Ken Mattingly was scrubbed from the Apollo 13 mission for lack of
medical clearance, suspected of having been infected with measles.

Of course, he wasn't sick.

When disaster struck the mission, he led the team on the ground that
figured out the protocol that kept the men alive and able to return to
Earth.

He was later part of the Apollo 16 mission.

Ken Mattingly, Astronaut Scrubbed From Apollo 13, Is Dead at 87

He later orbited the moon, but in 1970 he was bumped from the Apollo
flight after being exposed to measles. Then, from mission control, he
helped it avert disaster.
By Richard Goldstein
The New York Times
Nov. 2, 2023, 5:11 p.m. ET
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/02/science/space/ken-mattingly-dead.html

Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

>Ken Mattingly was scrubbed from the Apollo 13 mission for lack of
>medical clearance, suspected of having been infected with measles.

Er, German measles, not measles

>Of course, he wasn't sick.

On Fri, 3 Nov 2023 00:29:52 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>
wrote:

>Ken Mattingly was scrubbed from the Apollo 13 mission for lack of
>medical clearance, suspected of having been infected with measles.

He had been in proximity to someone else who had German measels, or
rubella, and he hadn't been vaccinated for it. It isn't as if they had a
particular reason to suspect he was going to get sick, they just couldn't
take the chance. It was the right call. Space is many things and can be
described in many ways, but "unforgiving" is one of the most apt.

>When disaster struck the mission, he led the team on the ground that
>figured out the protocol that kept the men alive and able to return to
>Earth.

He didn't lead it. He participated. It was an all-hands-on-deck operation
that involved dozens of people. It wasn't his team, though.

David Carson

--
Dead or Alive Data Base
http://www.doadb.com

Important details there, David; thanks for delineating that.

It's rather a shame that he's remembered more for Apollo 13 than his vital-but-non-landing role in Apollo 16. He, Michael Collins and the other only-orbited-the-moon guys should get more credit by casual space-race fans.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida

David Carson <davo@neosoft.com> wrote:
>Fri, 3 Nov 2023 00:29:52 -0000 (UTC), Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com>:

>>Ken Mattingly was scrubbed from the Apollo 13 mission for lack of
>>medical clearance, suspected of having been infected with measles.

>He had been in proximity to someone else who had German measels, or
>rubella, and he hadn't been vaccinated for it.

He hadn't been vaccinated for it because the vaccine wasn't even
commercially available till 1967 and wouldn't have been given to adults
at that time anyway.

>. . .

>>When disaster struck the mission, he led the team on the ground that
>>figured out the protocol that kept the men alive and able to return to
>>Earth.

>He didn't lead it. He participated. It was an all-hands-on-deck operation
>that involved dozens of people. It wasn't his team, though.

Gosh. It's nice that you allowed that he participated in it even though
you won't allow that he showed leadership within the group he
participated with.

On Fri, 3 Nov 2023 06:34:16 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"
<ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

>David Carson <davo@neosoft.com> wrote:
>>Fri, 3 Nov 2023 00:29:52 -0000 (UTC), Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com>:
>
>>>Ken Mattingly was scrubbed from the Apollo 13 mission for lack of
>>>medical clearance, suspected of having been infected with measles.
>
>>He had been in proximity to someone else who had German measels, or
>>rubella, and he hadn't been vaccinated for it.
>
>He hadn't been vaccinated for it because the vaccine wasn't even
>commercially available till 1967 and wouldn't have been given to adults
>at that time anyway.

? Apollo 13 launched in 1970.

I don't know the history of the vaccine. It may be irrelevant. All of
the Apollo 13 crew had been around the same carrier, who was another
astronaut. Mattingly was the only one who was grounded. His
replacement, Swigert, had also been around the same carrier. The point
I was making was that they didn't think that Swigert actually had
rubella; they suspected that he might have been exposed to it. The
same possible exposure existed for the others who went on Apollo 13,
but they weren't considered to be at risk of developing the disease.
It was all an abundance of caution thing.

>>>When disaster struck the mission, he led the team on the ground that
>>>figured out the protocol that kept the men alive and able to return to
>>>Earth.
>
>>He didn't lead it. He participated. It was an all-hands-on-deck operation
>>that involved dozens of people. It wasn't his team, though.
>
>Gosh. It's nice that you allowed that he participated in it even though
>you won't allow that he showed leadership within the group he
>participated with.

Everyone knows that leading a team and showing leadership within a
team are two different things. We all know what both of those terms
mean. No one uses them interchangeably unless they're padding their
resume or playing some kind of weasel-word game.

Mattingly described his own role in the Apollo 13 rescue as mostly one
of an observer.

I just got off the phone from telling someone about Mattingly's death.
He said Mattingly was his "good buddy" and that he was a "really great
guy." I've talked to him many times over the years about the Apollo
astronauts, and he always singled out Mattingly as his friend, so he
wasn't only saying that because he just died.

I asked about the rescue effort. He said it wasn't just a team of
people in Mission Control; it was a NASA-wide effort. Everyone in NASA
and all of their contractors worked on it for about a week. If there
was a leader, it was the Apollo program director. Mattingly was part
of it. He didn't know specifically what Mattingly did because everyone
was working on their own little part of the problem. He said most of
the astronauts flew around on military jets to pick up parts and
materials from across the country.

