[LV-426]

I'm glad they got the Earthrise Photo, because otherwise, six months before Apollo 11 gave the world a line which even impressed the Soviets, Apollo 8 would be remembered for this cringey, inane stuff[1]:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToHhQUhdyBY

[1] To avoid misunderstanding: this isn't an atheist/anti-religion post, it's about the aptness of such an utterance by personnel on a top scientific mission, from one of the world's top scientific agencies.

Edit: * sigh * and insta-downvote bot strikes again

[throwanem]

The concern has been raised before: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/3...

(eta: Nothing earns downvotes on Hacker News like complaining about downvotes does. If getting downvoted here bothers you - and God alone knows why it would - then complaining about downvotes is a habit worth avoiding.)

[LV-426]

Thanks. I wasn't aware of that. I just remember the first time I ever saw that footage, couldn't believe what I was hearing, and haven't forgotten it.

My own objection isn't even about government/state promotion of religion - though I'm not particularly a fan of that - it's that a scientific body like NASA comes out with "God created Earth".

And I wouldn't even mind that if NASA stated it was their official position. Then anyone is free to decide on their scientific credibility.

Instead we had an organization making itself look ridiculous by unnecessarily pandering to beliefs it couldn't possibly officially hold.

[throwanem]

You are conflating the official position of the organization with a statement made by one of its employees on company time. The linked decision thoroughly considers this point as well, and finds it unconvincing. NASA's official allegiance in matters of faith was found to be as nonexistent as befits a US government agency. The court recognizes that sometimes people say things of their own accord, for which they alone are responsible. It seems a sensible enough analysis.

By modern mores, of course such a thing would be a firing offense and the seed crystal around which much Buzzfeed and Twitter would briefly accrete. (It would be a firing offense because it would be, &c., &c. I suppose it's only a mercy none of the Apollo 8 crew were seen in public to wear shirts their friends had made for them.) But we here discuss a historical event, now some fifty years in the past. The application of modern mores to historical events is called "presentism", a word whose pejorative connotation is well earned by the fact that such tendentious analysis generates only heat, never light.

And leaving fallacies of historiography aside, as far as I'm concerned, the employees of any past or future NASA capable of carrying out a manned lunar mission can quote whatever scripture they like from lunar orbit, because it strikes me as absurd unto risibility to be more concerned with their quoting scripture than with their doing so from lunar orbit. But I am certainly a very strange man, and will not in any case be consulted, and what people say will continue for probably some time to outweigh unto negligibility what those same people do. So it goes.

[LV-426]

> You are conflating the official position of the organization with a statement made by one of its employees on company time.

1. It was not one person, it was everyone on board.

2. Describing NASA trained professionals, paid by NASA, in their NASA gear and NASA hardware, representing NASA on a monumental, history-making, multi-billion dollar NASA mission into deep space as mere "employees on company time" is beyond ridiculous, frankly.

[throwanem]

Three employees, then. Did you have a substantive response to make? I mean, I understand that you're not satisfied with how the events of Apollo 8 played out. What I don't understand is whence comes the belief, which you seem to cherish quite strongly, that your satisfaction or lack thereof is of any relevance to those events.

[LV-426]

> Did you have a substantive response to make?

Did you?

> I understand that you're not satisfied with how the events of Apollo 8 played out. What I don't understand is whence comes the belief, which you seem to cherish quite strongly, that your satisfaction or lack thereof is of any relevance to those events.

I understand that you're not satisfied with my posts about how Apollo 8 played out. What I don't understand is whence comes the belief, which you seem to cherish quite strongly, that your satisfaction or lack thereof is of any relevance to anything.

[bolololo1]

Amen!

[Pigo]

You're definitely coming off as an edge-lord for calling this inane. Today, I'm sure Twitter would melt because of it (you can't even have a shirt people don't like without causing outrage), but the country was very different back then. Plus these missions were more than a scientific endeavor, because it took more than science to put everything in place for it. It was the biggest accomplishment by us as a species, so they wanted mark it with what they considered the most important thing in their lives. To me it's cringey that you can't look at it objectively without taking some kind of offense to it. But hey, that's just me.

[LV-426]

> You're definitely coming off as an edge-lord for calling this inane.

And you're definitely coming off as an idiot using a term like "edge-lord".

> Today, I'm sure Twitter would melt because of it (you can't even have a shirt people don't like without causing outrage)

I have no interest in Twitter - so unfortunately I don't know which particular chip on your shoulder you're rambling on about - but you should probably save your hot take on the issue for a relevant thread.

> but the country was very different back then.

Yes, instead of melting Twitter people merely filed lawsuits.

> Plus these missions were more than a scientific endeavor, because it took more than science to put everything in place for it.

Did it take God creating Earth in the first place?

> It was the biggest accomplishment by us as a species, so they wanted mark it with what they considered the most important thing in their lives.

So it's the biggest accomplishment by us as a species, but really all about what three guys in a can want?

> To me it's cringey that you can't look at it objectively without taking some kind of offense to it. But hey, that's just me.

Good for you.