I didn’t fully understand the whole Nixon speech/protocol in case of disaster. Was NASA actually going to have a clergyman conduct a funeral while those two guys were alive and listening in? And then cut contact with them so that they could die alone?
That seems strange. You would think that they would want to talk until the end.
I wonder about that too. But if they really only had 2 days, most of that time would be taken up by running and re-running checklists and contingency plans. At the very end there would probably be only hours or minutes left, and I’m sure everyone was in agreement that nobody wanted to listen to 2 astronauts asphyxiating to death. If I were an astronaut I’d find it undignified; if I were on the ground crew I’d find it horrifying. Better for all concerned to say something inspiring and then turn off the radio.
Or at least the plan was probably to not share that last part of whatever came over the radio link with the public.
Clergy have been saying some manner of Last Rites to the dying since humans invented religion. Dying with some doctors & nurses trying every trick they know while clergy are nowhere to be found is a recent invention. Having the Head Cheese say how much the whole planet appreciates your sacrifice would be a nice touch. If I was one of the guys stuck on the Moon, well, it’s not going to solve my real problem, but it is gonna make me feel a bit better while my feelings still matter.
Besides, the real audience is the rest of the taxpayers. By failing to correctly manage the message with the shuttle crashes, NASA converted would-be heros into victims. Which killed the whole buzz about human spaceflight. Had Nixon had to deliver that speech & done it well, we’d maybe have had a different next 40 years of NASA.
You can safely assume this was all talked out & a plan written long before launch. Whatever each crew of astronauts wanted at the end is probably what they would’ve gotten had it become necessary. My bet is some variation of Work the problem to the very end, say something profound to your family, and sign off once and for all. It’s the Pilot Way.
As to astronaut suicide when there’s no other way out: Screw the space toilet, I want to know about the 'death pill'! - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board
I’d probably quote some Space Oddity lyrics.
Assuming a worst-case scenario - the astronauts land safely on the moon, only to find that, for whatever reason, they can’t leave (presumably because the LM was damaged in the landing, or the ascent stage malfunctioned) - would NASA at one point have just said “Alright guys, hanging up now. Bye, I guess,” or something to that effect?
I assume that the astronauts only had a day or two worth of air, wouldn’t someone have stayed on the line for the duration, if the astronauts requested it? At the very least, I would hope that they’d be given an opportunity to speak with their families to say goodbye, as well as a member of the clergy, if they so desired.
I’m sure the political flacks didn’t want Nixon to get in the midst of a bunch of touchy-feely emotional discussion with soon-to-be-dead men. It wouldn’t have surprised me if they cut an astronaut off mid-sentence. And the channel would be closed until Nixon was gone and the press was sent away. Then NASA and the astronauts could speak again.
I’m curious as to whether the communications were coming in on frequencies known to the press – could the press listen to the comm directly, or were they dependent on whatever NASA fed them?
I don’t think the instructions say that NASA will terminate communications with the astronauts right after the president’s speech. They say that after the president speaks and after NASA ends communications with the men, a clergyman will say a prayer.
Back to original issue – like Santos, I very much doubt that the surviving astronaut could maneuver his colleague back into the LEM. The doorway was extremely tight and the suits are very bulky, making fine motor work all but impossible. Plus, if course, the guy would have to do it one-handed as he held the ladder with his off hand. Even if possible, it would require tremendous exertion on the part of the survivor and NASA would, reasonably, consider his safety more important than the rescue of remains.
As for the weight issue, I wouldn’t think it would be that big a deal. The reason it was a problem on Apollo 13 is because of an oversight by the Mission Control while they were focused on five thousand other emergencies. If they had thought about it, they could have recalculated the trajectories. If they lost a man on the moon, they would presumably be more focused on exactly what effects that would have on the mission.
The flight of the LEM ascent stage back to the CSM and the trip home could be completed without major difficulty by two astronauts. The descent is the only part of the trip where the second man (the Lunar Module Pilot) is of critical importance to call out landmarks, altitude, position, fuel, etc., while the Commander was focused on the stick. But even then the LMP’s job is much more a systems engineer than a pilot, and so long as things went otherwise OK, even that part could probably be handled by a single astronaut.
ETA: As to the duct tape idea, I’d consider that very risky. The LEM’s walls were made out of tinfoil, basically. Super-duper tinfoil, but still. I’d think there’d be a serious chance of ripping through the LEM’s skin if you taped anything to the side.
–Cliffy
Assuming a rational design, wouldn’t they die of running out of everything pretty much at once?
If the CO[sub]2[/sub] scrubbers are only going to last so long, why bother bringing enough oxygen that you have plenty left over?
Because you could develop a slow oxygen leak.
–Cliffy
They wouldn’t have had to at all. The situation referred to happened on Apollo 13. The problem with Thirteen wasn’t just that they were light. It’s that they were light, the engine normally used for course correction was shot, and all the computers were off. Given a fully functional CM, being light wouldn’t be a problem at all - put the numbers in the computer, do a course correction burn. Take away the computer and the easy ability to do the course correction burn, suddenly being light is a big problem.
If just being light were a problem, then they would have had issues on any flight that didn’t manage to land on the moon. Something that was absolutely considered as a contingency.
Since they depressurized the entire LM every time they went outside they needed to bring a lot of O[sub]2[/sub] in order to repressurize it.
But like I said, it was a guess, based on Apollo 13 where the CO[sub]2[/sub] almost killed them(the scrubbers on the LM and CM where not interchangeable, so they had to fit a square peg in a round hole).
Again, keep in mind that 13 had many other problems. The LM scrubbers held out for several days (more than 2) and supported 150% of nominal load during that time (designed for two men, three in the LM for 13).
Calling Stranger On A Train (hey, when you have access to an honest-to-goodness NASA resource, why not use it?).
Actually, no, the LM scrubbers did not hold out, they had to jury-rig the CM’s scrubber cartridges so they would fit in the LM.
I’ll second the call for Stranger On A Train, anything he can come up with will be better than my WAGs. 
That’s true… when they speak of ending communication, they’re talking about ending one-way communications with dead astronauts, not a conversation with the living.
Is the Moon dust deep enough for a proper burial?
But on average, you’re still going to run out of everything at once, right? I bet you could have one of the CO2 scrubbers die and make it on whatever remained.
You wouldn’t include an extra margin of one resource above and beyond the extra margin of other resources. You’d include margins based on expected failure cases.
Probably not, although it would vary by location. The Apollo astronauts found the dust to be a thin layer over harder, broken rock. The first 20 centimeters was fairly easy to get through, below that you had to use a hammer to drive anything into the ground.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missions/apollo/apollo_12/experiments/smi/index.shtml
I just re-watched the movie the other day. The problem is that when they did their first “we’re not landing on the moon” course correction before turning the computer off, they hadn’t compensated for the missing weight-- they basically ran the numbers assuming a successful mission loaded with moon rocks.
By the time they realized the calculations were off by a few hundred pounds, the computer was off and there wasn’t power to turn it back on. So the second burn, the one made without computer assistance, the really scary one, may have been unnecessary if they had calculated the weight on the first burn correctly.
Note that “may”… they travelled a long distance without course corrections, so that’s by no means certain. Another point is that the first course correction had to be done ASAP so they could turn off the computer and maintain the batteries, so the additional time taken to calculate the “correct” course in the first place might have drained the battery enough to make landing impossible.