4 ms·

Al Worden: ‘The loneliest human being’

6 points by JacobAldridge 14y ago

anigbrowl 14y ago
Great article, but WTF is wrong with this journalist? Why is the article titled 'the lonliest human being' when Worden says the exact opposite was true: There’s a thing about being alone and there’s a thing about being lonely, and they’re two different things. I was alone but I was not lonely. My background was as a fighter pilot in the airforce, then as a test pilot – and that was mostly in fighter airplanes – so I was very used to being by myself. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I didn’t have to talk to Dave and Jim any more, except once they came around [when the orbiting command module was above the landing site) and I said “hi”. On the backside of the Moon, I didn’t even have to talk to Houston and that was the best part of the flight. I was expecting to read an article about someone with crippling social anxiety or suchlike. Instead, I got a quite interesting picture of an astronaut being harassed by a journalist who just can't let go of his preconceived story angle, to the point of using his headline to contradict his interviewee. Your colleagues Dave Scott and Jim Irwin left footprints on the Moon – which will be there for millions of years. Will you have left anything behind as a memorial to your mission? Your urine maybe? Good grief. I feel like I'm reading The Sun.
ggchappell 14y ago
> Seven men in the history of humanity stand apart from the rest of us. These are the Apollo command module pilots who spent time alone in orbit around the Moon, while their colleagues walked on the lunar surface. "Seven"? There were six Apollo missions that landed on the Moon: 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17. Perhaps he gets seven by including Apollo 10, in which two astronauts did take the lunar module out and nearly land it, leaving the command-module pilot alone. But then the sentence is still incorrect; they did not walk on the Moon.

4 ms·

Al Worden: ‘The loneliest human being’

6 points by JacobAldridge 14y ago

anigbrowl 14y ago
Great article, but WTF is wrong with this journalist? Why is the article titled 'the lonliest human being' when Worden says the exact opposite was true: There’s a thing about being alone and there’s a thing about being lonely, and they’re two different things. I was alone but I was not lonely. My background was as a fighter pilot in the airforce, then as a test pilot – and that was mostly in fighter airplanes – so I was very used to being by myself. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I didn’t have to talk to Dave and Jim any more, except once they came around [when the orbiting command module was above the landing site) and I said “hi”. On the backside of the Moon, I didn’t even have to talk to Houston and that was the best part of the flight. I was expecting to read an article about someone with crippling social anxiety or suchlike. Instead, I got a quite interesting picture of an astronaut being harassed by a journalist who just can't let go of his preconceived story angle, to the point of using his headline to contradict his interviewee. Your colleagues Dave Scott and Jim Irwin left footprints on the Moon – which will be there for millions of years. Will you have left anything behind as a memorial to your mission? Your urine maybe? Good grief. I feel like I'm reading The Sun.
ggchappell 14y ago
> Seven men in the history of humanity stand apart from the rest of us. These are the Apollo command module pilots who spent time alone in orbit around the Moon, while their colleagues walked on the lunar surface. "Seven"? There were six Apollo missions that landed on the Moon: 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17. Perhaps he gets seven by including Apollo 10, in which two astronauts did take the lunar module out and nearly land it, leaving the command-module pilot alone. But then the sentence is still incorrect; they did not walk on the Moon.