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Apollo 14 50th anniversary images find Alan Shepard's ball and how far he hit it
- sebmellen 6y agoFor those who want the TLDR: > "We can now fairly accurately determine that ball number one travelled 24 yards, and ball number two travelled 40 yards," says Cheshire-based Saunders, who has been working with the United States Golf Association (USGA) to mark the anniversary. > "Unfortunately, even the impressive second shot could hardly be described as 'miles and miles and miles', but of course this has only ever been regarded as a light-hearted exaggeration." Is 40 yards impressive? I don't know anything about golf but as an ignorant observer that sounds fairly tame.
- jakear 6y agoAny shot on the moon is pretty impressive. But yes 40 would be puny on earth.
- nickff 6y agoHe did it one-handed (with some sort of iron IIRC), and had to 'fight' his own suit, which offered poor visibility and range of motion, as well as 'elasticity' from changes in volume.
- azernik 6y agoThe iron was an actual golf iron head, attached to the collapsible rod/handle of a sampling scoop.
- favorited 6y agoIt's impressive if you're 40 yards from the pin! But no, it would not be very long on Earth. A Par 4 hole would usually be between 300-470 yards from the mens' tees.
- sebmellen 6y agoMuch appreciated, this is what I was looking for. Turns out the article answered my question in more depth but I missed that part and thus the downvotes.
- ISL 6y agoThe entire second half of the article is devoted to that question.
- sebmellen 6y agoSorry, completely missed that. I was looking for that section but the large picture on my phone's screen somehow "signaled" the end of the article to my brain. Thanks for the heads up :)
- cooperadymas 6y agoThis is the problem with DR... > While those distances may appear underwhelming, it is still an astonishing feat by Shepard > The pressurised suits severely restricted movement, and due to their helmet's visors they struggled to even see their feet. > I would challenge any club golfer to go to their local course and try to hit a six-iron, one-handed, with a one-quarter swing out of an unraked bunker. > Then imagine being fully suited, helmeted and wearing thick gloves. Remember also that there was little gravity to pull the clubhead down toward the ball. > The fact that Shepard even made contact and got the ball airborne is extremely impressive
- sebmellen 6y agoThank you, I missed that part of the article entirely. I was on my phone, and scrolled down to read the article, but those images took up a large part of the screen and I sort of half-consciously took that to signal the end of the article, thus prompting me to ask here.
- cooperadymas 6y agoIt happens. NBD. My initial response was perhaps more snide than I intended, I should have at the very least ended it with a smiley to show I was only being playful. FWIW I don't feel your comment deserves to be downvoted, and this one where you acknowledge it certainly does not.
- willcipriano 6y agoIf the golf ball only traveled 40 yards, using motorised conveyance to chase after it would look rather silly.
- jerf 6y ago"Is 40 yards impressive?" It's the world record, which has stood for 50 years. Hopefully it won't stand another 50.
- gumby 6y agoIt is indeed the world record...for that world.
- yborg 6y agoProbably should have gone with the wedge with that lie.
- jamestimmins 6y agoI wonder if things like this would ever happen now. The original Mercury and Apollo astronauts were Air Force test pilots, a group known for picking and choosing which rules they wanted to follow. Sneaking a golf club aboard, not to mention the possibility of falling and tearing his suit, is a non-trivial risk. It's hard to imagine that culture of risk taking still exists, but at the same time, that culture may be why they were able to get to the moon so quickly.
- hedora 6y agoYour comment reminds me of this book: https://time.com/3910020/the-over-parenting-trap-how-to-avoid-checklisted-childhoods-and-raise-adults/ https://time.com/3910020/the-over-parenting-trap-how-to-avoi... > So imagine how surprised I was to discover among my more affluent, well-connected students a growing number who seemed to be lacking the ability to make their way independently in the world, as, frankly, 18-22 year olds always had been able to do and just as crucially, used to desire to do. I’m deliberately being vague about what exactly was missing in so many students because frankly I couldn’t quite tell at first. Something was just off. Odd. It took most of my ten years as dean before I figured out what exactly the problem was. For starters, each year my students were more and more and more and more accomplished. The grades, but not just the grades: the scores. And not just the grades and the scores but the awards, and the accolades, and the activities, and community service, and leadership, and, and, and, and, and, every other prospect for perfection. Yet each year I noticed that more and more could tell you what they’d done but not so much why they’d done it. I’m old enough that helicopter parenting wasn’t a thing when I was a kid. I find the whole phenomenon incomprehensible. But, yeah, I imagine people used to accomplish more before everyone got so damned risk adverse.
