about how NASA first asked her to recruit women and minorities as astronaut candidates. She wasn't the only one bothered by the Good Ol' Boys Club.Got a roar of approval from the audience. She's one hell of a class act. Such warmth of personality.
She told them, "If I do this for you, if I take time off from performing, and if I go to all this trouble of recruiting high-caliber men and women of varying races... and we still inexplicably wind up with an all-white, all-male astronaut corps, I will SUE you. I will sue you for my time."
177:34:44 Collins: Roger. This trip of ours to the Moon may have looked, to you, simple or easy. I'd like to assure you that has not been the case. The Saturn V rocket which put us into orbit is an incredibly complicated piece of machinery, every piece of which worked flawlessly. This computer up above my head has a 38,000-word vocabulary, each word of which has been very carefully chosen to be of the utmost value to us, the crew. This switch which I have in my hand now, has over 300 counterparts in the Command Module alone, this one single switch design. In addition to that, there are myriads of circuit breakers, levers, rods, and other associated controls. The SPS engine, our large rocket engine on the aft end of our Service Module, must have performed flawlessly, or we would have been stranded in lunar orbit. The parachutes up above my head must work perfectly tomorrow or we will plummet into the ocean. We have always had confidence that all this equipment will work, and work properly, and we continue to have confidence that it will do so for the remainder of the flight. All this is possible only through the blood, sweat and tears of a number of people. First, the American workmen who put these pieces of machinery together in the factory. Second, the painstaking work done by the various test teams during the assembly and the re-test after assembly. And finally, the people at the Manned Spacecraft Center, both in management, in mission planning, in flight control, and last but not least, in crew training. This operation is somewhat like the periscope of a submarine. All you see is the three of us, but beneath the surface are thousands and thousands of others, and to all those, I would like to say, thank you very much. [Long pause.]I'm looking in Collins book as he recounts this and he's kicking himself for forgetting some people: "Shit, I left out the simulater people and the Cape and a few others, but it's too late now."
177:37:52 McCandless: 11, this is Houston. We're getting a good picture of Buzz now, but no voice modulation. And would you open up the f-stop on the TV camera? Try 22, please.
177:38:13 McCandless: That appears to be a lot better now. We're still not receiving Buzz's audio.
177:38:20 Aldrin: Good evening. I'd like to discuss with you a few of the more symbolic aspects of the flight of our mission, Apollo 11. As we've been discussing the events that have taken place in the past 2 or 3 days here on board our spacecraft, we've come to the conclusion that this has been far more than three men on a voyage to the Moon. More, still, than the efforts of a government and industry team. More, even, than the efforts of one nation. We feel that this stands as a symbol of the insatiable curiosity of all mankind to explore the unknown. Neil's statement the other day upon first setting foot on the surface of the Moon, "This is a small step for a man, but a great leap for mankind," I believe sums up these feelings very nicely. We accepted the challenge of going to the Moon; the acceptance of this challenge was inevitable. The relative ease with which we carried out our mission, I believe, is a tribute to the timeliness of that acceptance. Today, I feel we're fully capable of accepting expanded roles in the exploration of space. In retrospect, we have all been particularly pleased with the call signs that we very laboriously chose for our spacecraft, Columbia and Eagle. We've been particularly pleased with the emblem of our flight, depicting the U.S. eagle bringing the universal symbol of peace from the Earth, from the planet Earth to the Moon, that symbol being the olive branch. It was our overall crew choice to deposit a replica of this symbol on the Moon. Personally, in reflecting on the events of the past several days, a verse from Psalms comes to mind to me. "When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars which Thou hast ordained, what is man that Thou art mindful of him." [Long pause.]
177:41:42 Armstrong: The responsibility for this flight lies first with history and with the giants of science who have preceded this effort. Next with the American people, who have through their will, indicated their desire. Next, to four administrations, and their Congresses, for implementing that will. And then, to the agency and industry teams that built our spacecraft, the Saturn, the Columbia, the Eagle, and the little EMU; the space suit and backpack that was our small spacecraft out on the lunar surface. We'd like to give a special thanks to all those Americans who built those spacecraft, who did the construction, design, the tests, and put their - their hearts and all their abilities into those craft. To those people, tonight, we give a special thank you, and to all the other people that are listening and watching tonight, God bless you. Good night from Apollo 11. [Long pause.]
177:43:52 McCandless: 11, this is Houston. We're getting a zoom view out the window now. [Long pause.]
177:44:24 Armstrong: Apollo 11, signing off.
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Of course there are many great opportunities to work at NASA but I am totally puzzled as to why championing space exploration as a career to young girls has been massively ignored. Why not have the male astronauts talk about it? Or is that taboo because they're men?
NASA's mission is space exploration, to which, it seems, young girls should not aspire.
posted by gsh at 9:54 AM on March 27, 2011