David Carson

David Carson <davidc@wa-wd.com> wrote:
>Fri, 3 Nov 2023 06:34:16 -0000 (UTC), Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
>>David Carson <davo@neosoft.com> wrote:
>>>Fri, 3 Nov 2023 00:29:52 -0000 (UTC), Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com>:

>>>>Ken Mattingly was scrubbed from the Apollo 13 mission for lack of
>>>>medical clearance, suspected of having been infected with measles.

>>>He had been in proximity to someone else who had German measels, or
>>>rubella, and he hadn't been vaccinated for it.

>>He hadn't been vaccinated for it because the vaccine wasn't even
>>commercially available till 1967 and wouldn't have been given to adults
>>at that time anyway.

>? Apollo 13 launched in 1970.

No shit

That was a brand-new vaccine. It was packaged with the measles and mumps
vaccine (hence MMR), among the important vaccines given in childhood. There
never has been a mass inoculation program for adults that I'd ever heard of.

You're making it sound like there was something odd that he hadn't been
vaccinated for it.

For the vast majority of people, Rubella isn't a serious disease.
However, it's a childhood vaccine because children are the main vectors
spreading the disease to adults.

It can lead to complications of pregnancy and birth defects if a
pregnant woman is infected, likely from her own child. This is the main
reason why it's given to children.

>I don't know the history of the vaccine. It may be irrelevant. All of
>the Apollo 13 crew had been around the same carrier, who was another
>astronaut. Mattingly was the only one who was grounded. His
>replacement, Swigert, had also been around the same carrier. The point
>I was making was that they didn't think that Swigert actually had
>rubella; they suspected that he might have been exposed to it. The
>same possible exposure existed for the others who went on Apollo 13,
>but they weren't considered to be at risk of developing the disease.
>It was all an abundance of caution thing.

I'm sorry. I'm not following this part of the story at all. None of the
men would have been vaccinated. They were all exposed. But Mattingly and
not the others was considered to be at high risk for infection, and the
others were considered to be at low risk for the infection?

Forget it. I found an article that says he trained with another man who
had caught the disease from a child. Blood tests showed he'd been
exposed but hadn't gotten sick. Children are generally vectors of this
disease, not other adults.

>>>>When disaster struck the mission, he led the team on the ground that
>>>>figured out the protocol that kept the men alive and able to return to
>>>>Earth.

>>>He didn't lead it. He participated. It was an all-hands-on-deck operation
>>>that involved dozens of people. It wasn't his team, though.

>>Gosh. It's nice that you allowed that he participated in it even though
>>you won't allow that he showed leadership within the group he
>>participated with.

>Everyone knows that leading a team and showing leadership within a
>team are two different things. We all know what both of those terms
>mean. No one uses them interchangeably unless they're padding their
>resume or playing some kind of weasel-word game.

The NASA statement about his death says in part, "He stayed behind and
provided key real-time decisions to successfully bring home the wounded
spacecraft and the crew of Apollo 13."

From newspaper articles at the time and from the Apollo 13 book from 1994,
his group was focused on power conservation. I had always understood that
he was the leader of that group specifically because he was the trained
pilot. Of course anybody and everybody available had been called in to
work on various aspects of the situation to bring the crippled spacecraft
back to Earth. I wasn't stating that he was mission director.

>Mattingly described his own role in the Apollo 13 rescue as mostly one
>of an observer.

>I just got off the phone from telling someone about Mattingly's death.
>He said Mattingly was his "good buddy" and that he was a "really great
>guy." I've talked to him many times over the years about the Apollo
>astronauts, and he always singled out Mattingly as his friend, so he
>wasn't only saying that because he just died.

>I asked about the rescue effort. He said it wasn't just a team of
>people in Mission Control; it was a NASA-wide effort. Everyone in NASA
>and all of their contractors worked on it for about a week. If there
>was a leader, it was the Apollo program director. Mattingly was part
>of it. He didn't know specifically what Mattingly did because everyone
>was working on their own little part of the problem. He said most of
>the astronauts flew around on military jets to pick up parts and
>materials from across the country.

Huh. Various people worked on little parts of the problem. No one could
have possibly worked on every aspect of the entire problem as it would
have been much too overwhelming.

So if you insist that he wasn't the group leader of the small part of the
problem he was working on, then state here on Usenet who was.

On Fri, 3 Nov 2023 16:13:41 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>
wrote:

>David Carson <davidc@wa-wd.com> wrote:
>You're making it sound like there was something odd that he hadn't been
>vaccinated for it.

I conceded that the vaccine may have been irrelevant.

>>I don't know the history of the vaccine. It may be irrelevant. All of
>>the Apollo 13 crew had been around the same carrier, who was another
>>astronaut. Mattingly was the only one who was grounded. His
>>replacement, Swigert, had also been around the same carrier. The point
>>I was making was that they didn't think that Swigert actually had
>>rubella; they suspected that he might have been exposed to it. The
>>same possible exposure existed for the others who went on Apollo 13,
>>but they weren't considered to be at risk of developing the disease.
>>It was all an abundance of caution thing.
>
>I'm sorry. I'm not following this part of the story at all. None of the
>men would have been vaccinated. They were all exposed. But Mattingly and
>not the others was considered to be at high risk for infection, and the
>others were considered to be at low risk for the infection?

