From Jeff Findley:
In article ,
says...

I see this to be a very important topic. Ways that we as human beings
can figure out how to get along without killing each other.
snip

Off topic for sci.space.history. It's well known the first groups of
astronauts came from the US military. Beyond that, you're delving into
political, social, and military issues. None of these have anything to
do with sci.space.

I really don't know why you insist on posting deliberately inflamatory
and/or off topic posts.

Neil Armstrong and flying to the Moon is off topic from ssh? Now that's a curious response that I never would have predicted.

Why have I highlighted the topic of Neil and other lunar astronauts having killed people? This was clearly explained in the original post:
Yusaku Maezawa has shared his vision of how his BFR SpaceX circumlunar mission can serve to inspire peace and harmony around the globe, amongst us who remain back here on Earth.

The Apollo lunar missions had this same effect.

Many would say that this is the *most important* impact of the Apollo Program. If we could pick one instant in time from that entire decade, it might be the moment that Bill Anders clicked his shutter to capture Earthrise.

And those 24 astronauts, to this day being the only 24 human beings to ever venture beyond Low Earth Orbit, all came from military training backgrounds. I am not even citing Schmitt as a lone exception to that, because as it was explained, he too had at least one year of military training (USAF UPT).

That original post was met with a visceral rejection. So I followed it up by posting that story of how Neil Armstrong, during the Korean War, had the opportunity to mow down dozens of Korean soldiers with strafing passes of his F9F Panther jet. Imagine if that scene had been depicted in the new movie First Man. Say that Neil wakes up from a cold sweat where he just had a dream that he actually put all those soldiers through the meat grinder. IRL, he says he refrained from doing this. Given the story as told, it is said that all of his squadmates, without exception, would have done it.

Now think of all the stories that Neil took to his grave, without ever telling any of us. Or maybe just telling those who were closest to him, like his squadmates who had done the same kinds of things that he did.

Imagine if just one such incident were presented to the public on the big screen. That one vignette of his warrior past would forever change how people would see Neil's legacy. When he stepped onto the Moon that day and spoke about it was an event that was a huge milestone for all of humanity, we would know that it was the words of a cold-blooded killer.

....or at least a person who had faithfully executed his duty to kill with extreme prejudice.

Had he killed dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? I do not know. These are things that he didn't talk about. Things that people didn't ask him. Not something that is discussed in polite company. And if you raise the topic in a space history forum, people will tell you that you've strayed off topic.

The idea of Neil and Buzz having killed people has nothing to do with space history, right?

A consistent goal that I have had here ever since Day 1 is to help correct the errors of space history. And ignoring an important aspect of history can be seen as a major error.

Humanity has had a severely violent past. And we have carried that legacy with us into the stars. This was shown clearly in Kubrick's 2001 with the ape-man scene tossing that killing bone into the sky and the scene transitions to a satellite orbiting the Earth. It is not explained in the movie, but that is no ordinary satellite. It is a nuclear weapon that is orbiting the Earth, terrorizing the entire planet, ready to deorbit anywhere at a moment's notice.

Last Monday, Yusaku Maezawa shared a refreshingly beautiful vision. A singular change that deviates from humanity's entrenched legacy of violence. While others are beating the war drums of creating a Space Force, he offers a vision of sending artists into space.

I'm well aware that me raising this issue can be seen as unnecessary "trolling". "Inflamatory". But the only way we will ever transcend our Dark Side is if we confront it. To ignore it is to perpetuate it.

This is why I highlight the issue of "First Man" being sexist.

This is why I raise the issue of John Young's racist naming of Stone Mountain at the landing site of Apollo 16. This is why I raise the issue of NASA's racist clocks. Because you must first become aware of the shadow if you have any hope of shining light on it.

The first time that people here on this forum freaked out over something I had shared was when I explained why Neil was the first. There are very specific and very logical reasons why this happened.

The mainstream version of space history says that it happened due to "luck of the draw". That he was simply at the right place at the right time. That anyone could have done what he did.

This is an utterly bogus story. Space history is broken. And I've been working diligently to help fix it. In a couple of weeks we are going to get a new movie on Neil Armstrong, and it is going to be GARBAGE. I know this with certainty now because last night I watched this talk by author James Hansen. His talk was titled "Why Armstrong?" He talks for well more than an hour, and he gives the lamest of reasons why Armstrong was first. He utterly failed to do his homework.

- In his talk he never mentions the LLRV/TV. It is only during the Q&A when he is asked about its significance is it discussed.

