!!!

[Scrooge]

Originally posted by campmajor!
The first man on the moon marked an impressive event. Even more so than the first man in space.

True. And not-so true.

As a sideline >
In my city, Warsaw, there is a Military History Museum exhibiting a spent polish astronaut's (Hermaszewski) space capsule.

Just looking at it, you cannot but wonder - "and they really sent men into space in THAT?!?"

Looks like it's made of cardboard and wire by a DIY freak. I mean, when I was a kid I built better ones in my back-yard. Anybody SURVIVING a trip to space in such a contraption - this is a wonder.

[Mannamagnus]

???

Why not mention a topic?

[datakodin]

Originally posted by Scrooge
Just looking at it, you cannot but wonder - "and they really sent men into space in THAT?!?"

No. Your spacemen - pierwszy polak w kosmosie Miroslaw Hermaszewski - was returning to Earth in that space capsule.

When he was starting, his space ship was a little bit bigger.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by korn469
actually if they were going to put in any soviet wonders, i think the Berlin Wall would actually be a good one...it would make all of your cities immune to being taken over by culture

and give you -5 unhappiness, with a governemnt overthrow chances of 10% per turn.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Dark Scorpion
Ralf I agree that gameplay is more important than history, but if Civ wish to be game which include historical events, it should be TRUE history!

"TRUE" history, with minutely reproduced historic events can (and should) only be portrayed in advanced handmade tailor-cut Civ-3 scenarios. This is the very purpose with scenarios, in the first place.

Isnt that obvious? Why is it so hard to understand this?

It cant be portrayed in the main game. The main game is, from start to finish, much more about an alternative made-up earth-like history - draped in some autenthic historic clothes & historic backdrop-props, yes. But nothing more then that.

And its GREAT that its divided like that (main-game vs scenario-game), because it leaves the field totally open to construct any type of historic (or future) scenarios in much more rich & ample ways, compared with if the developers where forced to having it all squeezed into the main game.

[Col Bigspear]

This should probably go in off topic but im in here now and im posting anyway!.
I watched a programme about an interesting conspiracy about the Apollo Programme. It basically suggested that the moon landings were faked to show the Soviets that America could out-do them in everything. It showed Pictures of the Astronauts on the moon. There was a lack of stars in the sky, possibly some thing to do with the moons atmosphere?, strange shadows that should not have been there, those crosses like in a telescopic gun sight on the pictures, well one went BEHIND a lunar rover? suggesting that the photo was a mock-up and finally my favourite a letter C on a Moon Rock? a stage prop maybe? A picture of Buzz or Neil, well one was taking a picture of the other and in the Visor of the Astronaut you could see the other person in the reflection, but you could see the top of his head?. It look as if it was a different picture alltogether edited on.
I don't usually listen to conspiracies, exept the JFK assassination, but this one made me laugh. It really is something Americans would do .

Oh yes, America you were a bigger threat to the world than communism ever was. In the 60's you had Missle bases in Turkey and Europe, on the soviet's doorstep. But when they try to even things out e.g Cuban Missle Crisis, you nearly start a War.
This goes to prove my point
31/1/58 US launched their first satellite
19/8/60 US launched discovery 14 the first operational SPY satellite
The soviets just wanted to CHILL 'n' get along.

NOTE, DO NOT TAKE THIS POST that SERIOUSLY
DO NOT OPERATE HEAVY MACHINERY AFTER READING IT
IF YOU ATTEMPT TO CONTACT MI5 IN AN ATTEMPT TO SHUT ME UP, BE SURE TO ASK NICELY AND TO SAY PLEASE

Thx for you time, it sort of had something to do with the Thread did'nt it.

If you are going to reply to this please respond to the conspiracy bit. The U.S.A bashing was just abit of fun for us Europeans

[Timeline]

Yeah Col Bigspear you have a good point. Like, think about the American flag, for example. Why does it look like it’s rippling in the wind when there’s no atmosphere on the moon to make the flag move?

