Why do you admire astronauts (if you do)?

In My Humble Opinion
41

I just watched the movie Apollo 10-1/2 (Netflix). It’s a beautifully animated show about a boy, 10 1/2 years old apparently, whose father works at Johnson Space Center in Houston in the Apollo years. It doesn’t focus on the details of the Apollo program, but what it was like growing up during that influential period. I was of a similar age and had similar thoughts to the main character.

I recommend watching it, even if you’re not a space fan. A large portion of the movie shows what it was like living in the 1960’s, including space madness, narrated by Jack Black as the adult voice of the boy. It’s kind of like A Christmas Story - a reverent look at that era.

42

I happened to be in France in July 1969, and I can provide first-person testimony that humans landing on the moon, walking around, and making it back to Earth safely was NOT merely a big deal for the United States. I submit the following newspaper front pages as a sampling. I feel sorry that the OP can not grasp the impact this event had literally around the world.

43

Can’t forget The Onion:

44

The Apollo astronauts and engineers were the tip of the spear of one of the (if not “the”) greatest achievements of mankind. After ~3-billion years of biological evolution on our planet, they were the first lifeforms to set foot on an extraterrestrial body. That alone is worthy of admiration and awe.

But, as mentioned up-thread, the astronauts went well beyond simply being cargo on a ship built by bright engineers. They were the best of the best in terms of a multi-faceted bundle of virtues: courage dedication, intelligence, physical conditioning, and more. They risked and dedicated their lives to achieve a species-important goal—the first major step in exploring the greatest frontier, outer space. Not to belittle those that came before. Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (the first cosmonaut to journey into outer space) and the involved soviet engineers should also be celebrated as international treasures. But landing on the moon was even bigger.

As noted from the link to world headlines posted up-thread, the achievement of landing on the moon touched the entire world in a profound and positive way. What other human event comes close to that? The end of WWII was certainly a big, positive event, but not to the point of being awe-inspiring nor universally celebrated.

Landing safely on the moon was more than simply a propagandized accomplishment for America. It was a significant human milestone. “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.” Even though Armstrong flubbed the line, his words ring true. It really was a giant leap for mankind. It’s a touchstone that will forever be part of our legacy.

We should be embarrassed to admit to other species everything we humans have done to harm this planet’s biosphere. But, you can point to the moon and say to your dog or cat, “let’s see one of your kind do that, pal!”

…ok, Fido and Snowflake may point their paws to Laika (a dog) and Ham (a chimp) who preceded man into space, but they didn’t drive a buggy on the moon, did they!?!.

If the Apollo astronauts should not be celebrated as international treasures, then no one should.

45

Exactly, both of you. Although we in the non-US parts of the world knew that this was an American accomplishment, it felt like a human accomplishment. And it was carried on our TVs and reported in our papers the next day. Thankfully, that was one night when Mom and Dad decided to let my sister and I stay up well beyond our bedtimes. I got to see the men–American men, yes, but humans, just like the rest of us–walk on the Moon. What an achievement for humanity as a whole!

I was especially intrigued by @Kent_Clark 's Ranker link of newspapers. I well recall getting that edition of the Toronto Globe and Mail on our doorstep the next day. I kept that copy until it finally fell apart. I was especially intrigued by Pravda’s reporting–for those who cannot read Russian, the headline is “First Lunar Expedition.” Interestingly, the item is not at the top of the page, but I guess that the item’s place lower down would have been expected from Pravda, back then.

46

NASA’s Project Mercury preceded Gemini and Apollo.

My kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Haig, brought her B&W TV into the classroom to show the Mercury-Atlas 6, “Friendship 7” launch to the class. I recall the teacher’s open-mouth transfixed stare at the screen and knew this wasn’t business as usual. This was the start of something big and vital. Seven years later we stepped on the moon.

Godspeed—John H. Glenn, Jr.

47

I do tend to admire astronauts, as a group, although of course they’re human beings and just as fallible and prone to error as the rest of us. But your typical astronaut is (or ought to be) smart, cool under pressure, tough, brave, well-trained, patriotic, self-sacrificing and an expert in his or her field. Ideally an astronaut represents his or her country and does it well, which is, to me, an admirable thing.

48

So do we admire cosmonauts just as much, even though they performed all those same things on behalf of a repressive regime?

49

I admire Vladimir Komarov, who went up on a mission in a ship so poorly made that he was pretty sure he would die during it (spoiler: he was correct)

I also dis-admire him for…going up on a mission in a ship so poorly made that he was pretty sure he was going to die during it. Stupid Soviet Russians - no American would be so beholding to the party line that they would die so needlessly, so horribly.

50

Well, NASA has much improved its procedures for safety and for addressing concerns raised by junior engineers. The logic is sound, the reasons unfortunate.

51

Yes, astronauts/cosmonauts from any country should be admired for their achievements, despite their country’s politics.

Certainly the space race accelerated our reaching outer space, orbital fight and landing on the moon and it was politically motivated by the respective nations, but I don’t hold that against the astronauts/cosmonauts, engineers or scientists. They didn’t just achieve an important and difficult national goal, they achieved a human goal. In this case, I believe the ends justified the means.

In a perfect world, all nations would cooperate and work together toward lofty global goals, including pushing into and exploring new frontiers, improving medicine, reversing climate change and putting an end to the decimation of endangered species. But, we’re not a perfect world.

52

Agreed.

I might kinda sorta admire an astronaut/cosmonaut/taikonaut who served a repressive regime for his or her own individual achievements or mettle, but I wouldn’t be posting about it on the Dope or anything. Good people serving bad ends are not worth celebrating.

53

I was born in 1972, and always was bummed that I “missed” Apollo. Became a maven of the manned spaceflight program, and when Columbia launched in 1981, I was the right age to get into the exploits of Young, Crippen, and all the others.

As I got older and understood the context of the times, it became apparent that the 1960s were an incredibly divisive time and Mercury/Gemini/Apollo presented something of a galvanizing force. Something that most people could find some common appreciation for. I suppose it’s similar to what happens every 4 years with the Olympics only much, much more intense.

I was on a transatlantic flight and the BBC produced a docudrama using the audio from Apollo 11 and had actors portraying what was happening, so it gave an authenticity similar to what it must have been like in real time. My understanding that not only the nation, but much of the world was watching and cheering on the crew. I remember in my youth reading a UPI book about the moon landing and a story of an American in Moscow having a Russian woman walk up to him and say, “it must be an incredible feeling to be an American right now.”

Watching that docudrama definitely left an emotional impact on me, so I can only imagine what it would have been like to see it in real time.

As a child I considered the astronauts heroes, but as many have said, over time you learn they are flawed human beings, and you have respect and regard for their accomplishments in the field of endeavor and realize that you don’t know them outside of their professional lives. Like any other human being that you respect for their skill and aptitude.

I have followed the career of Ed Dwight - now a sculptor, but in the 1960s he was the first Black person to enter the astronaut training program. He was ultimately not selected, which is a travesty in itself - and that points to the failures and flaws manifested in the biases held by NASA administrators.

54

I watched the moon landing on TV with my parents when I was 11. My mother was born and raised in England. She was not prone to verbal outbursts, or using American colloquialisms.

So, when Armstrong planted a foot on the lunar surface and Mom yelled “we’re on the moon! Hot Dog!”, I knew this was a very special event.

Maybe she would have been more excited to see the Union Jack planted on the moon and yelled “our old chap’s on the moon! Blimey!”, but she was excited enough as it was.

55

Regarding Komarov, I heard he went up on Soyuz 1 anyway, because if he had refused, the seat would go to…Yuri Gagarin. And Komarov didn’t want that hero, already enshrined as the first human to orbit the Earth, to die in Soyuz 1. Maybe it was harder to get two cosmonauts, including one certified legend, to refuse the flight.

56

I don’t know how the USSR space program cultivated the powerful, but NASA used good old American swag

In 1989 I worked in a frame shop with one Benny Hablow, who was a resource for stories about his boss Walt Disney, and later when he framed and mailed the grip & grin photos for NASA. According to Benny, we used Gus Grissom’s American-made staple gun that his widow had given him.

57

Maybe we’d all be better off if we didn’t put a man on the moon?

%: “It takes so long to cook these Hot Pockets. They can’t figure out a quicker way?”

€: “Wow. You sound pretty upset.”

%: “Not really. It’s not like we’ve put a man on the moon yet.”

58

The moon landing - and everything that preceded it - wasn’t merely an American accomplishment. It was a triumph of science and reason.

59

Thanks for all the responses. I think what I got stuck on was the original thread’s asking for people who we thought are national treasures. To me a treasure is something unique, exceptional, and special. Astronauts may have been the very best and most elite soldiers that our military could produce, but they’re still just the finest example of a fairly common form.

Put another way:

Neil Armstrong risked his life in order to attempt a mission which required extreme skill, intelligence, and physical fitness. In so doing, he made possible important scientific advances and inspired the entire human race, his own nation in particular. He is, by any reasonable definition, a national hero.

Bob Dylan has spent his entire life writing and performing popular songs, at no significant risk and tremendous financial reward to himself. He doesn’t deserve to be considered a hero for that.

But if both those men had died in 1965, someone else would have gone to the moon. Nobody else ever would have written Blood on the Tracks. So I would consider Dylan to be a national treasure, but not a hero.

60

That only works if you get to choose the day of their death which means nothing. What if Dylan had died in 1956? You measure people by their actual real life accomplishments, not by moving the goal post to exclude their accomplishment.