back to article RIP to two 'naut legends: A moonwalker and a spacewalker

The world lost two astronauts this past weekend – one a moonwalker that you've likely heard of, the other a pioneering spacewalker you might not know about. Bye-bye, Alan Bean Alan Bean, the fourth man on the Moon, passed away on 26 May, aged 86. He is perhaps most famous for being the lunar module pilot (LMP) on the Apollo 12 …

  1. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
    Boffin

    Only four left

    I note that of the twelve people who have walked on the moon, only four are still alive. All in their 80s.

    How on earth(*) did we let it get this bad? I mean, I know we have had a few orbiting space stations, but really. Time to step up to the plate again.

    GJC

    (*) Sorry.

    1. Arthur the cat Silver badge

      Re: Only four left

      Mandatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/893/

      The hover text is worth reading.

      Edit: Uncle Slacky beat me to it.

    2. JeffyPoooh
      Pint

      Re: Only four left

      There's another eight left that have been out at the Moon, but not landed/walked upon it. They've also got some stories to tell. Al Worden tells of retrieving some film and being out in a spacewalk with the entire Universe before him.

      Frank Borman, CDR Apollo 8

      Jim Lovell, CMP Apollo 8 and CDR Apollo 13 (twice!)

      William Anders, LMP Apollo 8

      Thomas Stafford, CDR Apollo 10

      Michael Collins, CMP Apollo 11

      Fred Haise, LMP Apollo 13

      Alfred Worden, CMP Apollo 15

      Ken Mattingly, CMP Apollo 16

      I figure that Jim Lovell is actually the one person that's been further from Earth than any other individual. He let the other two on Apollo 13 look out the window at the Moon's far side, so he would have been on the other side of the CM, ever so slightly further from the Earth than the other two. FTW.

      (Apollo 13's Free Return Trajectory was the furthest - "highest" - from the Earth. I'm adding another layer of detail to the title 'Highest Human Ever'.)

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Only four left

      "Time to step up to the plate again."

      I totally agree. The last several U.S. Presidents have mentioned things like this. Let's hope the current one actually delivers on it.

      A base on the moon would be ideal for a LOT of things, from sciency stuff to mining rare earth materials, and researching/developing more efficient means of travel to/from Earth and Moon.

      NASA's moon race with USSR developed technologies that are STILL in use today. "Collateral Technologies" I guess you could call them. THIS ALONE is reason to do it. Keynsian economists should LOVE the idea. After all, you're creating jobs by "buying space stuff". [and when they don't buy 'space stuff', instead favoring "other kinds of spending" that include 'crazy trains' and 'bridges to nowhere' and "people who aren't looking for work", you know it's just the usual corruption and 'corporate welfare' and 'vote buying' going on instead of ACTUAL Keynsian economics].

      So yeah, EU should be going to the moon, too. And UK [post-brexit]. I'd be *stoked* if there were a UK space program sending people to the moon. ('Thunderbirds are GO' - heh)

      NASA, private industry, UK, EU, Russia, China, everyone going to the moon (and a '2001'-like ISS as a stopping off point would be a good addition, too). I think this would do nicely for the 21st century.

      1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

        Re: @bombastic bob

        And UK [post-brexit]. I'd be *stoked* if there were a UK space program sending people to the moon. ('Thunderbirds are GO' - heh)

        The UK is quite unique in developing its own launch technology, then abandoning it.

        Also the UK went down the road of high-test peroxide oxidants which decompose in to oxygen and steam (sometimes explosively, and have killed US rocket researches and the unfortunate submariners on the Kursk). So I guess there is something rather fitting that we* made it in to space with steam power.

        [*] we as in UK made satellite, not as far as astronauts unfortunately.