Bingo.

>>>>>When disaster struck the mission, he led the team on the ground that
>>>>>figured out the protocol that kept the men alive and able to return to
>>>>>Earth.
>
>>>>He didn't lead it. He participated. It was an all-hands-on-deck operation
>>>>that involved dozens of people. It wasn't his team, though.
>
>>>Gosh. It's nice that you allowed that he participated in it even though
>>>you won't allow that he showed leadership within the group he
>>>participated with.
>
>>Everyone knows that leading a team and showing leadership within a
>>team are two different things. We all know what both of those terms
>>mean. No one uses them interchangeably unless they're padding their
>>resume or playing some kind of weasel-word game.
>
>The NASA statement about his death says in part, "He stayed behind and
>provided key real-time decisions to successfully bring home the wounded
>spacecraft and the crew of Apollo 13."

So they didn't say he led the team or any part of it, no matter how small.
At least we're finally on the same page now.

I never said or implied that he didn't participate or that his
participation wasn't helpful, important, or crucial. HE said he was mostly
an observer. That could have been some of the trademark command module
pilot humility. Regardless, making an important contribution to a task is
different from being the leader, or even a leader, of the task. You know
that.

>From newspaper articles at the time and from the Apollo 13 book from 1994,
>his group was focused on power conservation. I had always understood that
>he was the leader of that group specifically because he was the trained
>pilot.

I don't follow how being a trained pilot made him an obvious candidate to
lead a power conservation group.

What I *think*, and this is one of those "I had always understood" things
like you just shared, is that he was there mostly to speak up in case
somebody came up with a job for the crew to do that wasn't realistic. I
mean, the power guys knew their stuff, and the heat transfer guys knew
their stuff, but a human had to implement whatever procedure they came up
with. He was in the position to say, "No, they won't be able to do what
you're asking them to." If it turns out that I'm wrong and that's not at
all what he did, then so be it, but it's what I'll believe until I find
out otherwise.

>Of course anybody and everybody available had been called in to
>work on various aspects of the situation to bring the crippled spacecraft
>back to Earth. I wasn't stating that he was mission director.

You kinda sorta did. You wrote, "When disaster struck the mission, he led
the team on the ground that figured out the protocol that kept the men
alive and able to return to Earth."

There was a power protocol, a fuel protocol, a food protocol, water, CO2,
navigation, etcetera etcetra. Everything - all of the manuals and
procedures - had to be rewritten on the fly. None of them were "the"
protocol. The power team might say that their protocol was the most
crucial one, but I know that the CO2 team would argue with that. None of
these individual elements were "the" protocol. All of them had to be
coordinated. "The" protocol was the whole ball of wax, which was
definitely not Mattingly's job.

https://www.wliw.org/radio/news/astronaut-ken-mattingly-who-flew-to-the-moon-on-apollo-16-has-died-at-87/
"I didn’t play any role. I was the observer." - Ken Mattingly

David Carson <davo@neosoft.com> wrote:
>Fri, 3 Nov 2023 16:13:41 -0000 (UTC), Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com>:
>>David Carson <davidc@wa-wd.com> wrote:

>>You're making it sound like there was something odd that he hadn't been
>>vaccinated for it.

>I conceded that the vaccine may have been irrelevant.

Given that you didn't read about the history of the vaccine, you shouldn't
have implied that is was unusual that he hadn't been vaccinated for it.
Even today, adults do not receive this vaccination unless there is a
reason to give it to them. We don't have a general program to vaccinate
adults who missed their childhood vaccines, either because their parents
were anti-vaxers or because they grew up in countries without widespread
vaccination programs among children. Maybe we should have such a program.

>>>I don't know the history of the vaccine. It may be irrelevant. All of
>>>the Apollo 13 crew had been around the same carrier, who was another
>>>astronaut. Mattingly was the only one who was grounded. His
>>>replacement, Swigert, had also been around the same carrier. The point
>>>I was making was that they didn't think that Swigert actually had
>>>rubella; they suspected that he might have been exposed to it. The
>>>same possible exposure existed for the others who went on Apollo 13,
>>>but they weren't considered to be at risk of developing the disease.
>>>It was all an abundance of caution thing.

>>I'm sorry. I'm not following this part of the story at all. None of the
>>men would have been vaccinated. They were all exposed. But Mattingly and
>>not the others was considered to be at high risk for infection, and the
>>others were considered to be at low risk for the infection?

>Bingo.

Now we get to the cowardly quote editing. Your explanation was
inadequate, so I looked for the explanation. I summarized that
explanation, which you then cut out.

But your explanation turned out to be wrong.

The "same possible exposure" did not exist for the astronauts who
flew on that mission. Mattingly, and not the others, trained closely
with the infected man. Mattingly had a higher risk of infection
for that reason; the others had a lower risk of infection. Mattingly
had a positive blood test for exposure; the others did not. Still,
as adult-to-adult transmission for this communicable disease is less
likely than child-to-adult transmission, his risk of infection was low.
That's why he was never sick.

>. . .

>>Of course anybody and everybody available had been called in to
>>work on various aspects of the situation to bring the crippled spacecraft
>>back to Earth. I wasn't stating that he was mission director.

>You kinda sorta did. You wrote, "When disaster struck the mission, he led
>the team on the ground that figured out the protocol that kept the men
>alive and able to return to Earth."

