RIP Frank Borman

[CD Boogie]

The chairman of the board of a large corporation called you because your father bought some shares in the company for you? Did he buy 10% of Eastern? I would hope a chairman has better things to do than call retail customers who bought shares.

who exactly do you think is lying here?

First off, I was like 8 in 1981 and knew fuckall who Frank Borman was. So ya think my dad was trying to earn brownie points with a phone call from some rando?

My dad was in Army Intelligence, so I guess I couldn't put it beyond him to fake a phone call from an astronaut to his son who has no appreciation for who this guy is.

Or more likely it happened like I said and only a half wit would think otherwise.

 

[justgladtobehere]

who exactly do you think is lying here?

First off, I was like 8 in 1981 and knew fuckall who Frank Borman was. So ya think my dad was trying to earn brownie points with a phone call from some rando?

My dad was in Army Intelligence, so I guess I couldn't put it beyond him to fake a phone call from an astronaut to his son who has no appreciation for who this guy is.

Or more likely it happened like I said and only a half wit would think otherwise.

My tone was off. I wasn't questioning you. I was questioning the use of time and how it could have happened. Why you?

 

[BTExpress]

Could it have been a taped "form" call that many people got?
Could it have been a random "Frank Borman calls X number of people every month who buy shares," and you just crossed the bridge at the right time?

Just spitballing.

 

[Starman]

Well, why NOT him (or his dad)?

As far as whether a chairman would have better things to do than call individual shareholders, the answer is, Maybe!! Or maybe not!!

Some chairmen are absolute hands on nuts and bolts guys. They'd probably be down in the accounting department auditing last month's paper clip orders. Frank Borman could be out in the hangar checking tire pressure.

Some chairmen are celebrity figureheads and that's it. They smile and grin at photo ops and that's it. Eastern Air Lines was having investment problems in the 70s-80s. Attracting and retaining stockholders was certainly a big issue and I'm sure part of the reason Frank Borman, a prominent astronaut, was brought in.

Frank Borman had a reputation from both his actual astronaut flights as well as his role on the Apollo 1 investigation as being very technically proficient as well as cognizant of problems in interpersonal and organizational relationships so I'm sure his roles at Eastern involved a lot more than celebrity golf and televised grip and grins.

And hell, why wouldn't that include making some phone calls to new investors? Megamillion big whales, sure, but why not even just a guy buying a couple hundred bucks worth? It takes 5 minutes of Frank's time, so what? It could have been on a totally random basis. For a 5 minute phone call Frank quite likely gains somebody who will give the company strong word of mouth, he calls 6 people, some of those people call other people, and sooner or later somebody else buys some more Eastern stock.

I don't find it particularly hard to believe at all.

 

[Pilot]

In addition to the fact that the presidential campaign was coming down to the wire and one of the candidates was Richard M. Nixon, the revenge-bent arch-nemesis of John F. Kennedy, who would have been utterly delighted to pull the plug on the golden triumph and historic legacy of his sainted martyred predecessor and cancel the whole Apollo program the day he took office.

With the Apollo 1 tragedy still fresh in the nation's minds, had Apollos 7 and 8 been anything less than complete successes, Nixon could even have justified the decision as simply concern over the safety of our valiant astronauts. "It has been a tremendous effort by all involved but it appears unlikely this deadline will be met, so rather than put astronauts at additional risk we choose to devote the money to more pressing needs."

But with the historic Apollo 8 Earthrise photos plastered all over every front page in the world three weeks before he took office it would have been politically disastrous for Nixon to pull the plug at that point.

On Dec. 24, 1968, you could turn on the teevee and they were looking out the window at the moon. On that day, landing on the moon became more than just some pie in the sky dream, it became something that was going to happen.

Not to say this Richard Nixon fellow couldn't have acted less than rationally out of spite — though hard to see how that could have been in HIS character — but the money was pretty much already spent by Jan. 69, right? Apollo was paid for in the mid 60s.

Cutting it would obviously have been foolish even for his egotistical side. Nixon's chance to call Apollo 11 on the moon proved a pretty iconic moment.

 

[Pilot]

who exactly do you think is lying here?

First off, I was like 8 in 1981 and knew fuckall who Frank Borman was. So ya think my dad was trying to earn brownie points with a phone call from some rando?

My dad was in Army Intelligence, so I guess I couldn't put it beyond him to fake a phone call from an astronaut to his son who has no appreciation for who this guy is.

Or more likely it happened like I said and only a half wit would think otherwise.

To be clear, I definitely think you're lying.

Appreciate the long con, though. Made up a call when you were 8 and BOOM 40+ years later, who's laughing now?

 

[Starman]

Not to say this Richard Nixon fellow couldn't have acted less than rationally out of spite — though hard to see how that could have been in HIS character — but the money was pretty much already spent by Jan. 69, right? Apollo was paid for in the mid 60s.

Cutting it would obviously have been foolish even for his egotistical side. Nixon's chance to call Apollo 11 on the moon proved a pretty iconic moment.

The hardware was already in the production line -- I believe on 1/21/69 the actual Saturn Vs for Apollos 9-13 were already on site or ready to ship, but he absolutely could have thrown the brakes on the whole deal by XO, especially if he justified the whole thing on "safety concerns."

And don't forget, if Nixon had suddenly come out with a bombshell decision to whack Apollo, he would have had some very unexpected allies: the liberal-hippie civil-rights peaceniks and environmental activists who wanted "to spend the money on more deserving things right here on earth."
Of course Nixon never had any intention on spending tax money on any of that shit, whatever money was saved from canceling Apollo would have gone most likely into buying more bombs for Vietnam or else tax cuts for his Wall Street buddies. But as long as it would have dumped JFKs historic legacy in the shitter, Nixon would have been happy.