        1. not.known@this.address
          Mushroom

          Re: @bombastic bob

          I don't think we abandoned our "launch technology" so much as lent it to other European nations who fscked the 2nd and 3rd stage systems and caused the end of the program. Our bit worked fine so the icon's for the other 2 :-)

    4. JassMan

      Re: Only four left

      The conspiracy theorists will be noting this fact and claim that it obviously too dangerous to go to the moon so we should abandon all space research. Alternatively they will say that the astronauts are all being bumped off to prevent them from confirming that the moon walks were actually just a film set in a desert somewhere.

      This is actually one of the few cases where correlation (they are all in their 80s 'cos the moon landings were so long ago) has a massive effect on causation.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

        Re: Only four left

        > correlation has a massive effect on causation.

        You are mishandling this.

        (The idea is that correlation between events may "indicate* causation between events. Correlation does not have an effect on anything. The correlation here would be between death and age. But we do know that the die-off of people is not exponentially distributed, and old people are more likely to die, so there is no problem in any case)

    5. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Only four left

      "Bean's passing leaves only four humans alive who have set foot on the Moon."

      It'll be sad if by the time another human steps on the moon there will be none left alive who did it before them.

      That's looking likely.

  2. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Obligatory XKCD

    https://xkcd.com/893/

    1. Aladdin Sane

      Re: Obligatory XKCD

      That graph makes me incredibly sad.

  3. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

    Two more childhood heroes gone

    I followed all the Apollo flights, and the first Space Shuttle launches as well. Exciting times. Almost all my classmates in primary school wanted to become astronauts back then. Fingers crossed new heroes step up to get kids looking up from their smartphones and out into space again.

    I'll raise a glass in their memory, thanking them for all the good memories they gave me, and all they did for mankind

    1. ArrZarr Silver badge
      Mushroom

      Re: Two more childhood heroes gone

      I'm pretty certain that the lack of people doing these historic firsts is less to do with people wanting to go to space and more to do with with the miserable bastards in charge of the purse strings.

      1. Marty McFly Silver badge
        Childcatcher

        I disagree

        I think there are fewer real men who are willing to put their lives on the line for the purpose of exploration. We have become a safety obsessed society, and there is nothing safe about going to the moon/Mars. It is not the financial cost of success that it too high, it is the social cost of failure that is no longer palatable.

        1. Alt C

          Re: I disagree

          Honestly - there are still plenty of brave people willing to take risks, the air force still has test pilots etc but your bang on about society not being willing to take the risk - though it should be calculated risks we take not the complacent ones that ended up with 2 shuttle disasters

        2. PerlyKing
          FAIL

          Re: fewer real men

          I disagree with your disagreement. I suspect that there are plenty of brave men (and women!), but they're being held back by red tape and lack of money.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I disagree

          This is silly. If the number of people-willing-to-go-to-space had gone down by a factor of a thousand since 1970 there would still be thousands of them.

        4. bombastic bob Silver badge
          Childcatcher

          Re: I disagree

          "We have become a safety obsessed society"

          unfortunately so.

          That, coupled with the desire to "not let kids feel bad" because "someone else does better", even by taking away grades and sports scoring, to "protect" them. Sad.

          "Helicopter parenting" too. Whatever happened to "go outside, and play, don't come back until dinner" ? [this made it possible to get things done without kids constantly underfoot].

        5. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I disagree

          There is no shortage of people willing to risk everything. You only have to look on YouTube.

      2. Zwuramunga

        Re: Two more childhood heroes gone

        That is why we created an Elon Musk.

    2. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Megaphone

      Re: Two more childhood heroes gone

      I think that "real heroes" are being DISCOURAGED nowadays. This is because it's "not fair" for one person to excel, because it makes "everyone else" "feel bad about themselves" [in the minds of the elitists that are trying to 'groom' our children into becoming easily herded 'sheeple'[. From eliminating grades and scoring in sports, to attempting to "equalize outcomes" from a socialistic/communistic standpoint, if you want to be "hero" nowadays, it's a MUCH! STEEPER! CLIMB!!!