You were desperate to argue semantics. From context, it was absolutely
clear to everyone who wasn't you that I wasn't stating he was the mission
director.

You still failed to state who was the leader of the group Mattingly
worked in since you insist it wasn't him. As you have been quite
insistent that I got it wrong, then it's on you to look up who it was.

>. . .

On Fri, 3 Nov 2023 18:57:53 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>
wrote:

>David Carson <davo@neosoft.com> wrote:
>>Fri, 3 Nov 2023 16:13:41 -0000 (UTC), Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com>:
>>>David Carson <davidc@wa-wd.com> wrote:
>
>>>You're making it sound like there was something odd that he hadn't been
>>>vaccinated for it.
>
>>I conceded that the vaccine may have been irrelevant.
>
>Given that you didn't read about the history of the vaccine, you shouldn't
>have implied that is was unusual that he hadn't been vaccinated for it.
>Even today, adults do not receive this vaccination unless there is a
>reason to give it to them. We don't have a general program to vaccinate
>adults who missed their childhood vaccines, either because their parents
>were anti-vaxers or because they grew up in countries without widespread
>vaccination programs among children. Maybe we should have such a program.

I conceded that the vaccine may have been irrelevant.

>>>>I don't know the history of the vaccine. It may be irrelevant. All of
>>>>the Apollo 13 crew had been around the same carrier, who was another
>>>>astronaut. Mattingly was the only one who was grounded. His
>>>>replacement, Swigert, had also been around the same carrier. The point
>>>>I was making was that they didn't think that Swigert actually had
>>>>rubella; they suspected that he might have been exposed to it. The
>>>>same possible exposure existed for the others who went on Apollo 13,
>>>>but they weren't considered to be at risk of developing the disease.
>>>>It was all an abundance of caution thing.
>
>>>I'm sorry. I'm not following this part of the story at all. None of the
>>>men would have been vaccinated. They were all exposed. But Mattingly and
>>>not the others was considered to be at high risk for infection, and the
>>>others were considered to be at low risk for the infection?
>
>>Bingo.
>
>Now we get to the cowardly quote editing. Your explanation was
>inadequate, so I looked for the explanation. I summarized that
>explanation, which you then cut out.
>
>But your explanation turned out to be wrong.
>
>The "same possible exposure" did not exist for the astronauts who
>flew on that mission. Mattingly, and not the others, trained closely
>with the infected man. Mattingly had a higher risk of infection
>for that reason; the others had a lower risk of infection. Mattingly
>had a positive blood test for exposure; the others did not. Still,
>as adult-to-adult transmission for this communicable disease is less
>likely than child-to-adult transmission, his risk of infection was low.
>That's why he was never sick.

No, my explanation was correct. Except perhaps for the vaccine part,
which, as stipulated, may not have been relevant.

https://www.space.com/thomas-ken-tk-mattingly-nasa-astronaut-obituary
"Mattingly was exposed to the German measles by fellow astronaut — and
later Apollo 16 crewmate — Charlie Duke. The only member of the original
Apollo 13 crew not to be immune, NASA's flight doctors were concerned
Mattingly would fall ill during the mission, leading to the decision he be
replaced by his backup, Jack Swigert."

Holy cow, did you read that? "The only member of the original Apollo 13
crew not to be immune." Lovell and Haise were immune. Mattingly wasn't. He
was grounded, they weren't. It's almost as if I wrote it myself.

It's not that I'm losing patience, but when you reply to this post an hour
from now, if your reply contains the word "vaccine," I'm not going to read
past that word. See above on that.

>>>Of course anybody and everybody available had been called in to
>>>work on various aspects of the situation to bring the crippled spacecraft
>>>back to Earth. I wasn't stating that he was mission director.
>
>>You kinda sorta did. You wrote, "When disaster struck the mission, he led
>>the team on the ground that figured out the protocol that kept the men
>>alive and able to return to Earth."
>
>You were desperate to argue semantics. From context, it was absolutely
>clear to everyone who wasn't you that I wasn't stating he was the mission
>director.

From context? Adam, the sentence I quoted above was your entire statement
on this point. You described his role in a way that excluded everyone
except the Apollo program director.

>You still failed to state who was the leader of the group Mattingly
>worked in since you insist it wasn't him. As you have been quite
>insistent that I got it wrong, then it's on you to look up who it was.

That's not how it works. First of all, you have to make an assertion that
you can't or won't weasel out of.

1. "He led the team on the ground that figured out the protocol that kept
the men alive and able to return to Earth." (That would make him the
Apollo program director, or someone acting on his authority.)

2. "He showed leadership within the group he participated with." (That's
meaningless puffing.)

3. "His group was focused on power conservation. He was the leader of that
group specifically because he was the trained pilot (LOL)" LOL added by
me.

These evolutions of your claim aren't clarification or "context." They all
mean different things. You don't even agree with yourself on what
Mattingly's role was. When I gave you that quote where he described
himself an observer, I half expected your next evolution to be:

4. "Observing is the most important kind of leadership!"

If one of your claims is accurate, it's probably the first sentence of the
third one. But that's not what you wrote the first time or the second
time, and we didn't get there without a lot of arguing from me. And do you
give me credit or thank me for straightening you out? No, you don't. And
then you added that funny second sentence.

