Synchronicity -- "Tomorrow is Yesterday" and the Apollo 1 fire

[Neopeius]

Not really. They were test pilots with engineering training. They routinely talked to the engineers building a craft to give their feedback. And it's obvious that the pressure of the "space race" was reaching a critical point. There was little time to be elegant with needed solutions, and changes were made constantly. What is remarkable is how reliable the whole system was after that, even through the Apollo 13 accident.

They spent a year and a half making it better. The Block 1 Apollo never even flew.

Von Braun turned back to the NASA brass and told them, "Gentlemen, I give you a reliability of 4 neins!"

Hehe.

 

[shapeshifter]

Doubtful, as it started in 1969.

Everything I missed in childhood was caused by Hee Haw being on that night.

 

[The Old Mixer]

In a different bit of immersive retro synchronicity, the debut of Hee Haw in the summer of 1969 came up on my 50th anniversary viewing radar when Laugh-In kept taking swipes at it in the subsequent fall season for aping their formula.

 

[ChallengerHK]

I was 5 in 1966. I don't have any clear memories of watching earlier Trek, say, like the first half of the first season. I do recall watching space launches, and I definitely connected them with Trek, but I don't have a clear recollection of the fire. I can say that it was a combination of Trek and NASA that combined tp motivate me to write my first short story.

 

[NCC-73515]

Not really.

How many other crews took such a photo before their flight?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1#/media/File:A1prayer.jpg

 

[Nerys Myk]

They also took this one

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Side note: In my initial post I linked to the "Apollo One" episode of From the Earth to the Moon. I highly recommend that episode (and indeed the entire series). As I understand it, the ep only takes a couple of liberties regarding the disaster:

- in the ep, the mission was called Apollo 1 from the get-go (we hear the controllers on the ground calling it that), and changed to AS-204 after the disaster. In real llife, the opposite was true.

- The ep implies that Joe Shea (the Apollo program director) did not crack under the stress. IRL, I'm fairly sure Shea DID crack. He began abusing barbiturates and alcohol, and I think he really was committed, at least for a time.

 

[Neopeius]

Apollo 1 figured prominently in this week's Trek review. I was particularly struck by Lorelei's linking seeing Cronkite with when she saw his coverage of Kennedy's assassination.
http://galacticjourney.org/february-2-1967-its-about-time-star-trek-tomorrow-is-yesterday/
http://galacticjourney.org/february-2-1967-its-about-time-star-trek-tomorrow-is-yesterday/

(I'm rather proud of the title for the article...)