- ryandrake 6y agoI don't know if this dean's observation is about helicopter parenting or risk aversion as much as it's about how bifurcated and ultra-high stakes the university/credential-pedigree system has become, and how essential it is to optimize for a certain outcome at all costs. When I was high school age, the A students went to good universities and generally ended up with a good professional career, the B students went to state schools and had an average life in an office job. The C students went to community college and limped along. The D students went to trade school and at least had a shot at turning things around. We're moving towards a world where the A++5.0GPA+awards+accolades students will go to the top universities and end up living in relative luxury, the A students maybe will finish college hamstrung with mountains of debt, and the rest? Walmart/Meth if they're lucky, prison if they're not. Competition among students is a complete slug-fest and every parent is doing whatever they can to juice the metrics that universities demand, at the expense of every other part of the student's development/upbringing. You don't want your kid left behind in the dirt.
- yannk 6y agovideo of the shots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_jYOubJmfM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_jYOubJmfM
- maxerickson 6y agoFunny that the video contradicts the article, showing him hitting 3 shots. He also has little trouble with the mechanics of the shot that he is able to take with the suit on.
- ra88it 6y agoI thought that was odd too. Maybe the middle one was a practice swing? edit - I watched it again more closely. Looks like he threw down the second ball and the middle shot was either a practice swing or he missed it altogether and it wasn't counted (which I think is fair given he was wearing a thick space suit in low gravity swinging one handed with a fishbowl on his head). edit 2 - Just seeing child post. Guess I gotta watch it again :) edit 3 - Yep, child post is correct. It's sort of weird how confusing this short video is. The second ball kind of appears out of nowhere, as if he was doing a practice swing and dropping the ball at the same time.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- maxerickson 6y agoA ball is clearly visible at 46s. Watching it again, he swings 4 times. I don't see a ball for the second swing, but they are clearly visible for the other 3. I imagine the analyst found where 2 landed and the write up misunderstood that to be the number of shots.
- YeGoblynQueenne 6y agoAnd maybe the analyst didn't find the third ball because it did, indeed, fly "miles and miles and miles".
- rundmc 6y ago40 yards? Pfff My money is firmly on Europe for the first lunar Ryder Cup.
- hirundo 6y agoAn old boss of mine was a Hungarian immigrant and said this golf swing was the moment he became an American. He was a teenage veteran of fighting invading Soviet tanks, saw those images on TV, and fell in love with the combination of accomplishment and irreverence. I think he accomplished here what he hoped to back then.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoGreat story!
- ilaksh 6y agoOne aspect of this that seems to have not been commented on is the actual potential danger involved in taking a full swing. It would have been extremely reckless for him to try to hit it hard. He could damage his suit in the swing, or maybe even spin himself off of his feet and land hard and puncture his suit that way. So of course he wasn't really trying to hit it far.
- LetThereBeLight 6y agoTo anyone interested in early space flight and the Apollo missions, I strongly recommend reading Michael Collins's memoir Carrying the Fire. It is quite amazing all the training that the astronauts had to go through so they could manually perform various tasks and measurements, since the computing capacity was extremely limited.
- prennert 6y agoAlso the excellently produced podcast "13 minutes to the moon" by BBC world service.
- KineticLensman 6y ago> I strongly recommend reading Michael Collins's memoir Carrying the Fire Can confirm. Read it a couple of months ago and decided it was the best of the Apollo-era biographies and autobiographies that I've read.
- xerxespoy 6y agoTwo hits: 22 metres and 36.5 metres.
- interestica 6y agoThis photo by Andy Saunders is an incredible example of using new tools to give historical (space!) imagery new life. https://twitter.com/AndySaunders_1/status/1205492434387517440 https://twitter.com/AndySaunders_1/status/120549243438751744...