As for refuting you, the following evidence has already been presented:

1. My phone call with a man who worked on the Apollo 13 rescue and was
friends with Ken Mattingly.

2. NASA's statement on Mattingly's death. YOU presented that, and you
don't even accept it.

3. Ken Mattingly's own words. A direct quote straight out of his mouth
where he totally trashes all of your claims, even the meaningless one..

You want more refutation of your claim, whatever it is? First, tell me
what it is. Second, provide a source to support it. And by that, I mean a
source other than Adam H. Kerman.

David Carson

--
Dead or Alive Data Base
http://www.doadb.com

David Carson <davo@neosoft.com> wrote:
>Fri, 3 Nov 2023 18:57:53 -0000 (UTC), Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com>:
>>David Carson <davo@neosoft.com> wrote:
>>>Fri, 3 Nov 2023 16:13:41 -0000 (UTC), Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com>:
>>>>David Carson <davidc@wa-wd.com> wrote:

>>>>You're making it sound like there was something odd that he hadn't been
>>>>vaccinated for it.

>>>I conceded that the vaccine may have been irrelevant.

>>Given that you didn't read about the history of the vaccine, . . .

Sigh

I wasn't looking for yet another concession, or the additional
concessions you make in the rest of it. What I'd written in that quote
was repetitious of what I'd written previously and should have been cut
out before I sent it. But if you AREN'T making a further comment on
something I've written or you aren't pretending that I didn't address
something that I damn well did, then cutting the quote in followup is
legitimate.

>>>>>I don't know the history of the vaccine. It may be irrelevant. All of
>>>>>the Apollo 13 crew had been around the same carrier, who was another
>>>>>astronaut. Mattingly was the only one who was grounded. His
>>>>>replacement, Swigert, had also been around the same carrier. The point
>>>>>I was making was that they didn't think that Swigert actually had
>>>>>rubella; they suspected that he might have been exposed to it. The
>>>>>same possible exposure existed for the others who went on Apollo 13,
>>>>>but they weren't considered to be at risk of developing the disease.
>>>>>It was all an abundance of caution thing.

>>>>I'm sorry. I'm not following this part of the story at all. None of the
>>>>men would have been vaccinated. They were all exposed. But Mattingly and
>>>>not the others was considered to be at high risk for infection, and the
>>>>others were considered to be at low risk for the infection?

>>>Bingo.

>>Now we get to the cowardly quote editing. Your explanation was
>>inadequate, so I looked for the explanation. I summarized that
>>explanation, which you then cut out.

>>But your explanation turned out to be wrong.

>>The "same possible exposure" did not exist for the astronauts who
>>flew on that mission. Mattingly, and not the others, trained closely
>>with the infected man. Mattingly had a higher risk of infection
>>for that reason; the others had a lower risk of infection. Mattingly
>>had a positive blood test for exposure; the others did not. Still,
>>as adult-to-adult transmission for this communicable disease is less
>>likely than child-to-adult transmission, his risk of infection was low.
>>That's why he was never sick.

>No, my explanation was correct. Except perhaps for the vaccine part,
>which, as stipulated, may not have been relevant.

I do not agree that "same possible exposure" and "weren't considered
to be at risk" was complete, requiring no further clarification. The
explanation was omitted. That's why I did more reading.

>https://www.space.com/thomas-ken-tk-mattingly-nasa-astronaut-obituary
>"Mattingly was exposed to the German measles by fellow astronaut -- and
>later Apollo 16 crewmate -- Charlie Duke. The only member of the original
>Apollo 13 crew not to be immune, NASA's flight doctors were concerned
>Mattingly would fall ill during the mission, leading to the decision he be
>replaced by his backup, Jack Swigert."

>Holy cow, did you read that? "The only member of the original Apollo 13
>crew not to be immune." Lovell and Haise were immune. Mattingly wasn't. He
>was grounded, they weren't. It's almost as if I wrote it myself.

You didn't provide the explanation for WHY Mattingly was considered to
be at greater risk for becoming infected than the others were, so stop
patting yourself on the back. "Not to be immune" is helpful information,
so I thank you for finding that. I'm going to guess that the others were
known to have been sick with German measles as children and were presumed
to have developed a natural immunity.

>It's not that I'm losing patience, but when you reply to this post an hour
>from now, if your reply contains the word "vaccine," I'm not going to read
>past that word. See above on that.

Who the fuck cares about your temper? Read, don't read. Followup, don't
follow up.

>>>>Of course anybody and everybody available had been called in to
>>>>work on various aspects of the situation to bring the crippled spacecraft
>>>>back to Earth. I wasn't stating that he was mission director.

>>>You kinda sorta did. You wrote, "When disaster struck the mission, he led
>>>the team on the ground that figured out the protocol that kept the men
>>>alive and able to return to Earth."

>>You were desperate to argue semantics. From context, it was absolutely
>>clear to everyone who wasn't you that I wasn't stating he was the mission
>>director.

>From context? Adam, the sentence I quoted above was your entire statement
>on this point. You described his role in a way that excluded everyone
>except the Apollo program director.

The context would be that we were all aware that he was an astronaut and
not in control of the mission. What I'd written couldn't have applied to
any part of the problem that he hadn't worked on.

