Alcoholics by modern standards is not the same as “alcoholics” by 60’s standards. All of the first three Astronaut groups - Group 1 (Mercury 7), Group 2 (Next Nine) and Group 3 (The Fourteen) were test pilots, fighter pilots, or both. Nearly all of them smoked, drank, and partied as was typical for military pilots of that era. Neil Armstrong was an exception to the rule in that respect, and even he was known to smoke and drink on occasion. They were also disciplined professionals, and a 2007–2008 NASA investigation into 20 years of spaceflight (including the early era) found no evidence that any astronaut was ever drunk or impaired by alcohol on launch day.
I’m finding that Aldrin struggled with alcoholism (and depression) after the Apollo 11 mission and neither ‘during this time’ nor before the mission.
Do you have a cite, @nearwildheaven ?
I had long heard that he had a drinking problem before he went to the moon, and maybe he did. I’ll do a little more searching.
I’m going to post this link, because his mother’s maiden name was Moon! Is that crazy, or what?
As Tom Wolfe would say, “Flying and drinking and drinking and driving.”
Drinking heavily is one thing. Shoot, many of us did that in our college years, right?
But a drinking problem, that’s different.
Now for the really big news:
Elon Musk said on Sunday that SpaceX has shifted its focus to building a “self‑growing city” on the moon, which could be achieved in less than 10 years.
Ah, Elon… Reality, like the Moon, is a Harsh Mistress.
But seriously, as mentioned, Starship was the preferred choice for the landers for Artemis and I don’t see THAT working any time soon. Blue Origin (Bezos) has been plan B and others gave made proposals. Can they do it “before the decade is out”? Doesn’t really look like it.
The moon makes much more sense for spaceborne infrastructure anyways. It’s much closer for emergency aid, it’s got plenty of resources that we could use for growing our presence in space, and it has a shallower gravity well and no atmosphere so it is much easier to get those resources into orbit, where we want them. Resources harvested on Mars are much harder to do anything with other than use them on Mars. I expect that when we eventually do start doing large scale space stuff, the moon will be much more important than Mars for the foreseeable future.
All of that has little to do with Elon, who’s rapidly crashing out and getting more disconnected from reality by the day.
Love it. Wy Knott?
Don’t call her that. It’s a funny-once, and she’s been called it many times.
I’ve seen an ad a few times lately promoting a Florida trip, to “See the Artemis booster on the launch pad! Witness history before it happens!”. Which means that they expect that, even after whatever amount of time it’d take me to arrange an impromptu trip, they still won’t have launched.
I do worry about Starship being used as a moon lander. It’s a massive, tall rocket. They have to vertically lend it in lunar gravity onto uneven lunar regolith. Low gravity makes keeping stability even more difficult. There’s a reason lunar landers have been short and squat machines. If the rocket toppled the astronauts would have no chance of survival.
Happened to me in Kerbal Space Program. Twice.
The first time the top of the rocket ended up resting on an elevation so it was at an aprox. 45 degree angle, I managed (after a few saves and reloads) to take off with it and return to Kerbin.
The second time the landscape was flat, there were no survivors.
For those who don’t remember, there were two landers in recent times that did fall over. One of them, a Japanese mission named SLIM, was completely upside down. It did not have widespead landing struts. The other one (Athena) was not short and squat and, despite having widespread struts, ended up on its side.
That, too — and they haven’t even landed it on solid ground on Earth yet.
Hell, AFAIK no Falcon booster has landed on anything not flat and solid — a barge deck or a paved platform. Not even just plain graded soil?
The old-school landers were purpose-designed as specifically that, not combining being TLI/TEI stages and reentry vehicles. Always puzzled me why Starship was seen as a first choice. Can only figure that it was because SpaceX was so far ahead of anyone else in getting actual things flying into space and back and because it could be multipurpose of it worked.
If the Starship lands and manages to get stable footing, are moonquakes the only threat that could topple it? There’s no wind, so at least it won’t blow over.
Sideways meteors?
Brian
People moving inside and unbalancing it?
Mishandling the cavorite?
It raises some questions: will NASA agree to put humans in the first Starship to attempt the landing? It took SpaceX four failed attempts before first landing the Falcon 9. Even if they undertake some landing tests, how will people feel about one or more 50m tall, 100 ton rockets still containing lots of fuel crashing onto the lunar surface?
No, SpaceX is supposed to demonstrate a few more aspects of the mission unmanned (including refueling a Starship in space, as well as landing on the moon) before the manned mission takes place.
The fuel transfer demonstration is meant to happen June of this year (I’ll believe that date when I see it) and the landing on the lunar surface is meant for March 2027 (again, I’m dubious).