Edgar Mitchell Apollo 14

Well if you fancy a trip around the moon, flights are booking now…

http://www.spaceadventures.com/experiences/circumlunar-mission/

As Soyuz was originally built to go to the moon it’s technically feasible, and the company has already brokered several private trips to the ISS, so they have a track record. As to the cost – I think the figure being quoted was in excess of one hundred million dollars per seat – and that was a few years ago.

As I recall it was rumoured at one point that James Cameron, the film director had his name down. I guess in terms of making a film of the journey, he could probably turn a profit on it.

Strange to think that we’ll soon be living in an era that there is nobody left alive that has walked on the moon.

I wonder what the relative costs of a new moon mission would be today; would the advances in computing, materials and manufacturing offset the need to (much) reduced risk in the missions themselves?

Another magnificent achievement that is slipping further back into history. The NASA astronauts of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions were a breed apart. Dr Mitchell’s death leaves very few alive now. It is saddening to think that after those great days we are still just footling around in low Earth orbit. I realise the cost and time involved but I would so much rather that our collective governments’ money was spent on this great research than endlessly poured into the bottomless well of defense spending caused by our internecine squabbling.

It’s quite amazing to think of going from no powered flight in the world, to landing men on the Moon, in less than one man’s lifetime.

With a PhD in Aeronautics and astronautics from MIT, he was obviously more than the “jet jockey” they’re often portrayed as.

One of the astronauts…I can’t recall which…parents were early aviators/barnstormers.
I can’t think of a better way to illustrate the progress in aviation in the first 2/3rds of the last century.

Hi All,
Just read about him in the book Moondust (In search of the men who fell to earth) by Andrew Smith, quite an interesting character by all accounts.
RIP MR Mitchell.

Geoff.

This made me smile. 🙂

“In 2011, he turned over the camera he took to the moon to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington. The US government filed a lawsuit against him in that same year, saying he stole the camera. Mitchell denied the allegations and said if it wasn’t for him, the camera would have never made it back to Earth.”

A real hero.