Did the Moon-men have a sense of humour?

[Magic_x_uk]

I recall reading that a lot of the photos taken during the first moon mission were classified.

What would be the purpose of that though

 

[adolf hamster]

Apollo really wasn't. The Saturn rockets were never designed to be ICBMs. They were solely for lifting stuff into Earth orbit, and in the Vs case then lighting the third stage back up to head on out into lunar orbit. The Titan missiles used in Gemini and the Atlas used in Mercury were re-purposed ICBMs...that had been developed before manned spaceflight became a reality.

And of course the r-7 rocket thats still pretty much the bottom 2/3 of soyuz was originally developed to haul russias 5 tonne nuke to america

 

[Tom0]

 

[v0n]

I recall reading that a lot of the photos taken during the first moon mission were classified.

What would be the purpose of that though

Keeping proprietary space technology from Russkies I would imagine. Vast number of pics taken on board (mag 36) were of docking modules at different stages, elements of the craft, equipment during tests etc.

 

[Blackjack Davy]

Amazing what we can do when we put our collective noggins together. JFK was some leader. Staggering to think how quickly we went from powered flight to putting people on the moon. A little bit sad we haven't progressed a huge amount in manned trips after.

We do have a fair amount of space exploration its just that its unmanned because a) its cheaper and b) we don't have to be bring them back. Option b) really mounts up the cost because its effectively a double mission and thats not even counting the extra payload costs, life support, etc. The real reason is its politically sensitive and if something goes wrong well if its unmmanned its unfortunate but there you go, if its manned its a national and political disaster which is one reason why governments are reluctant to invest in it and if it ever does happen will likely be a private enterprise. The moon landings were all about politics and had little to do with any scientific venture, though they were tacked on as an afterthought especially in later Apollo's. The Wright Brothers flight didn't last two years afterall a trip to Mars would be more akin to Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe or Capt Cook's explorations, and just look what happened to them.

Radiation is 'everywhere' in space. If not for our ozone layer it's unlikely there'd be life on the surface of this planet. We can shield for it, but nothing is going to be 100%. Now, throw in a solar flare directed at the craft and you have a disaster in the making.

Just to be pedantic the ozone layer protects against UV the atmosphere as a whole protects against particulate radiation and high energy x and gamma rays. Life got going in the oceans before the ozone layer as water stops penetration of UV below a certain depth. Its probably true that life on land couldn't get going without the ozone layer though. At least thats easy enough to filter out with UV screening on the windows and it won't penetrate the hull of the spacecraft.

Solar flares are the real risk to space travellers with particulate radiation, apollo astronauts also reported seeing flashes of light even when their eyes were closed and are believed to be high energy particle radiation from far distant exploding stars impacting their optic nerves.