Well, I haven’t trusted(anymore) NASA since Challenger disentengrated.
My opinion.
Yes, I did. It’s a story of astronauts carrying unauthorised stuff to the lunar surface and back to Earth (yes, I know, some envelopes were authorised, others weren’t). Goes to show that the idea of astronauts sneaking objects to Earth past NASA is not unthinkable.
In that link, it says:
After Apollo 14, it was determined that none of the biological examinations had produced any evidence of biological activity in the lunar samples, nor had they found the lunar material to be harmful to human life or other Earth life forms. Hence came the order to dissolve the lunar quarantine for the crew, which meant that the crews of Apollos 15, 16 and 17 were spared the experience.
So there were three manned lunar landings whose crew were subject to the quarantine protocol, and three whose crew weren’t. Plenty of opportunity to sneak Moon rocks past NASA.
Yes, during GEMINI not Apollo missions.
Why choose Challenger as your break in trust and not the Apollo 1 launchpad fire or the Apollo 13 oxygen tank rupture? Can you (without googling) explain the engineering and administrative errors that led to the Challenger explosion, or any of the parties involved?
Apollo. It’s called the Apollo 15 postal covers incident for a reason, you know.
Right, sorry, I was thinking about the sandwich incident.
But in general the cover/stamps were authorized to take, it was the money making deal that caused the controversy.
The astronauts were allowed to take Personal Preference Kits (PPKs) into space with them. These small bags, with their contents limited in size and weight, contained personal items the astronauts wanted to be flown as souvenirs of the mission. As the spaceflights moved toward and culminated in the Moon landings, the public’s fascination with items flown in space increased, as did their value.[7]
Slayton either approved or knew of the covers.
So I think it’s fair to say that by the same token, an astronaut who’d pick up a rock for his family would not have caused controversy either.
Umm. I wasn’t born yet, during Apollo.
All I know about Challenger was that it degenerated on TV in front of my face.
And NASA was emblazoned allover it. So yeah, I blame them.
Using NASA as a cite doesn’t impress me.
Apollo 1 was a ‘failure of imagination’ a classic case of an accident that happened brcause people didn’t notice the risk until it was too late.
Apollo 13 was a manufacuring error.
Challenger was different. The engineers knew that launching in that weather was dangerous. They informed management. Management ignored them, and ordered a launch that was outside the vehicle’s acceptable low temperature limit. Engineers warned that the O-rings would lose ductility below 51 degrees, and NASA management ignored them and launched when the temperature was 38 degrees.
The first two accidents were engineering failures. Challenger was an administrative/political failure.
So was Columbia, for that matter. foam falling off the fuel tank had already damaged the wing of an orbiter and came close to loss of vehicle on a previous flight, but the hole it punched that time was right over a steel structural member, so the wing stayed intact. Somehow, NASA conclused that the ability to survive that hit to the wing made the vehicle more safe. The next time foam hit the wing, they weren’t so lucky. The real conclusion should have been that since the orbiter was damaged in a way that had not been predicted, a complete engineering analysis of the risk should have been taken, as it was after Columbia.
The Challenger story is often taught in classes on engineering communications and visualization. The engineers just couldn’t get their point across in a way that management would respond to.
Everything you said is true. That said, it was a design failure as well. The design should have been fail safe at any reasonable operating temperature.
Not necessarily. Safety through operational limitation is common in aerospace. I don’t know of a way to make a failed ‘O’ ring on a solid rocket booster fail safe.
But yeah, there were a LOT of design problems with the shuttle, and they existed since day one. Just hanging a manned vehicle on the side of the tank was questionable. The RTLS landing procedure was a joke, and none of the astronauts expected to survive the attempt should theynhave to make it. Using solid rocket booster that can’t be shut off or throttled was another issue.
There were many other design issues. It was a space vehicle designed by many committees, and the result was a huge, dangerous white elephant. A spectacular engineering achievement to be sure, but its requirements and interference in the design doomed it from the start.
No, since it was strictly against the rules, every thing brought on board was approved.
Can I please ask, as the OP, for an end to the hijack about Challenger and NASA’s other disasters? We’re talking about moon rocks here.
Thanks.
So is it debated that the astronauts snuck back any moon rocks at all? I thought the one Armstong gave away was real, and NASA went to quite a bit of effort to get it back.
Their gear and the interior of the LEM was caked with regolith dust. It sticks to everything. It would not have been hard for an astronaut to get a few grams of the stuff if they had a little container to put it in. I wouldn’t be surprised if the people who cleaned the LEM and the suits and gear didn’t make off with a bit of it. Maybe that’s where the test tube of dust came from.
So we’ve determined NASA was never perfect.
I could see some dust and rocks staying with Astronauts.
And if it’s not legal to have them I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t advertise it.
As far as them being too proud of being in the space program to sneak stuff. Welp, they’re human beings. As far as I know, we’re a prideful bunch. Til we’re not.
Not one of us is above that.
No one but one of them can prove or disprove whether they got themselves a souvenir.
Which one are you referring to? The only one I know alleged to be connected to Armstrong is the Cicco tube of dust, which NASA has made no effort at all to even see, much less get back.
Thanks to @Darren_Garrison for the link to the 2007 thread.
@Omar_Little, in that thread you named Alan Shepard as the astronaut you only alluded to in the lost treasures thread, and said you had actually seen the earrings.
Can you describe them: size, color, appearance in comparison to other moon rocks, etc.? Do you have any doubt that Shepard’s daughter sincerely believed they were genuine? Do you believe they were? Did she say anything else about them, or how Shepard got the material?
Re the Armstrong dust and the earrings, back during that thread (I didn’t come in to it until a 2018 bump) I tried to do my part in digging deeper on it by contacting a lunar researcher that I “know” (through a meteorite-related mailing list and through being Facebook friends, but I’ve “known” more than 10 years) who works on actual Apollo samples at Washington University. Unfortunately he knew nothing “inside” of either issue, but I did put some work into it.
I remain deeply skeptical of both the vial of dust and the errings.
What are you talking about? Most of the envelopes on board were not authorised.
Each rock in the earings was about the size of a green pea. Not large at all. They were grey and porous. I am only going on the veracity of what was told to me. She definitely believes they are genuine and I have no reason to doubt her or her source, which would have been Shepard. As far as where she believes her dad got them is from the moon, as he was there.
Many of the moon specimens are missing: