Full article here:

http://moonandback.com/2013/01/15/a-short-film-looks-at-the-overview-effect/

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2209/1

Yes, Armstrong was a great pilot and astronaut and he become the first man to walk on the Moon – with a little help from the money and resources of the US Government and hundreds of thousands of federal employees, plus a couple of specially-designed spacecraft attached to a really powerful and massive rocket. Armstrong’s nearly relentless ability to brush off the attention he received from that historic feat and remain from humble to silent about it for over four decades after the event are rather impressive in certain ways. He went to rather great lengths in this regard, often going the lawsuit route on anyone who used his likeness or his famous “One small step” phrase without getting his permission first. Armstrong even threatened to sue his barber in 2005 when the guy sold his hair clippings!

However, more than a few have wondered how space exploration and science in general might have benefited if Armstrong had done a bit more publicity for NASA et al. He was already super famous, what harm could a little cheerleading for the science, technology, and agency that put him up there do?

I also noticed how most everyone has skipped over the fact that in 1994 his first wife, Janet, divorced him after 38 years of marriage due to his lack of emotional availability, to closely paraphrase the words she left in a note to him on their kitchen table. The other fact that Armstrong met his second wife, Carol, two years before he and Janet divorced might have had something to do with this as well.

Armstrong’s only other space mission, on Gemini 8 in 1966, practically ended in disaster when the spacecraft’s control jets would not stop firing and was the first to be cut short due to an emergency. He also barely escaped with his life when his Lunar Module trainer went out of control and plunged into the ground. In both of these cases, Armstrong’s bravery and skills were and are still lauded.

I have to wonder, if this happened to Aldrin, would the space fanboys and media have used them against Aldrin to question his skills, integrity, and such? FYI: Armstrong had a number of other flight incidents, but you can read the details if you want to here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Armstrong

By the way, Aldrin’s only space mission before Apollo 11 was on the very last Gemini flight, number 12, where his knowledge, skills, and extensive training in a water tank (an idea he was integral in making happen) brought about the only truly successful EVA of the entire Gemini program (Aldrin had handrails, foot restraints, and tethers attached to the exterior of the spacecraft). Along with spacecraft docking, conducting EVAs was critical to the success of Apollo. Gemini 12 also successfully conducted their fourteen assigned experiments and a docking with the Agena booster, something the astronauts on all the previous Gemini missions had problems with to various degrees.

As I stated in this section of my article above, Aldrin had some other pretty impressive pre-NASA astronaut credentials, too, including his stint as a fighter pilot during the Korean War and earning a doctorate in astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Aldrin also graduated third in his class from Westpoint military academy in 1951, which he attended after turning down a full scholarship to MIT.

However, as you can also read, everyone from top NASA officials on down have castigated Aldrin for being the opposite of Armstrong in terms of personality. I guess you can only be a spaceman demigod if you kiss the right hindquarters or make sure not to crow about your successes too much. As far as I can tell, Aldrin rightly deserved all of his achievements, including becoming a NASA astronaut, which has never been an easy job to attain and certainly not in the early days of the agency. NASA would not have picked Aldrin to be on such an important mission as Apollo 11 if they did not think he was qualified for the assignment.

For the record, I do not know Aldrin personally nor do I “worship” him. I have very few people in my pantheon of whom I consider to be true heroes. I did meet Aldrin at a lecture he gave at MIT in 2001, where our conversation essentially consisted of “Hello, nice to meet you.” At least he did not come across as aloof as Jim Lovell, who I met at the Boston Museum of Science in 1994, where he was promoting the book that would become the 1995 film Apollo 13. I have heard from more than a few sources that most of the pre-Space Shuttle astronauts range in personality from standoffish to arrogant. At the least they are not the brave, altruistic explorers of the unknown I was given to believe growing up thanks to the NASA publicity machine and the gushing press corps, but a collection of space jocks who were bent on flying space machines to new literal heights for their careers. I know I am generalizing here to a degree, but read some of the more honest biographies and histories on these early astronauts and you will see that I am more on the mark than off.

What bothers me most regarding the reaction to Aldrin is the fact that the ultra macho male dominated world he worked in clearly had a problem that one of their own refused to humbly adorn himself with sackcloth after all of his major accomplishments – which he earned – and then dared to expose the truth that they are human beings! I am sure that Aldrin’s recent stint on Dancing with the Stars and the cameos on 30 Rock and The Big Bang Theory were he actually poked fun at himself have done nothing to help matters in this regard. Hey, I hope I can still dance well enough to be on a television dance program when I am 80 years old!

The other thing that bothers me is that this blog is about the only place I feel “safe” to write about the Apollo 11 astronauts honestly in terms of how I see the situation. No doubt in most other space forums I would be threatened and worse for daring to say anything less than worshipful about Armstrong and uplifting Aldrin for showing his humanity, flaws and all. Though they certainly cheered Aldrin when he punched out that Apollo hoax alcolyte a few years back. :^S

Let us hope as we progress into the 21st Century with a space agency that has more women in it and a much more international view, that attitudes like Aldrin will gain greater respect. Of course the way things are going economically, perhaps we better just hope there will still be a space program in the coming decades!

Esther Inglis-Arkell

Space travel is tough on the human body. But what does it do to the human mind? Gary Beven, a space psychiatrist at NASA, answers our questions about how humans adapt to space, and what we have to do to go to Mars.

Doctor Gary Beven has to have one of the most surprising careers in science. As he puts it, he’s “the fifth full-time NASA civil servant psychiatrist since the beginning of the human space program, the first being hired in the 1980s at the onset of the Space Shuttle Program.”

Becoming an astronaut is a mentally, emotionally, and physically demanding job that’s done at high risk around insanely expensive equipment. It pays to see how this job can be made psychologically easier for everyone involved.

But how does one even start out as a space psychiatrist? I asked Doctor Beven.

Full article here:

http://io9.com/5967408/what-does-space-travel-do-to-your-mind-nasas-resident-psychiatrist-reveals-all#13554082355012

Twenty-five years ago, a book argued that those who flew in space experienced a radically altered perception of the Earth.

Jeff Foust talks with Frank White, who wrote about the Overview Effect in 1987 and continues to study it today.

Monday, December 3, 2012

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2195/1

I remember my shock at learning that women were not allowed to run in the Boston Marathon until 1972! The few who tried before then were arrested.

I know we have a long way to go in many areas, but at least we are showing signs of improvement compared to even a few decades ago. At least no one flips out any more when a woman goes into space. Ah heck, most people don’t even pay attention to such events. I guess that is progress.

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/paleofuture/2012/10/sex-and-space-travel-predictions-from-the-1950s/

by Tariq Malik, SPACE.com Managing Editor

Date: 15 September 2012 Time: 07:13 PM ET

NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, who holds the record for the longest spaceflight by a woman, took charge of the International Space Station Saturday (Sept. 15), becoming only the second female commander in the orbiting lab’s 14-year history.

Williams took charge of the space station from Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, who is returning to Earth on Sunday after months commanding the outpost’s six-person Expedition 32 crew. Williams launched to the station in July and will command its Expedition 33 crew before returning to Earth in November.

“I would like to thank our [Expedition] 32 crewmates here who have taught us how to live and work in space, and of course to have a lot of fun up in space,” Williams told Padalka during a change of command ceremony. She will officially take charge of the station on Sunday, after Padalka and two crewmates board their Soyuz spacecraft for the trip home.

Full article here:

http://www.space.com/17624-female-astronaut-sunita-williams-commands-station.html