It really is something Americans would do.

Well, as I myself am an American, that's not usually the way I view my fellow countrymen ..... but in this case you, I am afraid, could be right.

Originally posted by Timeline
Yeah Col Bigspear you have a good point. Like, think about the American flag, for example. Why does it look like its rippling in the wind when theres no atmosphere on the moon to make the flag move?

Well gentleman I sat on my living room floor in front of my TV and watched the whole show from start to finnish. If it was a fake then the US Gov and Hollywood outdid themselves in this little movie. I was 25 year old.
Hey Nixon gave us the day off so we could watch and paid us for it w/o using annual leave.

[Timeline]

Yes, my father sat on his floor and watched the whole thing too. It would have taken alot of work to put together such a film, because although there are some things that look fake, there are others that just make you know, and feel inside that this was *real*. Something about it that just isn't in Hollywood movies. I can’t put my finger on it, but maybe it's the dialog between the astronauts.

I remember seeing one of the apollo aeronauts on TV (don't remember which one) and he said the terrain on the moon made it hard to get the flag to stay in the ground because the surface was like powder. He said as they lifted off from the moon, he could see the flag get knocked over by the thrust form the lunar module.

Oh well, we may never know what really happened. If it was a hoax, then by the time science develops a telescope that’s powerful enough to see if the lunar rover (and other equipment that would have been left behind) is really there, people will just say NASA has had plenty of time to plant the evidence. Same if a private company builds an unmanned satellite capable of traveling to the moon. We will never know. But I *do* know that it will go down in history that the Americans were the first to land on the moon and that they did so in 1969.

P.S. Here are the pictures they don't want you to see.

Originally posted by Timeline

P.S. Here are the pictures they don't want you to see.

It's E.T. Hey ET how are you doing?
I would love to go to Area 51 plus that little place 16 miles west of the base.

[Kenobi]

I know it's OT, but I can't resist posting...

Sheesh. I just knew this lunar landing discussion was going to degenerate into an investigation of the "hoax theory". The old fluttering flag "problem" is explained by the use of wire to keep the flag flying in a "realistic" way.

If you think the conspiracy's true, apply the old deputy director of the CIA's rule: "If you want the world to know something, tell three Americans." This supposed hoax would have required thousand of americans to be actively involved in the biggest conspiracy that the world has ever known and say nothing, write no memoirs, take no guest star roles on Ricki. The suggestion is laughable.

As to the original question, I agree with the argument that the fundamental technology to achieve the lunar landing was available well before it took place, and THE RUSSIANS WERE FIRST IN SPACE. Just keep saying the following: the first man in space was Russian, the first man in space was Russian...

BTW, it's not American bashing to admire the Russians for achieving something great. Russia was a great power back when America still belonged to the (original) Americans.

Originally posted by Timeline

then by the time science develops a telescope that powerful enough to see if the lunar rover (and other equipment that would have been left behind) is really there, people will just say NASA has had plenty of time to plant the evidence.

Hey you still young. Go for the job of being an operator on the Hubble. Then one day when everyone is off, you come in and point the big one at the moon when the sun will shining on the landing area and see if you can pick up a reflection from some of our equipment left on the moon. At least you will know, and at that point would you really care if someone did not believed you?

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by Kenobi
BTW, it's not American bashing to admire the Russians for achieving something great. Russia was a great power back when America still belonged to the (original) Americans.

Not it is to mention how great it has been the German scientist contribution for the run to the space.

Just in case someone don't already know, first missiles in USA, USSR and France (the latter finally converged on the European Space Agency) took really a lot from German experience with V-2 (A4) missiles. First succesful rocket engine launched were often working copies of original german (succesfully proved during war), or at least a copy of most succesful part of them.

Not that others country wasn't researching in that field, but none can negate the bare result of thousand of V-2 built and launched (different extimate: 6,500 built, 3,300 launched) and more than 500 succesfully hit London and some more hit the port of Antwerp! No other country was able to do anything like that during that years. I've found an interesting site about V-2, linked here just in case.

