IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON
-----------------------
John Pazmino
NYSkies Astronomy Inc
nyskies@nyskies.org
www.nyskies.org
2007 September 9
Introduction
----------
The NYC chapter of National Space Society is about the most active
of chapters, hosting regular monthly meetings with inhouse or outside
speakers. It also runs special events like the annual 'Allies in
space' show to highlight space exploration projects. This year's event
is on November 3rd at the City University Graduate Center. Click the
link on the homepage of www.nyskies.org.
The chapter also has occasional social events to let the members
interact informally. One such event was the viewing of the new movie
'In the shadow of the Moon' on Saturday 8 September 2007. We convened
at the chapter's meeting room in New York University, heard some news
and announcements, collected handouts. Then at 4:30PM we walked to the
cinema.
New York showing
--------------
The film is a documentary of the Apollo lunar flights narrated by
their own astronauts. It is directed by David Sington and moderated by
Ron Howard, of 'Apollo 13' fame. It is really the words of the
astronauts, in candid dialog, that propels the plot. Also included are
filmage not previously publicly shown, mostly ground-based shots of
training and preparation for the flights.
The movie debuted at the Hayden Planetarium at an invite-only
showing on Wednesday the 5th. This was attended by press and Museum
officials, plus a select few spacefaring advocates. Chapter president
Harold Egeln and NSS executive director George Whitesides were among
the guests. The reception after the showing featured five Apollo
astronauts to mingle with the audience.
The public opening was on Friday the 7th at Landmark's Sunshine
theater on Houston St, 1st-2nd Av, Lower East Side. This was a brisk
walk from NYU, at Washington Square. The closest subway, under the
theater's sidewalk, is 2nd Av, IND Houston St. Others a walk away are
Grand St, IND 2nd Av[!]; Bowery, BMT Nassau St; 8th St, BMT Broadway;
and Astor Pl, IRT Lexington Av. Buses run in Houston St, 2nd Av and
1st Av.
The film plays for several weeks at least at this cinema at
various hours of the day. Tickets are $10.75 for adults. At the 5:30PM
show we attended, the house was 1/3 to 1/2 full, or about 100 people.
Almost all were young or older adults, with only a couple children.
Apollo flights
------------
The Apollo project was the culmination of nine years effort to
land a human on the Moon and return him safety to Earth. It was
sparked by the 1961 State of the Union address by President Kennedy.
The project proceded in stages, beginning with suborbit and brief
orbit flights of Mercury capsules holding one person. The next step
was a two-person orbit of many days in Gemini capsules.
Apollo 1, the dry run of a simulated launch, ended in a fire that
killed its three-person crew. The capsule was filled with pure oxygen
at one atmosphere pressure, a factor that intensified the fire. Apollo
2 thru 7 were Earth orbit flights to test maneuvering and navigation
techniques.
Apollo 8 was also planned as an earth orbit flight. Then, word got
out that the Soviet Union was about to send a crewed capsule on a
lunar round-and-back ride within weeks. Apollo 8 was redirected for a
round-and-back lunar ride, which was successfully flown in December
1968.
Apollo 9 and 10 were also lunar flights to practice maneuvering
near the Moon but not to attempt a landing. The spacecraft were
slugged against any such trick. Apollo 11 was the first of three shots
at getting onto the Moon by the end of the decade in July 1969. If it
failed, two more shots were on the books for September and November.
With the success of Apollo 11, America won the moon race. For good
measure, we sent Apollo 12 to the Moon and back in December 1969. The
film emphasizes the Apollo 11 flight, but the astronauts commented on
the entire series, right thru the last one in 1972.
Since that last Apollo flight, no one ventured into space farther
than low Earth orbit. In fact, the US didn't even send a robot probe to
the Moon for the next 25ish years! And, to this year, 2007, we sent
only two such probes, Prospector and Clementine.
