Apollo 11, 50 years ago!!!

Well they set foot on the moon July 20th. I will be down on the Hornet that day and the ship will be filled with visitors from NASA and other science related places giving talks about the mission and possibly future missions. For those who don't remember the Hornet picked up both Apollo 11 and 12.

As for going to Mars that will be interesting. Interesting to me concerning the lack of gravity for long durations. I know that without gravity to keep blood down in your legs it then accumulates in the head. This accumulation damages the blood vessels that help control fluid pressure in the eyes for one. High eye pressure is called glaucoma. A month ago, after finishing my work on the Hornet, I was relaxing at the security brow around 1800 hours. There is an event that night and the speaker was walking up the brow. It was Scott Kelly who walked on and we all nodded and then I asked "how are the eyes?" He had a quizzical look and the security guy next to me said I was our resident eye doctor. He then nodded saying better.

 
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Very busy weekend down on board the ship. Saturday, of course, was the biggest day sine July 20th was when Armstrong set foot on the moon. Well there were 2700 paying visitors boarded the ship that day. That is huge in receipts not to mention sales in other areas. I decided that I would not be able to do what I wanted to do which was paint the deck on the O9 Level of the Island. Turns out I didn't count on the radars masts running and that meant someone had to walk up to the O10 Level to turn them off. The paint would not be dry by then.

So when I walked on I ran into a fellow volunteer, Joe Martinez, who was a both an active and reserve Navy crew member of the SH-3 Sea King helicopters. He is pretty busy answering questions and making stamps on a five page passport. The passport was given out at the entrance and then the holder would go around looking for the four stamps. Two near the front, one from the USPS and then the one from Joe which was Snoopy in a space suit standing on the moon holding the flag. Seems when it comes to Snoopy, it doesn't matter if you are four or if you are 85 or whether you are American or a foreign visitor, everybody was 8 years old when they saw the stamp. What was just stopping by to say hi to Joe at 0945 lasted to 1615 hours doing stamps and answering questions about the SH-3.

Because of the SH-3 I get to meet the Navy Seal diver who opened the hatch of Apollo 11, the co-pilot of the SH-3 who signed the inside door of the helo, and the flight surgeon who went into the Mobile Quarantine Facility. That goes along with meeting Buzz Aldrin at the 45th Anniversary. Any of the Hornet crew, who were part of the Recovery team, was asked to sign the inside of the main hatch on our SH-3. Not the real #66 since that one is on the bottom of the ocean off San Diego but did pick up Gemini 4 and a helo that Joe had actual time in during his career.

Two documentaries I highly recommend:

One, is on Netflix and it is called "Mission Control" which goes into the origins of Mission Control in Houston. Much film of behind the scenes events with interviews from Chris Kraft who pioneered the idea to Gene Kranz to various other Mission Control personnel. Actual footage concerning Apollo 1 up to Apollo 13. Great stuff. It should be noted that Chris Kraft passed away to day at the age of 95. NASA may not have done it without him.

Two, is Secrets of the Space Shuttle, on Hulu. More great footage covering the shuttle from beginning to end. Have to say when the decision was made to allow Columbia to land, despite questions concerning the heat shield I was getting aggravated once again. Each time NASA thought the "something" was Ok the "something" turned out to be deadly and cost the lives of 17 astronauts. Engineers may be great but once in awhile they miss seeing the forest for the trees and disasters strike.
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