If you hadn't been motivated to pick a fight -- you know, the thing you
actually did -- you wouldn't have read into my comment that I had given
him credit for being in charge of solving any aspects of the problem that
he hadn't worked on.

>>You still failed to state who was the leader of the group Mattingly
>>worked in since you insist it wasn't him. As you have been quite
>>insistent that I got it wrong, then it's on you to look up who it was.

>That's not how it works.

I'm insisting on it.

The rest is cut unread 'cuz it took you longer to write all sorts of
repetitious condemnations of me than it would have taken you to name the
individual who led the group that Mattingly was in. You've become
most tiresome.

In the previous article, David Carson <davo@neosoft.com> wrote:
> He didn't lead it. He participated. It was an all-hands-on-deck
> operation that involved dozens of people. It wasn't his team,
> though.

I think it was John Aaron's ad-hoc team. Aaron is the one who
reported to the flight director. Mattingly probably "ran" the actual
power-up simulations from an engineering point of view, but I don't
think he nominally or actually led the team.

That isn't intended to take away from Mattingly's status as a seasoned
and effective leader, which he was. But despite the Apollo 13 movie
portrayal, he was not in any sense in charge of that effort. He
wasn't even taken out of the CAPCOM rotation at first.
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone objects to any statement I make, I am
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / baldwin@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it.-T. Lehrer
***~~~~----------------------------------------------------------------------

radioacti...@gmail.com <radioactiveseattle@gmail.com> wrote:
> Important details there, David; thanks for delineating that.
>
> It's rather a shame that he's remembered more for Apollo 13 than his vital-but-non-landing role in Apollo 16. He, Michael Collins and the other only-orbited-the-moon guys should get more credit by casual space-race fans.

(He also commanded two Space Shuttle missions before retiring as an astronaut).
> BRYAN STYBLE/Florida

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.

J.D. Baldwin <news@baldwin.users.panix.com> wrote:

>>. . .

>I think it was John Aaron's ad-hoc team. Aaron is the one who
>reported to the flight director. Mattingly probably "ran" the actual
>power-up simulations from an engineering point of view, but I don't
>think he nominally or actually led the team.

Thank you. That's very helpful.

>That isn't intended to take away from Mattingly's status as a seasoned
>and effective leader, which he was. But despite the Apollo 13 movie
>portrayal, he was not in any sense in charge of that effort. He
>wasn't even taken out of the CAPCOM rotation at first.

I recall from the movie they also showed him dealing with the an aspect
of the problem in creating a carbon dioxide filter, connecting a round
part and a square part together, using a sock to deal with the air leak.

Did the movie exaggerate his contribution? I have no idea. Likely, as
his character was already introduced to the audience, he was being used
to explain how they were solving specific problems, which is a
legitimate change made for dramatic purposes that shouldn't be
criticized as historical distortion. Typically, characters stand in for
other characters and real-life people get combined into fewer fictional
characters.

Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
> David Carson <davidc@wa-wd.com> wrote:
>>Fri, 3 Nov 2023 06:34:16 -0000 (UTC), Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
>>>David Carson <davo@neosoft.com> wrote:
>>>>Fri, 3 Nov 2023 00:29:52 -0000 (UTC), Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com>:
>
>>>>>Ken Mattingly was scrubbed from the Apollo 13 mission for lack of
>>>>>medical clearance, suspected of having been infected with measles.
>
>>>>He had been in proximity to someone else who had German measels, or
>>>>rubella, and he hadn't been vaccinated for it.
>
>>>He hadn't been vaccinated for it because the vaccine wasn't even
>>>commercially available till 1967 and wouldn't have been given to adults
>>>at that time anyway.
>
>>? Apollo 13 launched in 1970.
>
> No shit
>
> That was a brand-new vaccine. It was packaged with the measles and mumps
> vaccine (hence MMR), among the important vaccines given in childhood. There
> never has been a mass inoculation program for adults that I'd ever heard of.

It was as a student at George Fischer Middle School,which opened its doors
in September 1970,that I received a then-new rubella vaccine that the school
asked all parents to let their children get at the school if they did not
have it.I had received a measles vaccine years before and had had mumps
(which immunizes victims).

It has certainly been bundled with the other vaccines since,but there was
a time when a rubella vaccine was a standalone shot like the one I got from
Dr. Kojis in the GFMS auditorium.

