or not.

The ‘Inn in “Paul” wasn’t the real deal, but it appears they took pains to get the set right.

Catch These Events Celebrating Apollo 11 Moon Landing’s 50th Anniversary – a fairly comprehensive list of this Saturday’s (7/20) 50th anniversary festivities around the U.S. Being the fashion nerd that I am, I really want to see the restored space suit.