I was over at the California Science Center this afternoon to hear a panel discussion with Buzz Aldrin and several other speakers, moderated by Howard McCurdy. And I’m on a red eye back to Florida tonight, so probably not much until sometime tomorrow.
[Friday morning update]
Back home, but sleep deprived. Maybe more later.
On Wed, I saw Buzz Aldrin and Jim Lovell together in Chicago. I learned something new when Aldrin and Lovell were asked what they would have done differently. Lovell mentioned that he thought Apollo 10’s mission was unnecessary and they should have been set up for a landing. Aldrin drew laughs when he said “what would I change? Certainly not that!” But characteristically, Aldrin was being serious, and pointed out that a key difference between Apollo 10 and Apollo 11 was that Apollo 10’s LM never went sub-orbital — if either the decent or ascent engines on the LM had failed, the CSM could have picked them up, while Apollo 11’s LM was the first to be on a trajectory where they were going to reach the moon whether or not it had working equipment or not. I was left wondering whether Aldrin thought that a LM might have acted differently after reaching the vicinity of the moon as compared to how Apollo 9’s LM acted in Earth orbit. Maybe he thought the LM needed two tests prior to landing regardless of location – I don’t know. Anyway, maybe this is all old hat to you, but I hadn’t appreciated this distinction between Apollo 10 and Apollo 11. I also enjoyed the contrast in personalities of Aldrin and Lovell – they were great on stage together.