[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
It is in fact known that most of the astronauts had psychiatric problems after their missions. There was even some speculation that John Glenn would have had his past problems used against him if he had been successful in his run for the presidential nomination. No need for 'conspiracy theories' about this when it's public information.

Ok, so does this psychiatric issue now affect all astronauts, and not merely the lunar astronauts as you said before? Because John Glenn was not part of the Appolo program. He never left low earth orbit and the saftey of the magnetosphere.

Except for that secret mission that I'm not allowed to say anything about.

How is speculation that John Glenn had a speculative mental condition that a speculative political operative might have speculativly used to damage him politically realate to anything? And we aren't talking conspiracy theories? Riiiigght.

It is NOT in fact "known" that "most" astronauts have had psyciatric problems upon returning to earth. It IS of course rumored to be true by people that have no way of knowing one way or the other. And that rumor takes on life over the internet becasue otherwise intelligent people such as yourself give it more weight that it deserves.

Buzz Aldrin had some well publicized isssues. By his account it was a sudden lack of any goals to work towards in his life. It's a common malady suffered by may people who reach retiement age and no longer feel a purpose. After all, when your life long goal as a pilot and astronaut has been to push the envelope farther and faster, what do you do when you've walked on the moon? There is litereally nowhere to go but down from there.

Who else? Can you name one, give a link, anything? If it's well known you should be able to very easily. Shouldn't take much research at all.

There were less then 27 astronauts that ever orbited or landed on the moon. Maybe a couple hundred that have ever made it as far as orbit. So if only a few had mental problems it would be a significant percentage of the overall total. But the numbers would be too small to have any real meaning as a statistical sample. And considering the intense nature of their occupation it's highly explainable for other reasons.

All that said, there is definetly stuff out there that's bad for us. Recent studies of radiation levels on Mars have put the possibility of any manned missions to mars in doubt for the near term, even if we decided to do it. I don't disagree with you there at all.

But it's not neccesary to buy into any conspiracy theories about it. Nasa will tell you all about it if you ask. What possible reason would they have for classifying the end of the Moon missions? Is there some reason they need to keep us in the dark about what they know and understand about the dangers of long term and deep space travel? If so they have a funny way of keeping secrets, cause they admit that stuff all the time.

They are always telling us that they don't stuff. Their whole reason for exsistance is to find out stuff, so telling us they don't know stuff is job security.

The kind of stuff Nasa covers up is engineering screw ups. If it will get someone fired, I could see them trying to cover it up. I see no incentive to them in covering up the fact that there are things about space they don't quite understand yet.

[ March 28, 2004, 13:31: Message edited by: geoschmo ]