• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Tomorrow is Yesterday: Captain Christopher's Son

Does it truly seem likely the Enterprise would actually be time-warping back to 1968 to discover how that era managed to survive? Apparently their computers had no idea.
 
Yeah, it is kind of weird. But just the sort of dialogue you might expect if this were instead some special documentary for school students complete guest starring Kirk and crew, and instead of Seven, Isis, and Roberta, a bunch of average school kids showing Kirk how they hide under their desks from nuclear bombs, avoid communist propaganda, etc.
 
But nobody was saying "manned moonshot" by the time of Apollo 11. Nobody. They were calling 11 the first attempted Moon landing, and words to that effect. Just having a rocketship that could carry men to the Moon was no longer a wild, theoretical concept, a "shot" as in, Let's see if this even works. It was an established capability before Apollo 11.

Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11
Book by Brian Floca

Apollo 11 astronauts reunite on 50th anniversary of moonshot
Bymarcia dunn, ap aerospace writer
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Jul 19, 2019, 5:54 PM ET

The Moonshot
Apollo 11
 
IRL the various Apollo missions got shifted around after this episode was written. For instance, Apollo 8 wasn't originally intended to go anywhere near the Moon, but various factors caused the mission profiles to be altered.
At the time the episode was being produced the Apollo Command module was still being developed. It may have had one uncrewed flight test at that point and the Apollo 1 ground test fire accident occurred the actual day after TOS S1 Tomorrow Is Yesterday first aired on NBC.

Edited to add: Remember TOS was cancelled and all 3 seasons aired on NBC by the time the Apollo 11 mission launched, landed and returned from the Moon.
 
Last edited:
Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11
Book by Brian Floca

Apollo 11 astronauts reunite on 50th anniversary of moonshot
Bymarcia dunn, ap aerospace writer
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Jul 19, 2019, 5:54 PM ET

The Moonshot
Apollo 11
Yeah, moonshot is now a cool-sounding, "retro" word that makes a catchy title in modern retrospectives, but it was not an up-to-date expression at the actual time of Apollo 11.

The history of space flight was moving very fast in the Sixties, and nobody wanted to sound three years out of date.
 
So either way then, we're going with the unreliable radio announcer!

Apollo 8: first moonshot, not a Wednesday, not 6am
Apollo 11: Third moonshot (but first moon landing), on a Wednesday, not 6am

So neither time is correct and the announcer either got the day wrong (less than a week beforehand) or clumsily described the mission to his audience.
I don't know which is worse! :crazy:
Yeah, the point is that you can only fit one of the three data points, emphasizing either first manned or Wednesday (but not 6am, because no Apollo mission in the 1960s has that launch time.)
Which means you really can't date Tomorrow is Yesterday with the Apollo Program.
Just a different timeline, one in which Gable is famous in 1930 and the sky is filled with orbital nuke platforms.
 
Last edited:
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top