Apollo 13 and British brains

worntorn

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A few days ago I caught the last half of a documentary on the Apollo 13 mission ( Houston we've had a problem)

I've also seen Ron Howard's excellent film Apollo 13.

It was surprising to hear all of the Brit accents in the Documentary. Just couldn't recall a single Brit or expat Brit in the film, so I watched the film again last night. It was entirely Brit free.
The reality did contain considerable Brit content.
With the Documentary, members of the actual Apollo 13 ground crew were interviewed as well as various propulsion engineers who had done design/ build work on both modules.
When it hit the fan three Brits were called in to out help work out a solution. These were men who had been in on the design and build phases.
One nerdy Brit with bad teeth recalled "They were in a bit of a sticky wicket. They asked me to calculate the trajectory using the Lunar Module as propulsion back to Earth" and so on.

The Brits may have been employees of Grumaan Aircraft, the builders of the LM.
Going to find that documentary and watch it right thru.

Glen
 
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There is an EXTREMELY goofy early space drama of a Brit in a dying capsule (maybe called "The Capsule"?)

All-Brit.

(maybe gave David Bowie inspiration?)
 
Gentlemen .... Hollywood is hardly truthful and rarely fair .... period , Still love watching movies though , I really like westerns , not so much sci-fi .... my Grand Daddy Albert O’Brien Johnson died believing the moon landing was a farce cooked up in Hollywood .....
 
The main Hollywood movie where history is rewritten that NZers get upset about is the one about the American embassy escape in Iran. I think it’s called Argos. It says the Brits and NZers refused to help.

Which is a lie. NZers risked their lives to help get them out. They just didn’t shout about it. For obvious reasons if you think about it.
 
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You talk about 'British brains' - at least the British have got brains. One thing which really strikes me about the British is the similarity in the way they think with that of the ancient Romans. They are really cynical sneaky bastards. My friend in an Ex-pat Brit. I asked him about the jibes which are made across the chamber in the UK parliament. He said 'they make it an art form'. The Americans don't know the meaning of the word 'subtle', but they are improving. Here in Australia, we are second-rate in many things but we adjust to situations very quickly because we are capable of thinking outside the square. Our problem is we think we are good, but we allow ourselves to be hornswaggled by stuff which is very simple. Americans have a much better approach to risk management, so their country develops much faster. We Australians are brave in a fight, but afraid to 'spend a dollar to make a dollar'.
Since 1948, most Australian governments have been conservative and most of our politicians are situationalist managers rather than being systematic. We now look as though we are heading for a crisis. Our current Federal government was elected without a policy platform - just the promise of 'more of the same', and 'the same' was very mediocre.
 
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Yes. You Ozzies are not that great at following a plan or orders.

As Rommel said. If I had to invade Hell I’d use Australians to take it but Kiwis to hold it !!

Have you seen the film Danger Close? The Ozzies are the infantry Right in the **** and fighting like hell and the Kiwis are the artillery and spotters dropping the shells in trying to get them out of it !!!

https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=d...+tan&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-nz&client=safari

By the way if you think I’m being to hard on the Ozzies I should point out my eldest is an officer in the Australian infantry !!!!
 
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ntst8 said:
And you even have a member of the space programme on here, well a second cousin twice removed from the space programme - our firm has designed the civil works around the launch pads etc.
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my youngest worked on the programme too. But he won’t say how
 
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johnm said:
Yes. You Ozzies are not that great at following a plan or orders.

As Rommel said. If I had to invade Hell I’d use Australians to take it but Kiwis to hold it !!

Have you seen the film Danger Close? The Ozzies are the infantry Right in the **** and fighting like hell and the Kiwis are the artillery and spotters dropping the shells in trying to get them out of it !!!

https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=d...+tan&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-nz&client=safari

By the way if you think I’m being to hard on the Ozzies I should point out my eldest is an officer in the Australian infantry !!!!
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In the past, I have worked fairly closely with our army guys. It amazes me how much cheek the other ranks give their officers. In Australia we have compulsory voting, but we don't usually conscript for military service. Nor do we ever shoot one in ten of our guys as an example, if they jack-up on the battle field. And fights are directed from the rear, with the sergeants leading the fighting soldiers from the front. Personally I dislike the sergeants, they are usually nasty guys. The commissioned officers are always civil, but efficient. He was in the army at age 15. I've got a photo of him on a horse - he looks like a tweetie bird sitting on a jumbo jet.
My father was in WW2. They promoted him to Bombadier (Corporal) then took his stripe off him. There was a sick Private on a stretcher and an officer took the stretcher off him and put it into his tent with all his gear on it. My father retrieved the stretcher, chucked the officer's gear onto the ground and put the sick guy back onto the stretcher, I once took my father to a Fire-power Demo. He went out of his way to disobey an officer. Which amused me no end.
 
They got Star Wars, isn't that enough?

P.S. Watched Mad Max again the other night. What happened to the Australian film industry?
 
NPeteN said:
They got Star Wars, isn't that enough?

P.S. Watched Mad Max again the other night. What happened to the Australian film industry?
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Mad Max is symbolic. - We don't know how to have fun any more. I am happy I was born when I was. Never again will we have the sheer joy of driving muscle cars and thrashing hotted-up motorcycles on public roads. The dick-heads have won. In the future, we will all be fat and sit in front of computers trying to imagine what it would be like to actually do something and have fun.
I built my Seeley Commando 850 out of bits and actually road-raced it with a bit of success. I doubt the next generation of kids will ever have that sort of opportunity.
If you road-race a modern bike, you might as well buy yourself a new ping-pong bat. Everything is sanitised to the point of stupidity.
 
The Australian film industry needs funding. However conservatives believe that austerity measures are the answer to everything which happens in the economy - good or bad.
Looked at sensibly, music and the performing arts are Australia's future - and I am a scientist who worked in major defence engineering businesses, saying that.
 
acotrel said:
Mad Max is symbolic. - We don't know how to have fun any more. I am happy I was born when I was. Never again will we have the sheer joy of driving muscle cars and thrashing hotted-up motorcycles on public roads. The dick-heads have won. In the future, we will all be fat and sit in front of computers trying to imagine what it would be like to actually do something and have fun.
I built my Seeley Commando 850 out of bits and actually road-raced it with a bit of success. I doubt the next generation of kids will ever have that sort of opportunity.
If you road-race a modern bike, you might as well buy yourself a new ping-pong bat. Everything is sanitised to the point of stupidity.
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Al there are plenty of people around who are still into building and driving muscle cars as well hot motorcycles and I have plenty of mates still into it, even the younger ones are getting into it, but they are getting smarter and thinking outside the box, my youngest daughter and her boy friend are both into hot cars and are members of a car club, they might not be building the old style muscle cars but what they are building and spending a lot of their hard earned money on to build light hi performance cars that will put out more HP than the older juice guzzling muscle cars of old, as well they do their stuff on the track and not on the road and they are always at Willowbank race way playing with their toys, my daughter's car is in the final stage of being finished with a bigger insane motor.
So the younger ones are just as keen except they are doing it differently to how we did things, they are keeping up with the times, they still have their big cams but are more into Turbo's over Superchargers.

Ashley
 
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