Astronaut communication is getting dumbed down

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GaryM

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Consider:

"Fix this little problem and light this candle" Alan Shepard, May 5, 1961.

"Godspeed, John Glenn" Scott Carpenter, Feb 20, 1962

“And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you. All of you on the good earth.” Frank Borman, Dec 24, 1968

"Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed" Neil Armstrong, July 20, 1969,

"Okay, Houston... we've had a problem here". Jack Swigert, April 14, 1970
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“We are going to put the ‘ass’ in ‘astronaut’” Katy Perry, April 2, 2025
 
GaryM said:
Consider:

"Fix this little problem and light this candle" Alan Shepard, May 5, 1961.

"Godspeed, John Glenn" Scott Carpenter, Feb 20, 1962

“And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you. All of you on the good earth.” Frank Borman, Dec 24, 1968

"Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed" Neil Armstrong, July 20, 1969,

"Okay, Houston... we've had a problem here". Jack Swigert, April 14, 1970

“We are going to put the ‘ass’ in ‘astronaut’” Katy Perry, April 2, 2025
Click to expand...
Hey they were a busy crew during those 10 minutes. Lot of experiments, calculations, etc. Hard work.
 
GaryM said:
Consider:

"Fix this little problem and light this candle" Alan Shepard, May 5, 1961.

"Godspeed, John Glenn" Scott Carpenter, Feb 20, 1962

“And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you. All of you on the good earth.” Frank Borman, Dec 24, 1968

"Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed" Neil Armstrong, July 20, 1969,

"Okay, Houston... we've had a problem here". Jack Swigert, April 14, 1970

“We are going to put the ‘ass’ in ‘astronaut’” Katy Perry, April 2, 2025
Click to expand...
It's what happens when you send pop stars and the rich + famous into space. It's a novelty to them and a further claim to fame.
Nothing wrong with it, I like the idea of commercial space ventures, but uhh, the mental standards for being part of the team and getting a seat aboard are a bit different :)
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
It's what happens when you send pop stars and the rich + famous into space. It's a novelty to them and a further claim to fame.
Nothing wrong with it, I like the idea of commercial space ventures, but uhh, the mental standards for being part of the team and getting a seat aboard are a bit different :)
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's like Vail in space or something. Done just for brag.

It'll last until the first billionaire gets fried. Kinda like deep-dive submersibles to the Titanic.

The official organization for astronauts and cosmonauts, the Associate of Space Explorers, won't accept these people as members. They require candidates fly at least one orbit.

Back in 2008, Boeing was hosting the ASE's annual convention in Seattle. They discovered they had empty seats at the banquet, and any of us Boeing Space guys would get to attend if we could rent a tux by that evening. My wife and I sat at a table with a Shuttle astronaut and his wife and a cosmonaut. People say I looked like a bouncer....
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As far as the "in crowd" qualifying for astronaut status by either going to the ISS or flying a dedicated Dragon mission, don't think you'll see a lot of people doing that casually. I worked on the original Space Station proposal in the '80s, and learned enough about life in space to NOT really want to go. It's physically uncomfortable...not just Space Adaptation Syndrome (e.g., space-sickness) but all the weird things microgravity does to your body in just a short period of time. Your body takes considerable effort to pump blood and lymph up from your feet and legs, and when gravity goes away, it basically pressurizes your head.

The vomit comet only gives you ~25 seconds of microgravity at a time. Not the same thing at all.

Then, of course, there's the big problem of expelling your wastes. Liquid isn't bad for men, basically a vacuum hose (!) but a bit more difficult for the ladies. "Number 2" is a real challenge. For one thing, on Earth, your body uses gravity to drop the poo away. Not present on orbit, and it's, ummm, "sticky." Going to be quite happy to hang on to your nether regions. Only so much a vacuum hose can do....

The leisure class will be up in arms without an entourage, and they'll have to face the toilets alone. Mike Mullane, in "Riding Rockets", mentions cases of celebrity-like guests trying to "hold it" so they didn't have to use the facilities. First billionaire that has to use an "Apollo bag" will warn off the rest.....

Ron Wanttaja
 
I'd probably hate the reality of living in space, at least with our current levels of comfort/technology but I'd still like to go just once to experience it before I die.
 
GaryM said:
“We are going to put the ‘ass’ in ‘astronaut’” Katy Perry, April 2, 2025
Click to expand...
Surely she meant "balasst."

wanttaja said:
Then, of course, there's the big problem of expelling your wastes...
Click to expand...
And all that entails. A classmate was selected back in the mid '90's and flew on a single shuttle mission. According to him, one of his secondary tasks was 'toilet scraper' if the vacuum system failed.

Nauga,
and some upward mobility
 
According to the NASA requirements in 1977, I was qualified to apply for Mission Specialist, and did. Out of 8000 or so allegedly qualified applicants, I made it to the 3rd round and got cut. I still have the "thank you, no" letter someplace. I was in good company, as Charles Bolden was also cut. Twice. And he was Marine aviator. He finally made it on 3rd try, flew and became NASA Administrator under Obama.

There were so many applying, NASA kept upping the quals which ended up as PhD or MD, or military pilot with lots of time. At the time I didn't have PhD nor pilots license. Solved both, but at my age, I didn't even try last time it opened 2017 or thereabouts.

Besides, they don't want a computer geek in space, they want us down here writing software. As I explain to my students - my software is on Mars, orbiting Mars, and lost somewhere between here and Mars and we're never going to find it.
 
GaryM said:
Consider:

"Fix this little problem and light this candle" Alan Shepard, May 5, 1961.

"Godspeed, John Glenn" Scott Carpenter, Feb 20, 1962

“And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you. All of you on the good earth.” Frank Borman, Dec 24, 1968

"Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed" Neil Armstrong, July 20, 1969,

"Okay, Houston... we've had a problem here". Jack Swigert, April 14, 1970
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“We are going to put the ‘ass’ in ‘astronaut’” Katy Perry, April 2, 2025
Click to expand...

big difference between an actual astronaut and a slug
 
More than a decade ago I was being interviewed by Rocket Lab for a propulsion engineer's position. During the interview the names of SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic came up (why us and not them kind of question). I told them what I really thought, that those are just billionaires playing with rockets, trying to outdo each other to see who can make the bigger rocket or be the first to take their girlfriend on a space date (my exact words).
BTW I didn't get the job, perhaps they thought I'm too opinionated.
 
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