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Ken Mattingly, astronaut scrubbed from Apollo 13, has died
- Stratoscope 3y agohttps://archive.ph/wyFae https://archive.ph/wyFae
- bigmattystyles 3y ago‘Are the flowers blooming in Houston?’ RIP
- bsdooby 3y agoOh no...RIP
- benatkin 3y agoRIP. He made a later flight to the moon, as a command module pilot, the same thing he would have done on Apollo 13. So not on this chart: https://xkcd.com/893/ https://xkcd.com/893/
- M3L0NM4N 3y agoGod bless Artemis.
- andyjohnson0 3y agoHe also commanded two shuttle flights: STS-4 and STS-51-C. Spent 21 days in space according to Wikiepdia. I hope his NASA career brought him well deserved satisfaction.
- Aeolun 3y agoThis is bizarre. We put 11 people on another celestial body in 5 years, and then never any more for 50 years afterwards…
- FredPret 3y agoNASA took up a good chunk of the US economy at the time. Space is awesome but people have to eat. Exploration is only really practical at current budget levels, percentage-wise. Apollo was very early. The tech has to bring the price of a moon landing way down, and the safety level way up for us to do it again. It will be soon though.
- djbusby 3y agoCheck your math here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA I think that <5% is small (de minimus) and NASA ha been below that number for a long time
- dmd 3y agoAnd yet at ~0.5% now vs 4% in the apollo years, in 2022 dollars we're only at about half the funding we had then; not 1/8th. I feel like we could be getting a lot more for that money.
- hotnfresh 3y agoWithout the very-public moon goal and lots of eyes on them, seems like they've got a worse pork problem now. See: the SLS. ISS might also be pretty expensive to maintain? Not sure. Dunno how much scientific value it's delivering, but it's pretty low on the "cool" factor compared to... almost anything else they do, really.
- FredPret 3y agoAre you kidding? 5% of the US government budget is massive. Experimental scientific expeditions are critical, but the correct allocation is far below 1%. I love NASA and the moon landings. It’s super admirable and a huge milestone in winning the cold war. Reading up on it, it’s unbelievable what they got done with ancient technology. But they were really early, and that’s why it was so expensive. It’s much more reasonable to go back in the next decade or so.
- 3y ago
- rufus_foreman 3y ago12 in 3 and a half years, https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_have_walked_on_the_Moon https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_have_wa....
- CoastalCoder 3y agoWhy does that strike you as bizarre?
- kjkjadksj 3y agoBecause we developed better rover tech that doesn’t put humans at risk where rescue is impossible.
- TMWNN 3y ago>He made a later flight to the moon, as a command module pilot, the same thing he would have done on Apollo 13 Apollo 16 let Mattingly do something he would not have done on 13: A deep-space EVA during the return to Earth to retrieve film from the service module. Only occurred on 15-17.
- kryptiskt 3y agoCome on NYT, going to the Moon with Apollo 16 is more notable than not not going to the Moon with Apollo 13.
- Maxion 3y agoThe headline is honestly quite disrespectful
- malfist 3y agoAnything to get clicks
- spacebacon 3y agoWhen we stop clicking headlines we disagree with then eventually they will change the strategy. That starts with all the smart people here.
- throw__away7391 3y agoI don’t think we have the numbers to make a meaningful impact.
- deaddodo 3y agoThis was literally my first thought. Yeah, it's worth mentioning in the article; it's definitely not the thing he himself would brag about/headline in his life.
- hotnfresh 3y ago"Apollo 16 astronaut..." Who? "Astronaut scrubbed from Apollo 13..." Oh yeah! I know that guy, I remember him from the movie.
- Amorymeltzer 3y agoIf I'm assuming good faith, I'd say that Mattingly is, as the lede notes, best known amongst the populace for being scrubbed from 13. If you weren't alive to witness 13 or 16, the movie is probably where most people get all their Ken Mattingly information. This does him a disservice but is probably what people will know him best for. Truth be told, I think most people won't know the name or even Apollo 16, but will know Apollo 13.
- santiagobasulto 3y agoIf you haven't seen the film Apollo 13, do it. It's one of my favorites. Ken Mattingly is played by Gary Sinise, great performance.
- doctor_eval 3y agoI highly recommend the BBC podcast, “13 minutes to the moon”. Second season is dedicated to Apollo 13 and has a long bonus interview with the commander and one of the mission controllers.
- santiagobasulto 3y agoAwesome. Thanks for the recommendation!
- js2 3y agoI highly recommend the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon_(miniseries) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon_(mi... And the book on which it's largely based, A Man on the Moon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_on_the_Moon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_on_the_Moon
- andyjohnson0 3y agoSeconded. The miniseries gives the subject the space and scope that it deserves. And Chaikin's book is well written, but also detailed and well sourced.
- js2 3y agoI also recall enjoying Failure Is Not an Option by Gene Kranz.
- mips_r4300i 3y agoAnd Flight by Chris Kraft. (Chris was Gene's direct superior)
- junon 3y agoWTF is this headline, NY Times?
- nonrandomstring 3y agoI don't think there is any boy from my generation who didn't say "Astronaut!" to a bewildered careers advisor. Though my opinions about space travel have changed, all of these men and women, from Yuri Gagarin to the last shuttle crew, shaped our lives. RIP.
- ChicagoBoy11 3y agoI'll take this opportunity to promote to the technnically inclined, that it is so worth checking out a beautiful Apollo-related project called NASSP which has been trying to faithfully allow you to simulate all the Apollo missions. The computer in the simulator, even, is running a port of the real apollo guidance computer, matched to their exact version for each mission, thanks to the work of volunteers and incredible folks who not only have gone through the effort to find and document all of it but even to bring a real apollo guidance computer to life (check out the CuriousMarc youtube channel... just mind blowing). Like many people, the 13 movie obviously sparked my curiosity and wonder about the whole ordeal, but despite habitually visiting the Smithsonian, all the reading, etc., nothing has brought me as close to an appreciation for just how remarkable the whole endeavor was than to try to live it in this simulation.
- civilitty 3y agoApollo in Realtime [1] is also fantastic. They’ve got all the mission audio from all channels so you can listen to it as it happened. [1] https://apolloinrealtime.org/ https://apolloinrealtime.org/
- nobleach 3y agoI hope this becomes a trend on HN: <some person>, <how one might know them>, has died. I'm so used to seeing names I do not recognize, having to take the time to read the article.
- pomian 3y agoAnother chance to share a great book recommendation: Sunburst and Luminary, by Don Eyles. About programming the lunar lander computer - super well written so we can all understand, and entertaining. With a blog of historical recollection thrown in. This is a HN classic of a book. http://sunburstandluminary.com/SLhome.html http://sunburstandluminary.com/SLhome.html
- perryizgr8 3y agoImagine an achievement so historic, that not being able to take part in it would make you more notable than 99% of humans that have existed.