First, I am a HUGE HUGE space buff and amateur astronomer. The Right Stuff is one of my all-time favorite movies. I know shit tons about the space programs.
This tho? This looks like overdramatized bullshit. ALSO!! There’s nothing particularly “special” about Neil Armstrong. This movie SHOULD be about the WHOLE FREAKIN CREW!! He wasn’t alone up there, and he COULD NOT have done it himself. He NEEDED Buzz Aldrin there with him in the lander. Both of them NEEDED Michael Collins up there in the command/service module. From these trailers, it looks like they’re almost entirely ignoring those two ESSENTIAL members of the crew.
Great. Neil Armstrong was the first person to step on the moon. It very well could have been Buzz, or any of the other astronauts. Screw this movie.
I am sick to death of people ignoring the rest of the people involved in this historic event, particularly the other two astronauts of Apollo 11. MOST people have no idea who Michael Collins is, though he waited all alone, orbiting the moon, for Neil and Buzz to come back up. Lots and lots of people can’t name Buzz either. Ridiculous and disgusting. ALL of them are international heroes if you ask me, and should be recognized as such instead of constantly singling out Armstrong.
I liked the article too.
The crew picked the names for the components of the spacecraft. For Apollo 11, it happened to be “Columbia” and “Eagle”
If Apollo 9 had landed on the moon, the communication would have been “The Spider has landed”.
So not a metaphor, the literal name of the ship. No doubt there was guidance in the naming, but the names were not all particularly patriotic.
Tangent: the other day I read Andy Weir’s Artemis , which is a thriller set in a plausible Moon colony, featuring a visitor center at the Apollo 11 landing site.
Recommended!
We have that issue today - the new NASA Administrator says he wants Astronauts on Wheaties boxes, to be the equivalent in the public mind to professional sports stars.
Our astronaut corps is made up of amazingly accomplished men and women. But to say that any particular astronaut should be seen as a LeBron James or a Serena Williams, (1) discounts the accomplishments of LeBron or Serena - their achievements are the result of individual dedication and sacrifice and they become stars because they generate revenue and (2) insults the contributions of every NASA employee and contractor who supports the human spaceflight program.
Every NASA astronaut is successful because they literally have thousands of people working to support them and keep them safe. I have no issue with astronauts being the public face of NASA outreach and communication and it’s great that people love astronauts - that’s good for NASA as a whole but to go back to the celebrity astronaut we had in the 60’s is a step back in my view.
I think that is the point that @jhbadger was making. It’s not about the particular person, it’s about the accomplishment. Same with NASA’s current hype with commercial crew - they trotted out the astronauts who are going to fly on the first commercial vehicles, but any of those people could be swapped out for any reason before the flight - and it’s likely that very few would notice one way or the other.
So CRISPR. FTW!
But Chris Hadfield’s movie wouldn’t just be about his time in space. There have been very few astronauts who have possessed the innate celebrity power to turn it into other things - other than Chris Hadfield, who can you think of? Other than a select few, former astronauts are like former cast members who show up at Cons and sign autographs and take photos with fans.
Buzz Aldrin
Leland Melvin
Mark Kelly
who else?
I would watch a Buzz Aldrin biopic that was just a 90-minute loop of him punching that Moon Hoax Conspiracy guy.
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