> You're making it sound like there was something odd that he hadn't been
> vaccinated for it.
>
> For the vast majority of people, Rubella isn't a serious disease.
> However, it's a childhood vaccine because children are the main vectors
> spreading the disease to adults.
>
> It can lead to complications of pregnancy and birth defects if a
> pregnant woman is infected, likely from her own child. This is the main
> reason why it's given to children.
>
>>I don't know the history of the vaccine. It may be irrelevant. All of
>>the Apollo 13 crew had been around the same carrier, who was another
>>astronaut. Mattingly was the only one who was grounded. His
>>replacement, Swigert, had also been around the same carrier. The point
>>I was making was that they didn't think that Swigert actually had
>>rubella; they suspected that he might have been exposed to it. The
>>same possible exposure existed for the others who went on Apollo 13,
>>but they weren't considered to be at risk of developing the disease.
>>It was all an abundance of caution thing.
>
> I'm sorry. I'm not following this part of the story at all. None of the
> men would have been vaccinated. They were all exposed. But Mattingly and
> not the others was considered to be at high risk for infection, and the
> others were considered to be at low risk for the infection?
>
> Forget it. I found an article that says he trained with another man who
> had caught the disease from a child. Blood tests showed he'd been
> exposed but hadn't gotten sick. Children are generally vectors of this
> disease, not other adults.
>
>>>>>When disaster struck the mission, he led the team on the ground that
>>>>>figured out the protocol that kept the men alive and able to return to
>>>>>Earth.
>
>>>>He didn't lead it. He participated. It was an all-hands-on-deck operation
>>>>that involved dozens of people. It wasn't his team, though.
>
>>>Gosh. It's nice that you allowed that he participated in it even though
>>>you won't allow that he showed leadership within the group he
>>>participated with.
>
>>Everyone knows that leading a team and showing leadership within a
>>team are two different things. We all know what both of those terms
>>mean. No one uses them interchangeably unless they're padding their
>>resume or playing some kind of weasel-word game.
>
> The NASA statement about his death says in part, "He stayed behind and
> provided key real-time decisions to successfully bring home the wounded
> spacecraft and the crew of Apollo 13."
>
> From newspaper articles at the time and from the Apollo 13 book from 1994,
> his group was focused on power conservation. I had always understood that
> he was the leader of that group specifically because he was the trained
> pilot. Of course anybody and everybody available had been called in to
> work on various aspects of the situation to bring the crippled spacecraft
> back to Earth. I wasn't stating that he was mission director.
>
>>Mattingly described his own role in the Apollo 13 rescue as mostly one
>>of an observer.
>
>>I just got off the phone from telling someone about Mattingly's death.
>>He said Mattingly was his "good buddy" and that he was a "really great
>>guy." I've talked to him many times over the years about the Apollo
>>astronauts, and he always singled out Mattingly as his friend, so he
>>wasn't only saying that because he just died.
>
>>I asked about the rescue effort. He said it wasn't just a team of
>>people in Mission Control; it was a NASA-wide effort. Everyone in NASA
>>and all of their contractors worked on it for about a week. If there
>>was a leader, it was the Apollo program director. Mattingly was part
>>of it. He didn't know specifically what Mattingly did because everyone
>>was working on their own little part of the problem. He said most of
>>the astronauts flew around on military jets to pick up parts and
>>materials from across the country.
>
> Huh. Various people worked on little parts of the problem. No one could
> have possibly worked on every aspect of the entire problem as it would
> have been much too overwhelming.
>
> So if you insist that he wasn't the group leader of the small part of the
> problem he was working on, then state here on Usenet who was.

In the previous article, Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
> >That isn't intended to take away from Mattingly's status as a
> >seasoned and effective leader, which he was. But despite the
> >Apollo 13 movie portrayal, he was not in any sense in charge of
> >that effort. He wasn't even taken out of the CAPCOM rotation at
> >first.
>
> I recall from the movie they also showed him dealing with the an
> aspect of the problem in creating a carbon dioxide filter,
> connecting a round part and a square part together, using a sock to
> deal with the air leak.

I've seen that picture half a dozen times -- not straight through
start to finish, but if it's on a non-sucky channel, and I see it's
on, I'll end up watching it. I don't think Mattingly, either in the
movie or in real life, had anything to do with the CO2 problem. It
was all engineers, no astronauts, on that problem. I am embarassed to
say I don't even know any of their names.

> Did the movie exaggerate his contribution? I have no idea. Likely,
> as his character was already introduced to the audience, he was
> being used to explain how they were solving specific problems [...]

"Exaggerate"? I don't know that I'd use that word, except insofar as
it made Mattingly's contribution look more "important" than John
Aaron's, or that Mattingly was kind of "driving" the solution more
than Aaron.

Mattingly has praised both the movie and Lovell's book as "pretty
good." Here is what he had to say about the specifics of the power-up
procedure and the CO2 fix:

Gene's job was to go figure out, we've never powered up a command
module from scratch. Obviously you had to do that before launch,
but it was done with a procedure and a book that was probably
several feet thick and lots of people and deliberate things and
ground support equipment, and now we had two little batteries that
we didn't want to use very much of and had to do it in a
spacecraft that had no instrumentation and nobody could
look. [...] and that's what poor old John Aaron had to deal with,
was try to find the right balance between do we know enough and
the inevitability that the spacecraft is going to enter the
atmosphere whether you're ready or not. So John really--he was
always an extraordinarily talented engineer, but he really shone
in that one.

[...]

Powering down meant that you could get there, but we had another
consumable that--I don't remember anybody forecasting that we
would have a CO2 problem, but as soon as the light came on, we
recognized it. In the movie, Ed [Robert E.] Smylie's--there's this
really neat scene where they've got a tableful of stuff and he
dumps a bag on the table, and he says, "Figure something out."
Well, the real world is better than that. The real world is that
we had had a simulation, and I think it was on Apollo 8, I
believe, where the sim sup had jammed one of the cabin fans with a
screw that floated loose. I think they had broken some electrical
connections or done something of that ilk. The conclusion, you
know, the simulations were done with the rule that the simulation
may be four hours, but it's not over until everything is under
control. So sometimes those things got to be rather lengthy
simulations.

