Andrei Sakharov was once one of the leading nuclear scientists in the Soviet Union.
Concerned about the risk of nuclear war, he became one of the leading dissidents.
Elected to the Supreme Soviet, his televised exchange where he called out Gorbachev at the plenum, was one of the turning points in the fall of the Communist Party.
The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, named for Soviet dissident scientist Andrei Sakharov, is presented yearly by the European Parliament to individuals or groups who work in the defense of human rights and freedom of thought. The 2022 Sakharov Prize was awarded to the people of Ukraine.
Andrei Sakharov is the father of the Soviet “H” bomb who later turned his back on the arms race and won the Nobel Peace prize in 1975. Four laureates of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought have also been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. With the years for Sakharov Prize and for the Nobel Peace Prize, they are:
1988 / 1993 — Nelson Mandela
1990 / 1991 — Aunf San Suu Kyi
2003 / 2001 — the United Nations
2013 / 2014 — Malala Yousafzai
Andrei Sakharov is mentioned in passing in the Clarke novel, 2010: Odyssey Two as the crusty chair of the Soviet Academy of Science.
The Soviet spacecraft Leonov also makes use of the Sakharov drive in its mission to Jupiter’s volcanically-active moon, Io. The drive is not mentioned by name in the 1984 Peter Hyams-directed movie based on the book.
For the Apollo 13 moon mission, Aquarius was the name for the lunar module, and Odyssey was the name for the CSM, the command and service module.
15 LMs were built, and 10 were launched. Names for the Apollo CSMs and LMs, for the missions that included an LM spacecraft, were:
Apollo 8 — CSM-103 / LTA-B — Lovell, Anders, Borman
Apollo 9 — Gumdrop / Spider — McDivitt, Scott, Schweickart
Apollo 10 — Charlie Brown / Snoopy — Cernan, Stafford, Young
Apollo 11 — Columbia / Eagle — Armstrong, Collins, Aldrin
Apollo 12 — Yankee Clipper / Intrepid — Conrad, Gordon, Bean
Apollo 13 — Odyssey / Aquarius — Lovell, Swigert, Haise (a Marine!)
Apollo 14 — Kitty Hawk / Antares — Roosa, Shepard, Mitchell
Apollo 15 — Endeavour / Falcon — Scott, Worden, Irwin
Apollo 16 — Casper / Orion — Mattingly, Young, Duke
Apollo 17 — America / Challenger — Cernan, Evans, Schmitt
These missions did not have an LM spacecraft:
Apollo 5 — (no CSM) / LM-1 — uncrewed
Apollo 6 — CSM-020 / LTA-2R — uncrewed
Apollo 7 — (“Phoenix”) / no LM — Eisele, Schirra, Cunningham
Glenn Cunningham (1909-1988) was a middle-distance runner who held the world record in the mile for a time in the 1930s. Born on a Kansas farm, his legs were badly burned in a schoolhouse fire when he was 8; the same fire killed his older brother, Floyd. Although doctors recommended amputation of both legs, he was determined to walk again and obviously achieved that goal. Later in life, he and his wife operated Cunningham Youth Ranch in Kansas, which was an exotic animal farm which focused on helping needy and abused children.
Steve Prefontaine, nicknamed “Pre”, was a long distance runner from Coos Bay, Oregon who from 1973 to 1975 set American records at every distance from 2,000 to 10,000 meters. He died at age 24 in an automobile crash near his residence in Eugene, Oregon while preparing for the 1976 Olympics with the Oregon Track Club in 1975. At the crash site, a Memorial known as Pre’s Rock stands at the crash site where he died. He had just dropped off marathoner Frank Shorter after a party. Pre’s blood alcohol content was 0.16.
Images of Pre’s Rock: https://is.gd/hv89dZ
Coos County, New Hampshire is pronounced with two syllables, sounding like Koe-oss. It is the least populated county in New Hampshire, and has the only international port of entry in the state. Coos County is named for Algonquian word meaning “small pines”.
Actor Chris Pine, known for playing Captain James Kirk in the Star Trek reboot films, and Steve Trevor in the Wonder Woman films, is the son of actor Robert Pine (best known for playing Sgt. Joseph Getraer on the TV series CHiPs) and actress-turned-psychotherapist Gwynne Gilford.
Every member of the chorus of the U.S. Army Field Band is a sergeant. The Army has nine different levels of sergeant, from Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of which there is only one, to, well, sergeant, of which there are many thousands.
No Time for Sergeants was a popular 1954 novel by Mac Hyman, about a country bumpkin who is drafted into the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II.
The novel was adapted into a television play (1955), a Broadway play (1955), and a film (1958); all three of these adaptations starred Andy Griffith as the main character, Will Stockdale. It was also adapted into a television series in 1964 (with Sammy Jackson in the lead role).
On Hogan’s Heroes, John Banner played Colonel Klink’s aide-de-camp, Sergeant Schultz. However, the rank of Sergeant does not exist by that name in the German military; the equivalent rank is Feldwebel, and in fact the tunic Schultz wears displays two stripes at the cuffs of the sleeves indicating the rank of Hauptfeldwebel, which is the equivalent of a First Sergeant.
Sergeant is also a common rank in American law enforcement, with those who hold the rank typically wearing sleeve insignia with three chevrons. Unlike the US Army, I am unaware of any police department having more than one uniformed grade of sergeant.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics defines the size of a police department as the number of full-time sworn officers. By this metric, the New York City Police Department is the largest in the country, with over 34,000 full-time sworn personnel. The Los Angeles Police Department is a distant second with over 11,000; Chicago PD is third with over 9,000.
Barney Miller, a popular American television situation comedy which ran from 1975 to 1982, was set in the fictitious 12th Precinct of the New York City Police Department. Most of the series’ episodes were entirely set in the precinct’s detectives’ squad room, and the adjoining office of precinct captain Miller.
A captain in the US Navy wears the same eagle insignia as a (full) colonel in the US Army, Marines and Air Force.
For Navy special uniform situations (such as combat utilities, flight suits, and USMC uniforms when worn by Navy officers assigned or attached to USMC units), the rank insignia are identical to the equivalent rank in the US Marine Corps.
Apple Corps was the name of the record corporation founded by the Beatles for tax purposes. The name is a pun inspired by a Rene Magritte painting.
Jeff Beck used René Magritte’s painting, “La Chambre d’Ecoute” (The Listening Room), which depicted a Granny Smith apple filling an entire room, for the cover of his album Beckola.
