On the other hand I have great respect and admiration for what Astronauts and engineers accomplished, before, during and after the moon landings. That comes mainly from an engineering and science perspective. The job back then also sort of required the most capable people on earth to be accomplishable.
Not so sure, take a look at this photo from
November 1962 during a meeting at Cape Canaveral.
On the left we have James E Webb who ran NASA for several years before resigning in 1968. Of the Apollo 1 fire he requested of LBJ that NASA
itself would investigate the incident.
Shock gripped NASA and the nation during the days that followed. James Webb told the media at the time, "We've always known that something like this was going to happen soon or later. . . . who would have thought that the first tragedy would be on the ground?" As the nation mourned, Webb went to President Lyndon Johnson and asked that NASA be allowed to handle the accident investigation and direct the recovery from the accident. He promised to be truthful in assessing blame and pledged to assign it to himself and NASA management as appropriate. The agency set out to discover the details of the tragedy, to correct problems, and to get back on schedule.
So he was 'surprised' about the accident, when you read the report on Apollo 1 it comes as no surprise, more on that later but he promised to be truthful, really, he did.
Next to him is LBJ, enough said! Then next to him is
SS-Staffelrottenführer, Kurt Debus, direktor of the Nazi V2 program which used a lot of slave labor. He was an
Operation Paperclip hire so we don't know his true character.
Then comes JFK, he seems to be a mixed bag. Back in 1996 the Cs said...
Q: (L) Back to Kennedy, people say that Marilyn Monroe committed suicide, some say she was murdered. Was she murdered?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Was she murdered by the Kennedy's or someone else?
A: Both.
Q: (L) Was it because she was going to reveal things?
A: Yes.
Reveal that his character left much to be desired? Would like to know,
had a girlfriend a long time ago who said her mother worked for Kennedy, best of a rotten bunch according to her. Interestingly a mildly heated conversation between Kennedy and Webb was recorded around the time this photo was taken. Kennedy clearly states that he's
'not that interested in space' and just wanted to beat the Soviets, rather shallow when you think about it. Webb sounds a bit pissed off, it was only 6 weeks after Kennedy's moon speech, I'd be pissed off too!
Next to JFK is
Lieutenant General Leighton Ira Davis who history paints as pretty harmless, NASA awarded him a medal for
'outstanding leadership'. Not sure what NASA's definition of leadership is and it seems the bar is set pretty low.
Finally we have Robert McNamara who was involved in the incineration of Japanese civilians during WWII.
Here are some of his thoughts.
LeMay said, “If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.” And I think he’s right. He, and I’d say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?
Agent Orange
Were those who issued the approval to use Agent Orange criminals? Were they committing a crime against humanity? Let’s look at the law. Now what kind of law do we have that says these chemicals are acceptable for use in war and these chemicals are not. We don’t have clear definitions of that kind. I never in the world would have authorized an illegal action. I’m not really sure I authorized Agent Orange. I don’t remember it, but it certainly occurred, the use of it occurred while I was Secretary.
Sounds like a war criminal to me. So were these men suitable or even capable of leading a nation to the moon? Doubt it; they were very capable liars, philanderers, cheats, warmongers and so forth but not national leaders.
As for NASA Apollo engineering, in March 2020 a document was uploaded to the NASA technical server titled
'Recurring Causes of Human Spaceflight Mishaps during Flight Tests and Early Operations' Among other things it covers the Apollo 1 fire. before this fire there were other fires including one in 1966, several month before.
Apollo 1. An electrical fire occurred in an Apollo command module environmental control system (ECS) test rig in a vacuum chamber in 1966. The test was conducted under a lower atmospheric pressure (i.e., 5 psi to simulate cabin pressure in space versus 16.7 psi for the LC 34 test), but in a 100% oxygen environment. The test incident report was classified and inaccessible to personnel without a security clearance [ref. 6].
They covered it up! They covered up their, dangerous engineering and procedures which led to the deaths of 3 astronauts. There was a lone voice in the wilderness, one
Thomas Baron, NASA, with their usual attention to detail misname him 'Barton' in the document. He was a quality control inspector for North American Aviation and mentions shenanigans galore in his report. Appears he got the Boeing whistleblower treatment on a level crossing 2 months after the fire.
TT4 – Accepted Team Practices LTA See Thomas Barton Report. He was a quality inspector for NAA, and he communicated quality/workmanship problems to his supervisor, but nothing happened. He documented contamination issues, poor workmanship, people sleeping and drinking on the job,
“Poor workmanship is evidenced by the continual high rates of rejection and MRB actions which result in rework that would not be necessary if the workmanship had been good…Recognizing that overtime shifts are necessary at this time, it is our view that strong and knowledgeable supervision of these overtime shifts is necessary…NAA quality is not up to NASA required standards. This is evidenced by the large number of ‘correction’ E.O.’s and manufacturing discrepancies.
Four oxygen fires in the five years before the Apollo 1 accident were proof enough.
Even Apollo astronaut Frank Borman
said the engineering and knowledge base was utterly lacking
Astronaut Borman, in commenting on his reactions to the conditions surrounding the Apollo 204 test and subsequent knowledge he has gained as a result of serving on the Review Board, stated to Dr. Seamans, Dr. Thompson, and to me that he would not have been concerned to enter the capsule at the time Grissom, White and Chaffee did so for the test, and would not at the time have regarded the operation as involving substantial hazard. However, he stated that his work on the Board has convinced him that there were hazards present beyond the understanding of either NASA's engineers or astronauts.
Indeed there was Frank, because they covered things up. Grissom was aware of how bad things were and its entirely possible he got the Boeing whistleblower treatment.
Grissom was so frustrated by the many technical failures of the craft that he hung a lemon in the simulator. Also, the three astronauts posed for a crew picture with their heads bowed and their hands clasped together as if in prayer, because of their concerns with the spacecraft’s quality and integrity.
However, despite all the poor leadership and engineering, less 2 years later they all these issues sorted and
Borman flew around the moon! They repeated this feat 10 times in all with six landings, incredible! A feat that has not been repeated since and it's highly unlikely they ever will!
Good luck Elon!