The solution that they came up with was that they could make a way
to use the vacuum cleaner in the command module with some plastic
bags cut up and taped to the lithium hydroxide cartridges and blow
through it with a vacuum cleaner. So, having discovered it, they
said, "Okay, it's time for beer."

Well, on 13, someone says, "You remember what we did on that sim?
Who did that?" So in nothing short, Joe [Joseph P.] Kerwin showed
up, and we talked about "How did you build that bag and what did
you do?"

Oh, it was easy. Solving that problem took an hour, maybe
two. Because it's real now, they made him build a demonstration
model, so that took another thirty minutes. Then "How are we going
to tell these guys in the cockpit?" And the answer was, if you
just said go tape your lithium canisters to the suit hose, that's
probably all they had to say, but they proved it all out and had
to show it to all the management that it would work. Of course it
worked like a gem.

That's where both the LM lifeboat, the alignment procedures, the
CO2, all those things had been practiced somewhere in a
simulation. This powering-up had not been, and that was the
problem that John Aaron had to take.

[...]

Okay. So we did those things. John Aaron finally got this
procedure coming together. As far as I recall, he and Arnie kind
of worked all of the system stuff to build this into one big
coherent procedure to power up the command module. One of the
rooms downstairs was kind of a war room, and it was the place for
the master copy and blackboards filled with "These are the
problems we're working and this is what we're doing and whose
doing it." Several people would just kind of bounce around from
one place to the other, little working groups working on things.

Got it all done, read through it, and somebody said, "You know,
yeah, I think this is here, but we're all so tired, don't have any
idea if this thing works. We're going to have to read this up on
the radio." Jack's [Swigert] never seen it.

So we said, "Let's get somebody cold to go run the procedures." So
I think it was [Thomas P.] Stafford, [Joe H.] Engle -- I don't
know who was the third person, might have been [Stuart A.]
Roosa. But anyhow, they went to the simulator there at JSC, and we
handed them these big written procedures and said, "Here. We're
going to call these out to you, and we want you to go through,
just like Jack will. We'll read it up to you. See if there are
nomenclatures that we have made confusing or whatever. Just wring
it out. See if there's anything in the process that doesn't work."

While they were doing that, we said, "You know, I think it's time
to go home and shave and wake up." So, contrary to the movie and
all of those things, we didn't solve any problems in the
simulator. You don't do things that way. It was good way of
conveying the story to the public that we have to work on it, but
the public could never have followed the real magnificence of
having this group of people laying around doing all these things
pieces at a time.

https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/MattinglyTK/MattinglyTK_11-6-01.htm
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone objects to any statement I make, I am
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / baldwin@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it.-T. Lehrer
***~~~~----------------------------------------------------------------------

In the previous article, David Carson <davo@neosoft.com> wrote:
> >Ken Mattingly was scrubbed from the Apollo 13 mission for lack of
> >medical clearance, suspected of having been infected with measles.
>
> He had been in proximity to someone else who had German measels, or
> rubella, and he hadn't been vaccinated for it. It isn't as if they
> had a particular reason to suspect he was going to get sick, they
> just couldn't take the chance. It was the right call. Space is many
> things and can be described in many ways, but "unforgiving" is one
> of the most apt.

Having a deep loathing of the aviator's natural enemy in the wild, the
flight surgeon, I have always loved the way the movie version of the
story mocks the overconservatism of the flight surgeon. It starts
with Lovell shouting about "flight-surgeon horseshit!" and continues
with the guy freaking out over the readings when Lovell leads his crew
in a "medical mutiny" by ripping off their vital-signs monitoring
equipment. The fact that Mattingly never got the measles is played to
embarass him, and indeed he looks embarassed.

But even I have to agree with you that this particular FSH was
absolutely the right call. Not so sure Lovell made the right call in
not keeping his crew intact -- letting the backup crew take 13 and
regrouping and retraining for 14 -- though he had sound reasons for
his decision. But crew integration doesn't seem to have been a
problem at any stage of the mission, which is a testament to the
intensity of the crew's test-pilot backgrounds combined with the rigor
of NASA standardization and procedure development.

Little shout-out to Lovell, who along with his still-living crewmate
Fred Haise and Mattingly, was a *naval* aviator. (Like the whole crew
of Apollo 12 and Neil Armstrong himself.)
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone objects to any statement I make, I am
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / baldwin@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it.-T. Lehrer
***~~~~----------------------------------------------------------------------

On Tue, 7 Nov 2023 18:38:03 -0000 (UTC),
INVALID_SEE_SIG@example.com.invalid (J.D. Baldwin) wrote:

>But even I have to agree with you that this particular FSH was
>absolutely the right call. Not so sure Lovell made the right call in
>not keeping his crew intact -- letting the backup crew take 13 and
>regrouping and retraining for 14 -- though he had sound reasons for
>his decision. But crew integration doesn't seem to have been a
>problem at any stage of the mission,

In the film, Haise gave Swigert a hard time for stirring the tanks,
according to procedue, without checking on something first. The undertone
was that the noob screwed up the mission. I assume that was fake conflict
added for dramatic effect, but I still wonder what each of them was
thinking.

There were a few things sprinkled throughout the film that were made up,
but they got quite a bit of it exactly right, like Gene Kranz's buzz cut.
That was eeirly accurate.

David Carson
--
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http://www.doadb.com