      So yeah, we need more heroes. MODERN heroes that REALLY ARE heroes. Examples to us all [especially the youngest generation].

      1. disgruntled yank

        Re: Two more childhood heroes gone

        ***

        I think that "real heroes" are being DISCOURAGED nowadays. This is because it's "not fair" for one person to excel, because it makes "everyone else" "feel bad about themselves" [in the minds of the elitists that are trying to 'groom' our children into becoming easily herded 'sheeple'[. From eliminating grades and scoring in sports,

        ***

        Sorry, how is it consistent with elitism to discourage excellence? And sports seems to be retain its emphasis on performance, else why are players released and coaches fired?

        As for real heroes, last week a science teacher at an Indiana middle school was shot three times while tackling a kid with a firearm, and he has since returned to the classroom: https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/05/26/us/ap-us-school-shooting-indiana.html . Somehow I don't think the real heroes are extinct.

        1. Martin Gregorie

          Re: Two more childhood heroes gone

          And sports seems to be retain its emphasis on performance, else why are players released and coaches fired?

          That's not sport: that's just hiring paid performers while everybody else sits on their fat arses and watches them.

          Sport is something you get out and do yourself. It includes some competitive element: either challenging yourself to do better or trying to be better than your mates at doing it. This definition covers a lot of activities, ranging from playing team sports or individual games like tennis. It also includes activities like hill walking, bike riding, sailing, flying light aircraft, gliders, etc. It doesn't matter what you do as long as it requires some degree of physical and intellectual effort, and may involve some degree of risk. You get to choose what sort of sporting activity you do, but you have to do it yourself.

          Watching somebody else doing it is never sport.

    3. Mark 85

      Re: Two more childhood heroes gone

      I can only add "Amen". Sad times these days with little to spark the imagination of us humans.

  4. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Pint

    This --->

    That's all.

  5. RJG

    I see they are still sticking with the "camera accidently pointed at the sun" explanation for the lack of TV pictures.

    Some of us still remember that documentry "Alternative Three" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_3 which told the real story.

    1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
      Alien

      Blimey...Alternative 3

      That takes me back, I'd long forgotten the name of it though.

      I recall everyone at school was talking about it the next day & our SCISP (Schools Council Integrated Science Project) seemed to have missed it, then the reveal it was a hoax.

      Also reminds me of the Magpie April Fools Day Jape that allegedly had water in a solid pill form & released into it's more natural state by exposure to light.

  6. _LC_
    WTF?

    Shoot me

    https://youtu.be/TXs2UfPv39s?t=270

  7. VulcanLeader

    "Rocket Men" by Robert Kurson - the story of Apollo 8 - for those like me who listened that Christmas - un-put-downable!

  8. Patrice

    Dreams from another era?

    Is man on another solar system body a dream from a bygone era? When man had to do it himself because vacuum tube electronics just couldn't cut it?

    Sure we haven't gone back to the moon or the other places but we have sent plenty of robot explorer and have learned quite a bit about Mars and all the way through Pluto through the eyes of robots. Which human can survive a trip to Jupiter or even Pluto?

    We have continued to explore, just not with cowboys anymore. Maybe like the movies, their time in space exploration has passed.

  9. Tikimon
    Devil

    In all fairness, the Moon is the only easy target

    Our beloved rocky satellite is rather close, and we can get there within a few days. Since exposure to the hazards of Space is short, visiting the moon is relatively safe.

    Next out? Mars or Venus. Weeks of travel in the best of times. The crew will suffer cosmic radiation exposure and the myriad of semi-permanent physiological problems caused by long periods in low or no gravity. We have lots of problems to solve before we can send humans anywhere but the Moon.

    Now that being said, the Moon is a great testing ground for any off-world bases or habitats we might use on longer voyages. We could benefit from a return to the Moon, even if we can't reach our farther neighbors yet. The problem is always this: you can't buy votes with space exploration. As long as politicians set the budgets, that simple fact will drain the blood of space research forever.

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