Inspired by Bryan Ekers comment in this thread. Given that the Apollo astronauts are/were symbols of humanity at its best (i.e. devoting huge amounts of resources to solving a problem in a peaceful manner), and that they are the only humans to set foot on another world what kind of treatment do they deserve from us? I’m asking because I’m a spacenut, and quite frankly, I think that they should pretty much be given a “pass” on everything. That’s my bias, and I’m looking for input from folks who might not be quite the gushing fanboy that I am. (Still jerkpunching priveleges would be a good thing to reward any meritorious person with, I think.)
Absolutely no special treatment whatsoever. They trained for a job, and did it well, and should be remembered for being part of a larger effort that had a historic outcome.
Sure, they went to the moon - but so could many people given the right education and training. They were not even the sole individuals involved, not by a long shot. Should the mission control centre staff get passes? The engineers? The technicians? Why is their work towards the same goal any less worthy?
Plus, I don’t like the idea that anyone is exempt from the rule of law on principle (yes, I know, the legal system is open to manipulation, but not exemptions full stop).
I just think they had possibly the best jobs in the world, and off it for that matter. And they got paid. And they, presumably, have lived off their exploits since that time (directly or indirectly).
Sure, what they did takes personal courage and I admire them for their dedication as well as their intellectual and physical abilities but, hell, who wouldn’t have changed places with them in a heartbeat if they could have ?
They got paid to do a job they applied for. For my money, they just did that brilliant job very well.
Maybe I missed something ?
Hmm. We pay soldiers too. Some of them, through a fortuitous turn of circumstance, become heroes. Perhaps they too deserve no particular respect for a difficult task well done ?
The astronauts put their butts on the line. The techs didn’t. Everyone who isn’t a saint or a fool gets paid to do their job. How does that render their actions less admirable ?
Well, I certainly think they deserve better than to be branded as “thieves” and “liars”. :rolleyes:
They did a tough, scary job, IMO, and I think they deserve the thanks that anybody else who did a tough, scary job does.
A simple “Thank you.”
But no halos, or lifetime passes on stuff. Sorry Buzz felt he had to punch Bart, but hey, we do have “battery” laws in this country, so no, I don’t think he should get a pass on that.
Well, (almost) anyone has the chance to become a soldier and become a hero, but there’s only so much room in a space shuttle.
But I see your point. The Apollo astronauts do deserve credit for risking their lives to go to the moon (and save the world?..), but they don’t deserve a free pass to commit any crime they want (or am I misinterperating your post, Tucker?).
Are you sure? I thought they sent other teams up, later.
Wow, I inspired a thread and it wasn’t in the Pit.
All flippancy aside, the presumption of innocence (or at least justifiable self-defense) should be very strong in cases where a famous person is confronted by an obsessed stalker, which does seem to apply to Aldrin/Sirbel. In the post-Rebecca Schaeffer world, being famous can get crazy people gunning for you through absolutely no fault of your own. In Aldrin’s case, I’m even more biased in his favour because his claim to fame was a significant human accomplishment, done at great personnel risk (as opposed to a hyped-up actor, singer or Royal Family member). I feel the same way about military heroes, though their exploits are rarely watched by a billion+ people.
In the post which I think inspired this thread, I wrote “I say extend jerk-punching priveleges to all of [the Apollo moonwalkers]”. These are all accomplished men, none of whom (as far as I know) abused their fame for personal gain (though Aldrin got a guest shot on The Simpsons, which I personally envy) and in any confrontation with a self-professed conspiracy hound, I’ll immediately jump to the astronaut’s defense. I’m not advocating they be put above the law, but if a moonwalker claims he acted in self-defense, I’m perfectly happy to take his word for it. There would have to be some hard evidence to the contrary for me to change my mind.
Gjorp: only twelve men have actually walked on the moon; six two-man teams from Apollo 11 through 17 (13 was a bust). Each team also had a third man who stayed in lunar orbit aboard the “Command Module”. Since Apollo 17 left the moon on December 14, 1972, no-one has been back.
In all seriousness, had Aldrin decided to kill that windbag instead of tickling him on the cheek, you’d have a hard time convincing me, at least, that the guy didn’t have it coming to him. That being said, however, if Buzz walked into a 7-11, shot the clerk, snagged a couple of Micky’s Big Mouths in a can, filled a five gallon can of gas, went home, doused everything and torched it, I’d say give the guy the needle, he’s obviously a threat.
I’m not saying, of course, that the Apollo astronauts should be exempt from all laws but they are men who have served their country, hell, their species in an exemplary manner, not simply by landing on the Moon, but also by not exploiting their fame for all they could. (I’d think that an Armstrong/Aldrin ticket in '72 would have been a tough one to beat.)
Like the President of the United States traveling abroad, they represented us as the first explorers to another world, and they did an excellent job of it.
I’m still tumbling around thoughts about all these things. To my mind, the greatest insult we, as Americans can do, is to not to return to the Moon while some of the Apollo astronauts are still alive. That just strikes me as being totally, totally wrong.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/2249064.stm
They’re apparently serious.
http://www.transorbital.net/
Also, China says they’re going in 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/1997747.stm
Yes, Ducky but until the Chinese get there, a human won’t have set foot on the Moon since 1972. :mad:
I was four years old when the last Apollo astronauts left the Moon. Four! And at that age, when my 14 year old brother told me that it was going to be the last time humans set foot on the Moon during the 20th Century, I couldn’t believe it! I couldn’t see how we could be so stupid as to just leave the Moon sitting there, empty, after we’d reached it. I still can’t believe it.