[Skanky Burns]

Heres each important step in space travel as i see it...

First sucessful rocket: Germany
First Unmanned Object sent to space: America
First Animal sent to space: Russia
First Man in space: Russia
First Woman in space: Russia
First sattelite in space: Russia
First to orbit the moon: America
First to land on moon: America

Feel free to add corrections or comments, i just got these off the top of my head

Edit: Updated list due to new info

[BigRich]

Originally posted by joseph1944

Hey you still young. Go for the job of being an operator on the Hubble. Then one day when everyone is off, you come in and point the big one at the moon when the sun will shining on the landing area and see if you can pick up a reflection from some of our equipment left on the moon. At least you will know, and at that point would you really care if someone did not believed you?

Apparently one of the first two experiments set up on the moon was a set of prisms to act as a laser reflector, to help measure the exact Earth - Moon distance. Don't know if that ever worked but it would be pretty convincing evidence against the conspiracy theory right? Don't know what the chances of a naturally occuring rock formation doing the same job are but I thing I'd prefer to assume that Apollo wasn't faked
Excellent book on the subject "A man on the moon - the voyages of the Apollo astronauts" by Andrew L. Chaikin. I'm reading it at the moment, it definitely brings home how damn impressive the whole venture was. And if he's tooting the ole American horn, well just for once its throughly justified IMHO!

Rich.

[korn469]

hehe Adm.Naismith you're right about that...for one thing Wernher von Braun was not only the main scientist in charge of the nazi german rocket program but he was the lead scientist on many american rocket programs and his team was the one that designed the rocket that launched the first successful US satellite...without german rocket expertise neither the US nor the USSR would have made it into space as quickly as what they did...and joseph1944 is right...if the US had of listened to von Braun we would have made it to space earlier...but they did give priority to the civilian controlled vanguard until the Soviets launched sputnik and the vanguard failed while the world was watching...then good old von Braun got us there with the military project

Skanky Burns

yes the USSR made it to space first but...

12/4/61 USSR puts Gagarin into orbit
5/5/61 US puts Shepard into sub-orbit

that is less than a month's difference and in civ terms they would have launched in the same turn...they weren't copying each other's designs...they were building upon german designs

back to civ3...maybe what this shows is that instead of having a single name for a wonder, maybe each wonder should get it's own unique name...like the hoover dam, if the persians built it i can almost guarantee they wouldn't call it the hoover damn...i dunno...maybe there shouldn't be any WONDERS in the industrial and modern ages and there should just be miniwonders, each having a name that corresponds to that civ...chinese get Sun Tzu's War academy while the US gets west point and the british get sandhurst military academy...but maybe the first player to build a miniwonder could get just a small extra bonus in addition to the normal things a mini wonder does

Originally posted by korn469
hehe Adm.Naismith you're right about that...for one thing Wernher von Braun was not only the main scientist in charge of the nazi german rocket program but he was the lead scientist on many american rocket programs and his team was the one that designed the rocket that launched the first successful US satellite...without german rocket expertise neither the US nor the USSR would have made it into space as quickly as what they did...and joseph1944 is right...if the US had of listened to von Braun we would have made it to space earlier

Thank you. And yes you are quite right, after the V-2 suceess it did speed up our reaserch. Before that Dr. Goddard research was ingnored by a lot of American.

...but they did give priority to the civilian controlled vanguard until the Soviets launched sputnik and the vanguard failed while the world was watching...then good old von Braun got us there with the military project
Skanky Burns
yes the USSR made it to space first but...
12/4/61 USSR puts Gagarin into orbit
5/5/61 US puts Shepard into orbit

that is less than a month's difference and in civ terms they would have launched in the same turn...they weren't copying each other's designs...they were building upon german designs

I was watching the Histroy channel a week or two ago and some Germans Scientis said most of the design they used came from Dr. Robert Goddard testing of his rockets. BTW the United States launched the first rocket into space. No satillite, no humans just a rocket that went high enough to qualify for space.

