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Old January 28th 18, 03:55 AM posted to sci.space.history
Stuf4
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Default Debbie Reynolds and Space History

Today we are at the 51st anniversary of the Apollo 1 tragedy. Today, a year after presenting this to this forum, I will explain how Debbie Reynolds is connected to this whole mess. And now, in 2018, we also have the death of John Young, as this Debbie Reynolds connection directly impacted him as well.

Yes, Debbie Reynolds' connection was through her role as Molly Brown in the 1964 movie where she got an Oscar nomination. Gus Grissom caught hell with his Mercury capsule sinking, and so on the first Gemini, which he flew with John Young, he picked 'Molly Brown' as the nickname for their spacecraft..

The fundamental theme of this story is one of an oppressive environment of domination, and whether you will choose to submit to that domination, or instead assert the principles you hold, standing up to those who have power over you.

How the Molly Brown Spirit applies to space history goes back to the Mercury Program. But not just Gus's flight, where the capsule sank. It applied even more to John Glenn and Deke Slayton who were in line behind Gus. There is the famous story of how LBJ was visiting Houston and wanted to do a PR meeting with John Glenn's wife Annie. Annie had her reasons for not wanting to meet with the VP. And her husband John fully supported her. That was a principled decision. LBJ was outraged.

The aftermath of that was that the astronaut corps was "taught a lesson" on who is boss. John Glenn did not get the immediate brunt of the backlash. He was too big a hero to America. The impact hit Deke Slayton. NASA wielded their power over CB by grounding Deke ...for a totally bogus reason. Slayton was grounded for a heart condition that NASA had fully known about, and had passed him on his physical during the selection process. NASA used this as their excuse to take him out. But their reason was to send the message to the entire astronaut corps to toe the line, or you will be taken out as well.

NASA established this terror environment within the Corps so that it was perfectly clear to all astronauts that they were not to step out of line. And the 1967 result of that was 3 dead astronauts. (There were other astronauts who would pay for this fear-based NASA policy with their lives, but for starters here we will stay focused on the direct impact on Gus.)

On Gemini 3, Gus tested the waters of rebellion by choosing this controversial name 'Molly Brown'. NASA once again SLAMMED the astronaut corps. There was not to be any more spacecraft nicknames. No subsequent mission throughout the Gemini Program had any spacecraft nickname. And this carried over into Apollo with Gus's first mission, and lasted through the first Moon mission. (With the policy only changing in 1969 out of necessity when two spacecraft were flying at the same time.) Gus's crewmate John Young joined in on the rebellion by flying that corned beef sandwich. NASA reprimanded the crew for that as well.

Time and again, the message from NASA was clear: "You are just an astronaut. One small step above the monkeys that we fly in our capsules. You do as we tell you."

By the time Apollo rolled around, it was clear to Gus that there were severe problems with the hardware at North American. Yet it had also been made clear to him where his place was in the program. So the level of protest by this stage, after the beat down in Mercury, followed by the beat down in Gemini ...the Apollo 1 crew expressed their protest in a mere photo, praying that the capsule would not kill them:
https://vintagespace.files.wordpress...1/a1prayer.jpg

But prayers were not enough. That capsule DID kill them.

Another low-level protest was Gus's hanging of that lemon on the simulator. If the astronaut office had been fully empowered, and had been fully supported, then they would have taken action on this as part of their job to ensure that major fixes would be made before they would put their lives at risk inside these spacecraft that they could clearly see had severe design issues.

Gus, Ed & Roger died that day. 51 years ago.


But now try to imagine if the Molly Brown Spirit had thrived at NASA. The reason why Debbie Reynolds had gotten that role, and that Oscar nomination, was because she had so thoroughly captured the spirit of defiance in the face of oppressive forces that had overbearing power. Here she is in the movie trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk10MoMpMIA&t=27s
"I might give out, but I won't give in!"

The Molly Brown Spirit can be encapsulated in one word: indomitable.
This is the same rebellious spirit that Debbie passed along to the next generation which led to her daughter Carrie Fisher becoming far more famous than she was. Princess Leia embodied this Molly Brown Spirit.

Here it helps to know the character of the person who Debbie Reynolds was portraying. Maggie Brown fought the system. She ran for the US Senate in 1914. This was 8 years *before* the ban on women voting was lifted.

History channel clip on "Molly" Brown:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpekPaut0Cg&t=50s

The theme is doing what you know to be right, in spite of what the authorities above you might say.

You can also draw the connection of how Molly Brown got famous for her role with the Titanic, and how Grissom & Young's flight of the 'Molly Brown' happened at the top of a Titan'IC'BM booster.

By the time of Apollo, Gus was beaten down to the point where he knew he was powerless. I have had the thought that he also knew that he and his crew would need to be sacrificed in order for things to change. Well the sacrifice happened. And the hardware changed for Apollo and the rest of that program was conducted safely.

But his sacrifice was *not* enough to change the culture of oppression at NASA. The AS-204 Investigation, as with the Apollo 13 Review Board that followed it, were designed to prevent embarrassment for NASA. They did not have the primary goal of fixing the culture that caused these mishaps to occur. George Low at the top of the NASA administration assigned his former college roommate to head the A13 Review Board. These "investigations" were shameless.

And so this fundamental problem returned to John Young to bite him once again, as he was the Chief of the Astronaut Office and it was under his watch that he lost another crew ...32 years ago tomorrow.

THAT was the time when John Young finally decided that he had had enough, and that he was going to openly speak his mind, knowing full well that it would cost him his career. He was highly critical of what had been going on. And John Young, even though he had been assigned to his 7th flight, was pulled from that mission and he never flew again. (The command of his Hubble deployment mission was given instead to Loren Shriver.)

So this is the significance that Debbie Reynolds as Molly Brown had to the NASA space program. It is the legacy of 17 dead astronauts, all avoidable, including the one who had named his capsule the Molly Brown.

Last year I had stated that this topic could fill an entire book. And that is because this lack of "Molly Brown Spirit" is what led to Apollo 1, what led to Apollo 13, to STS-51L, and also to STS-107. One of the most stark examples of this is with Hoot Gibson's command, just two flights in the wake of Challenger.

Hoot Gibson: "We are going to die."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BswkvaAaqSM&t=58s

That was STS-27. Add *80* to that and you get STS-107. What did NASA do to address this severe problem over this span of a decade and a half? They killed off the mod to beef up the Wing Leading Edges (WLE-MMOD). Congress gave NASA plenty of money for improvements. Instead of making safety their top priority, NASA squandered this money by approving things like the MEDS Glass Cockpit mod.

And there were astronauts all along the way throughout those decades who consented to these horrible, tragic decisions that ultimately proved fatal. And the worst decision in regards to Shuttle was the one way back in the early 70s where astronauts agreed that it was ok to have a spacecraft that did not give them any hope of survival in the event of a failure at hypersonic speeds. It would have been easy to design the crew cabin pressure vessel as an escape pod that would give a crew in an emergency situation at least some hope of survival, be it on ascent or entry. But no, that did not happen. They were given NOTHING. NASA set the example with Deke Slayton to show astronauts that they were expendable. And now with the shuttle program, this attitude of expendability was designed right into the vehicle itself..

Molly Brown would not have gone along with such stupidity. She would have said...
"Turn this lifeboat around. We're going back to do this right!"


Gruesome-White-Chaffing.

That's the result you end up with when you fail to give due heed to the Molly Brown Spirit. Gus knew better. But I think he was willing to lay the lives of his crew on the line in hopes that this machine that was much bigger than him would change. Sadly, it was not until more tragedies culminating in 2003 that those changes would finally happen across NASA.

~ CT