The astronauts
------------
The movie was carried by ten Apollo astronauts, shown mainly in
face-only scenes with flashback to the incidents they described. The
ten are Aldrin, Bean, Cernan, Collins, Duke, Lovell, Mitchell,
Schmidt, Scott, and Young. Among them, every Apollo mission is
covered.
Conspicuously missing was Armstrong. From his own wish he passed
up a role in the film, but supports it thru publicity. He is, never
the less, incorporated in the collateral filmage and dialog by the
other astronauts.
One thing that haunts many spacefarers is the antiquity of the
Apollo crews. They are all in their upper senior years! The closeup
scenes magnified their senior features, turning them into your
grandfather or elder uncle. Well, there are no new lunar astronauts;
the last flight was, uh, 35 years ago.
The message
---------
'In the shadow of the Moon' is a pure recounting of the Apollo
era, like that of other films on historical episodes. There is no
latent agenda, no agitation for reviving human lunar exploration, no
recruiting or enticing for astronaut careers, no solicitation for
space exploration funding.
The movie did portray the social climate of the 1960s with scenes
from the Vietnam war, civil rights and feminist movements, college
campus unrest. Otherwise, it was narrowly the emotions and feelings of
the crews that in the circle of humans who traveled to the Moon.
There was a short segment about the 'moon hoax', quickly trashed
by the astronauts. If we did fake the initial lunar flight to fool the
Soviets, why did we then fake it eight more times?
The astronauts speak of anxiety in flight, worries, quick thinking
for problems, musings while on the Moon, body reactions, appreciation
for Earth. Only at the very end, a couple mentioned the importance of
looking after the Earth as the home of human and other life, in
contrast to the utterly lifeless and hostile Moon. The audience has to
read into this the genesis of the modern environmental movement.
Audience reaction
---------------
The particular audience at our showing exited more or less without
excess expression. The older folk chatted about how they remember the
Apollo news as youths. The younger ones, not even born yet in the
1960s, hazarded that Apollo must have been an interesting phase of
history.
No one mentioned the current NASA project for returning to the
Moon, President Bush's Moon-Mars-Beyond theme, beating China/North
Korea/Iran/Mali/Nicaragua. No one expressed even a wish that we could
be still exploring the Moon by human visits.
Other Apollo items
----------------
Separately from the instant NSS social, I learned of other curious
Apollo items. First, there were supposed to be missions thru Apollo 20
into the mid 1970s. Apollo 20 was cancelled to release a Saturn V
rocket for Skylab. Apollo 18 and 19 were scrubbed because the space
race was over. The command capsule for the Apollo 18 is on display at
the Cradle of Aviation museum, Mitchell Field, Long Island.
Apollo 18 was targeted to the Aristarchus plateau, Oceanus
Procellarum, to investigate transient luminous outbursts reported in
and near crater Aristarchus.
The Saturn V was the largest heaviest rocket in routine service.
The Soviets tried their own super rocket but it never achieved a good
flight. All exploded or were purposefully destroyed within seconds
after liftoff. No rocket of comparable size and bulk was fielded by
any entity since then.
The last remaining Saturn V fuselage is displayed, mounted
horizontally in sections, at the Marshall Space Flight Center,
Huntsville, Alabama. Two others are at Kennedy Space Center and
Johnson Space Center.
NASA has on the drawing boards the Ares rocket, a sort of modern
Saturn V. It is billed as the booster for human flights to the Moon
and Mars. With a lift of some 40 tons of payload, the Ares could be a
handy way to field major new automated or robot solar system craft.
Yet, no spacefaring group -- not even those who build or design
spaceprobes -- is seriously pushing to use it for such missions.
After the show
------------
When the theater let out, Harold Egeln handed out notices of
Allies in Space and NYSkies website, as leftover litterature from the
chapter meeting, We then, six from that meeting, walked to Moonstruck
diner on 2nd Av near 5th St for supper. We rehashed the movie and
bantered about human space flight.