In the late 1940s Americans developed two important research rockets, the Viking and the Aerobee. In 1949 a small rocket called the WAC Corporal soared to what was then a record height of 250 miles (space). It was launched as a second stage atop a V-2 missile.

Ref: World Book Encyclopedia

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
First Unmanned Object sent to space: Russia


Feel free to add corrections or comments, i just got these off the top of my head

See my post above.

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by korn469

yes the USSR made it to space first but...

12/4/61 USSR puts Gagarin into orbit
5/5/61 US puts Shepard into orbit

False. According to NASA official history site the first man into orbit was Glenn, on the Mercury capsule Freedom 7 only February 20, 1962, hence Civ NEXT turn

Shepard flight was a sub-orbital launch.

Please don't mix the two concept: putting something in orbit is much more complex that sending a rocket high enough to qualify as suborbital space fly.

According to other sources, I would note that the race to the space was probably a bad thing for space colonization: the urge to run to the moon killed the very promising project of lifting bodies shuttle, many years before the current Space Shuttle.

The second scheduled step was a permanent orbital station, also demised for financing the Saturno V - Apollo - LEM.

I'm sure the ISS Alpha now assembling will finally be a step into the right direction.

[korn469]

Adm.Naismith

sorry about that...i'll edit my posts

so is there a consensus here that the race to the moon while certianly a stunning achievement, probably one of mankinds greatest feats, could have been better spent on other form of exploration (such as a permanent space station) that would have proved probably more helpful to space utilization?

just wondering what you guys thought

[RedWhiteArcher]

For everyone who have questions about moon hoax visit this site.

Adm.Naismith
Just a minor correction (I'm sure that that what you meant but I just wanted to correct)

The first man in orbit wasn't Glenn, he was the first american in orbit.

This would really be better if the wonderes could be named differently in other countries. Like at least in Moon project case:
US - Apollo project
Russia - Soyuz project
Others - just a "Moon project" (since there wasn't an analogy)

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by RedWhiteArcher
Adm.Naismith
Just a minor correction (I'm sure that that what you meant but I just wanted to correct)

The first man in orbit wasn't Glenn, he was the first american in orbit.

Correct. In that sentence I was referring to USA achievement, so I've taken that for implicit.

This would really be better if the wonderes could be named differently in other countries. Like at least in Moon project case:
US - Apollo project
Russia - Soyuz project
Others - just a "Moon project" (since there wasn't an analogy)

More detailed, but perhaps a more complexity (parametered civilopedia, more translations efforts needed) with small return.

Not to mention some young American player will probably cry "Soyuz" as a wrong name and a game bug...

Originally posted by korn469
so is there a consensus here that the race to the moon while certainly a stunning achievement, probably one of mankind greatest feats, could have been better spent on other form of exploration (such as a permanent space station) that would have proved probably more helpful to space utilization?

just wondering what you guys thought

IMHO is was Vietnam and social change that came out of the anti-war demonstration. Pres. Johnson love space but the war was consuming him to the point that just said no to another term.

Also Pres. Nixon did not give a damn about space, plus a liberal congress was elected and wanted to cancel space in favor of liberal social cause (welfare, etc.).
NASA saw the writing on the wall and scale back a ton so they would not be shut down completely. Some of you might know that congress did shut down SETI for a while and it is just now starting to operate again.
In the late fifty, we were going to build a moon base sometime in the eighty, obvious that did not materialize.
Mars was suppose to happen now, however it will be at lease 2015 or later before we go. When we do go I think there probably will be at least one Russian on the trip, plus some other countries to.
Hey I will admit that Russia has had some great Scientist and Engineer. It is to bad that their Gov. from 1920 to 1990 did not advance mankind causes for their own countryman.
The Russian did not build missile for space, it was built to bomb the US and later used for space.
At lease some of our missile were built for space and not war.