I have always thought that the difference between Astronauts and War heroes is that (I would guess) several million people would have wanted to trade places with the Astronauts at the time (probably still to this day), all risks included. How many people would want to trade places with someone who is quite likely about to give up their own life to save others?
One is a “hero” and the other is a lucky bastard. I’m pretty sure that the original Astronauts were not going to the moon or space for the sake of humanity, rather they just thought it was the best thing anyone could ever experience. Nothing lofty about that.
This is likely also true of most of the cops and firemen in the world. How does being an adrenaline junky disqualify them from becoming heroes ?
If you’re going to insist that heroic acts be selfless, you’ll have to give up on the idea of heroism entirely. Even Jesus could be said to have ulterior motives. Where does that leave George Washington, David Farragut, or sergeant York ?
Good point. Perhaps we use the term “Heroic” too loosely, but I suppose it is up to the individual to decide.
However, you may be missing my point, as it is not that heros may or may not have ulterior motives. It’s that they do an act that would jeopardize their own lives for the sake of others (my definition). The Astronauts didn’t do that. I would hazard to guess that most cops and firemen aren’t doing heroic acts most of the time they are on duty either. But there are the times when they go beyond just doing their job and risk their own lives (beyond the normal risk of being a cop or a fireman) to save or aid others. That’s heroic.
I don’t see how your normal Astronaut would fall into that category, or anything similar. They have certainly earned some esteem, and by that, may appear heroic, but I think that is as far as it goes - or should go.
Now, if you had an Astronaut go on what would be basically a suicide mission to save someone else, then that would be heroic. Volunteering for a hazardous job just because it interests you doesn’t put you in that category. It it were, then we would be having parades for anyone who had any risk of life in their job (are all Mine-workers heros? Race Car Drivers? Balloonists?).
Don’t get me wrong, the Astronauts were great people, and they deserve a lot of respect and admiration - but it would be a disservice to the word and to those that earned the title to call what they did heroic.
Just a point: the astronauts did indeed risk their lives! Going to the Moon was not a cakewalk. A single solar flare aimed this way would have resulted in a long, nasty death by radiation poisoning.
What they did was heroic in ever sense of the word.
As for what they did for us: they showed us what can be done when smart people try very hard to accomplish a single goal. They showed that the Earth has no borders. They showed the Earth, a lonely blue orb, sitting alone in a dark ocean of vacuum.
They showed the Earth rising over the limb of the Moon as Apollo 8 orbited the far side. A more dramatic series of a natural scene would be difficult to imagine.
I owe them a lot: my own profession has made giant leaps due to their efforts. I personally owe them much too. As much as I would rather it happened differently, my website’s popularity today is due in large to the Moon hoax. I have mixed feelings about that, I assure you.
I think that we are getting things mixed up a little. No one said that what the Astronauts did wasn’t commendable or important. All I said is that just risking your life does not a hero make (ex: Fisherman on North Sea, Construction Workers). You can see some statistics for work related fatalities here. So if you are telling me that anyone in a high risk job is heroic, then I have to politely disagree. The key to the Astronauts is that they were just the lucky ones that got to go. Am I a hero because I want to go into space? It ain’t gonna happen, as I am not at all qualified, but I am willing to risk my life to do it. Doesn’t that count for something?
And I have to take issue with your comments on what they did for us. Great stuff and all, but hardly heroic. All the stuff you mentioned could be done without sending anyone into space. It’s irrelevant to the discussion, as those things were not reliant on someone going into space to accomplish the task. If someone had to risk life and limb to obtain that info, then you might have a point. But the initial space race was more about vanity than science. I’m glad they went and I personally think we should be investing more time, money and energy into exploring space and the effect of space travel on humans. But again, how does that make anyone who wants to participate a hero?
So, I ask everyone who still thinks that Astronauts are heroic, because they risked their lives, as to why we don’t, or shouldn’t, consider all high-risk occupations as a qualification for “hero”? Why single out Astronauts (or any other group)?
If no one had volunteered to be first to climb into an extremely dangerous machine, and fly it to the moon, we would be much more ignorant about the universe around us. Since many people prefer knowledge to ignorance, what the Apollo astronauts did aided those people. That fulfills your requirement for calling someone a hero.
I agree with you that the term hero is used too lightly; it’s just that the astronauts fit almost any reasonable definition of heroes.
I thought it was apparent that by using the word “aid” I was referring to it in the sense of aiding them in the face of danger. As if I were to come to your aid after a car accident. Not in the sense of making it easier for you to understand the cosmos. I think the difference is relevant. In my use, the Astronauts did not “aid” anyone.
Semantics, maybe. But I think the my point is valid.
hero? not hardly. 90% of the people reading this board would change places with any one of them for the chance to relive the same experience. I doubt the same could be said for the real heroic events. I doubt anyone wants to trade places with Sgt. York or any of our other real HEROES.
Wrong. Until they can find a way to implant souls into machines (I’ve heard that John Tesh was an early attempt at this that failed horribly), only a human can tell us how it feels to be someplace. Also, I’d wager that we won’t have nearly the number of spectacular photos from the Moon if all we’d sent were automated probes. We’d have just as many photos, but I don’t think that a human sitting behind a console a quarter of a million miles away is as good a judge of what should be photographed as someone who’s right there with the camera. Besides, an automated probe can’t go, “Oooh! Sparkly!” and run off in another direction because of something spotted out of the corner of its lens.
Hmm. Given the choice between being a dork posting on a message board and being someone like Sgt. York (or someone similar), I’ve gotta go with the whole Sgt. York bit.
A slight hijack here. I have never understood why the date that we set foot on the moon was never made into a national holiday. (Exploration Day or something). Truly one of the greatest achievements in the world and probably the greatest for the United States ever. I don’t get it.