- He never mentions the critical importance of Rendezvous Experience, and how Neil had been picked to fly the very first rendezvous in Gemini. I didn't hear the word 'rendezvous' stated a single time throughout that entire talk, as far as I recall.

- He dismisses the importance of Neil having been a civilian. This was highlighted in my thread posted back in 2001 about how Michael Collins, in his book Carrying The Fire, makes it clear that Neil being a civilian was of key importance to NASA during the selection process, a selection in which he was rejected, while Neil was picked.

- He makes no mention of the fact that Neil had no formal Test Pilot School training. Neil was competing against others who had been through ARPS, let alone TPS. Yet Neil was picked over them to do the sweetest of Gemini missions and then the sweetest of Apollo missions. Deke deliberately lined up Neil for these sweet spots.

- He makes no mention of Paul Bickle. In an earlier post, I had mentioned how I did not see anyone cast as Bickle in the IMDB page for First Man. This was my first warning sign that the movie is going to be garbage. In talking to the Edwards AFB crowd for well over an hour, he never raises the name of Paul Bickle one single time. He never shows a single photo of Paul Bickle, let alone a photo of Bickle & Armstrong together (as far as I recall). This is the most egregious of errors, especially considering the location of his talk and the audience he is speaking to.

Here is the talk I am criticizing:

The First Man on the Moon: Why Neil Armstrong?” Dr. James Hansen (at AFRC, Aug3,2017)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPqsWgEqqBc

Utter garbage. And if his talk is this shallow, then his book must be garbage too. And since he was a prime consultant for the movie, and the movie was based on his book, I am now expecting a mere fluff piece.

I still intend to watch the movie. But after seeing this talk, my expectations for the film could not be any lower.

For anyone wanting to know the full reasons why Armstrong was first, you can find the thorough explanation posted here on this forum way back in 2001, a full four years prior to Hansen's book being published. That thread is titled:

LLTV as the Key to Landing Assignments

My very first post to Usenet was on May 27, 2001. Info shared in that thread goes way deeper than anything I've seen from Hansen, the one and only official biographer of Neil Armstrong.

Back in 2001, ssh was a vibrant forum, with members including well respected space history authors and others who actually lived space history. Today this forum is all but dead. I post this thread on what I see to be the most important aspect of space history, and my contribution gets attacked for being off topic. Quite curious.

Even if those who have voiced their opinion here in this thread see no value in it, I remain hopeful that there will be other readers who do see some value. Perhaps these words might reach James Hansen, and he will be challenged to reconsider facts he never looked at, or looked at and dismissed. Perhaps these words might reach Yusaku Maezawa and Elon Musk, as confirmation of the vital importance of the motivation behind their mission. Perhaps these words might reach someone who works for Donald Trump and they will reconsider their push to create a US Space Force. Maybe Neil deGrasse Tyson will have an epiphany for how his efforts are serving to perpetuate the long history of human violence.

Maybe these words will reach no one, other that those few who have been severely aggravated by the ideas I have shared.

I don't know if there will be any positive effect of the effort put into this thread. But I DO know that there has been amazingly positive impact of past ideas that I have shared here on this forum (along with efforts on Wikipedia, etc). I have witnessed dramatic change in people's understanding of the militaristic nature of human spaceflight programs. Even people with their understanding of how "zero gravity" is a bogus term, and that the proper term is weightlessness.

There has been excellent improvement between 2001 and today. And people like Yusaku Maezawa and Elon Musk give me hope that there will continue to be great strides toward improving our global society as we continue ahead.

Many decades from now, people will look at photos of Neil & Buzz on the Moon and be woke to the darkness of the history behind it. Darkness in the nuclear terror that Apollo grew out of. Darkness in the personal histories of strafing fellow human beings into hamburger bits. And they will, by then, also have the images from the following voyages to the Moon by people like MZ. They will have a clear understanding of how humanity has progressed from being a primitive species toward becoming an enlightened species.

That is the future that we have to look forward to ...thanks to the efforts of those like Elon & MZ. Standing on the shoulders of those who came before, like Neil & Buzz. Every new day that dawns presents us with an opportunity to improve ourselves, and to make a contribution toward improving humanity as a whole.

There will be those who choose to use these opportunities to attack and kill. But even those events themselves present platforms upon which something new can be built. Even here with all the negativity on this forum. New life can spring forth from even the darkest of soil. **** can serve as the richest of fertilizer.

~ CT