[The Mad Viking]

Personally, I think the flag photo is a fake. But I don't doubt the moon landing at all. At times, NASA used and admitted to showing simulated pictures. It would be a ***** to get a clear photo of this, and that flag is not hanging from a wire, it is fluttering. On a flagpole that looks like a fishing rod...

Read the book APOLLO. The story of the whole program, largely from an engineering point of view. Absolutely fascinating!

No question, as I think tniem said, that the Russian success was the central force pushing the Americans to the moon. Also no question that the moon landing and return was enormously more difficult than launching into orbit.

Interesting note- the team at Grumman that designed and built the Lunar Landing Module (LEM, for some reason) was composed almost entirely of Canadian engineers, recently jobless, as PM Diefenbacher had recently cancelled the Avro Aero program.

I've always been struck by the similarity between the Phantom and the Aero, but don't know if any ex-Avro guys worked on it...

Do any Americans here have the slightest idea what I'm talking about?

Originally posted by The Mad Viking

Interesting note- the team at Grumman that designed and built the Lunar Landing Module (LEM, for some reason) was composed almost entirely of Canadian engineers, recently jobless, as PM Diefenbacher had recently cancelled the Avro Aero program.

I've always been struck by the similarity between the Phantom and the Aero, but don't know if any ex-Avro guys worked on it...

Do any Americans here have the slightest idea what I'm talking about?

Yes I do. The Arrow. I still dislike your PM for canceling the program. I think I have a model of it somewhere, will have to look. That plane would have put Canada right in the advance airplane building mode, and it would have been fun to watch it fly. We may have bought some also. We did buy the British Canberra and rename it the B-57.
My Aunt (Mother Sister) bought me 4 model in 1952/3?, I now have over 3,000 Airplanes, Tanks, Ships, Space, and Cars.
On the Phantom. It was built by McDonnell-Douglas and in the days it was built our company did not share information that well. However Engineer did move from Company to Company. Also the Phantom was a low wing aircraft and the Arrow was a crank high wing aircraft. Now the F-8 had almost the same wing.

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
Personally, I think the flag photo is a fake. But I don't doubt the moon landing at all. At times, NASA used and admitted to showing simulated pictures. It would be a ***** to get a clear photo of this, and that flag is not hanging from a wire, it is fluttering. On a flagpole that looks like a fishing rod...

Good old INERTIA anyone?
The flag had an horizontal support to keep it "open". Planting down the flag the movement transmitted to the textile has been keept for a while; because there was no atmosphere to slow it down, only the (low) gravity acted as a force for movement reduction.

Meantime the photo has been taken, with a "earth realistic" look.

Mistery solved, Mr Watson.

About 25 min ago (5:25PM pacific) CNN played a tape of Pres. Kennedy talking to a NASA Leader. He said I want to land on the Moon or why are we spending all this money if we do not land. Now here is the big new.

: I do not care about Space. I want to beat the Russian.

All of this time I thought he supported Space. Oh well.
NASA Leader only wanted to fly over the moon without landing.
I think Kennedy landing show everyone you have to land if you want really explored. Out fly over of Mars only show so much, but after landing there we have leaned so much more.
Space the final frontier, were no man has gone before, planet Earth is coming your way.

[Skanky Burns]

Just a quick note:

LEM stands for Lunar Excursion Module

[C. Gerhardt]

Why does most of Europe hate the US? I dont understand it.

Three words: George W. Bush
This loony should be :banned:

B.t.w. he could also be put in the Guinness Book of Records!!!
He destroyed in 8 weeks what Billy-boy worked hard for during his 8 years!!!

I rest my case.

[BlackStone]

Col Bigspear


Talking of conspiracy theories i was told the other day of a theory that actually the moon was a giant spaceship. The person who told me was very excited and said that the TV programme had gone into some detail about craters and the like. I personally thought he was talking B**l**ks, afterall what self respecting alien would make a space ship out of cream cheese.