 

[maumann]

If Nixon scuttles the Apollo program in 1969, he loses 1972 by a landslide.

The Democrats (and probably most Republicans) would have crucified him, and rightly so. An overwhelming majority of the American people were solidly behind the idea of getting Americans to the Moon first. No matter what you think of his politics, he was first and foremost concerned about his image, especially if the Russkies beat us.

I have to believe he knew a decision of that magnitude -- no matter how he played it off as "tax savings" -- would have been a huge blow to the nation's psyche, as well as a massive hit to the military-industral complex that was involved in producing GNP and paying tens of thousands of people to do it. Those corporations which lobby really hard in Congress to keep our military No. 1 in the world.

It's impossible to explain how Moon-crazy this nation was in the mid-60s. Tang. Space Food Sticks. Walter Cronkite live from the Cape or Mission Control in Houston.

Almost everyone knew someone connected to the space program or had a friend of a friend at Boeing or McDonnell-Douglas or Rocketdyne or one of the hundreds of contractors working on everything from hardware to software to sewing patches on spacesuits. It wasn't just in Titusville or Houston or Huntsville. People were employed all over the country as part of the push to the Moon.

The hippy-dippies didn't vote, as McGovern found out. But Ma and Pa America did, and they were solidly pro-American, anti-Soviet. If that meant winning the Cold War by sticking a flag on a cold, dark, airless satellite orbiting the Earth, so be it.

Nixon would have had more success getting out of Viet Nam at that point than shutting down NASA.

 

[BTExpress]

Space Food Sticks.

In my school lunch box. Every day.

 

[Starman]

If Nixon scuttles the Apollo program in 1969, he loses 1972 by a landslide.

The Democrats (and probably most Republicans) would have crucified him, and rightly so. An overwhelming majority of the American people were solidly behind the idea of getting Americans to the Moon first. No matter what you think of his politics, he was first and foremost concerned about his image, especially if the Russkies beat us.

I have to believe he knew a decision of that magnitude -- no matter how he played it off as "tax savings" -- would have been a huge blow to the nation's psyche, as well as a massive hit to the military-industral complex that was involved in producing GNP and paying tens of thousands of people to do it. Those corporations which lobby really hard in Congress to keep our military No. 1 in the world.

It's impossible to explain how Moon-crazy this nation was in the mid-60s. Tang. Space Food Sticks. Walter Cronkite live from the Cape or Mission Control in Houston.

Almost everyone knew someone connected to the space program or had a friend of a friend at Boeing or McDonnell-Douglas or Rocketdyne or one of the hundreds of contractors working on everything from hardware to software to sewing patches on spacesuits. It wasn't just in Titusville or Houston or Huntsville. People were employed all over the country as part of the push to the Moon.

The hippy-dippies didn't vote, as McGovern found out. But Ma and Pa America did, and they were solidly pro-American, anti-Soviet. If that meant winning the Cold War by sticking a flag on a cold, dark, airless satellite orbiting the Earth, so be it.

Nixon would have had more success getting out of Viet Nam at that point than shutting down NASA.

Suppose Apollo 8 had been less than a total success. Suppose they got into earth orbit, there was an ignition problem with the S-4B, so they don't get the GO FOR TLI.

So they stay in orbit 10 days or so, essentially duplicating the flight of A7. They splash down and the astronauts are ok. But what does NASA do?

For public consumption, they probably say the flight was "largely successful," but in the halls of Houston, they'd be shitting bricks. The flight of Apollo 6 back in April (actually on the day of MLK's murder) had not been successful at all, they had major vibration problems with the second stage, almost lost the flight, and certainly would have aborted a manned mission.

So the NASA head honchos would say, hang on, time out, we have now had two flights in a row of the Saturn V which have been unsuccessful. They would still have had no successful flights of the Saturn V in addition to no successful flights of the Lunar Module with the deadline looming only 10 months away.

All this with the tragedy of Apollo 1 still etched in everyone's minds.

The lunar fever you describe did exist, but you know when it really burst into full force nationwide? Christmas Week, 1968. Before that, landing on the moon seemed like some kind of distant abstraction.

The nation was not transfixed by Apollo 7. There was kind of a national sigh of relief when it launched without a hitch -- it was pretty much the first major piece of national news in 1968 which wasn't an utter disaster -- and the live from orbit broadcasts had novelty value, but people were not huddled around the TV set watching every moment.

It took live tv photos from lunar orbit on Christmas Eve to do that.

 

[da man]

To @maumann's point, don't forget Nixon was one of the top anti-communists in the Senate during the McCarthy era. You think he was going to let the Soviets get to the moon first?

 

[maumann]

But Nixon doesn't take office until January, 1969. So you can jigger history if and only if Apollo 8 screws the pooch. Yeah, NASA needed a Hail Mary but they got one.

Once the astronauts read from the Bible 100 miles above the Moon while he was still President-elect, Nixon doesn't even factor into the rest of the story. And had he pulled the plug at that point, his political goose was forever cooked, Watergate be damned.

And I'd argue that Apollo 7 -- being the first crewed Apollo mission to lift off (RIP, Grissom, Chaffee and White) -- had nationwide interest. The Saturn I-B put on a pretty good show, especially by Gemini standards. Even though they didn't go anywhere, they did a series of live TV broadcasts. And proved the engineering was sound.