karn (11/14/82)
If you get a chance, listen to the end-of-shift flight briefings via the 900 number. Its very enlightening. Right now, a couple of hotshot journalists are driving the power failure subject deep into the ground. They seem to think their holy mission is to uncover sinister government coverups and plots. They keep asking the same questions over and over again, and the flight directors keep giving the same perfectly acceptable answers: that it was not critical to the mission, that there was no reason to wake up the crew just to tell them, etc. etc. But some journalists are never satisfied. I have a lot of admiration for the flight directors who seem to remain candid and unflappable in the face of all this crap. I am really disgusted with the shoddy journalism practices that cover the shuttle missions. Even when a network condescends to granting the masses a tiny shred of a video transmission, some so-called "science editor" insists on talking over the audio with comments like "Gee, I wonder what that is that the camera is looking at", when if they would just SHUT UP AND LISTEN, they might find out. They might even learn something (but I doubt it.) Phil Karn PS. There. I feel much better already.
stocker (11/15/82)
For those of you that didn't get up early this morning or for some other reason missed what was supposed to be the EVA (spacewalk) this morning, you didn't miss much as both the suits Joe Allen was to use had pressurization trouble. They still might make it tonight but it doesn't sound promising. Joe talked to Houston about it but TV watchers couldn't tell what they were saying because the stupid commentators talked right over them trying to tell us what Joe was saying. NBC went right to a commercial in the middle of the video, CBS had a habit of showing live pictures from their commentator in Houston (BIG DEAL). Amen too Phil Karn and his complaints about shuttle news coverage. dave pur-ee!stocker
kline (11/15/82)
#R:eagle:-63000:uicsovax:2400002:000:574 uicsovax!kline Nov 15 08:11:00 1982 Journalists are famous for getting scientists and engineers steamed. Another good example I heard was at one of the press briefings for Voyager II. This was right after they had discovered the `braided' F-ring around Saturn, and the two `shepherd' moons S26 and S27. To add to the sensationalism of the photos from the spacecraft by saying that the F-ring didn't obey the laws of physics. One of the JPL scientists exploded with "Of course they obey the laws of physics!!!" He was really hot, too. The journalist, unmiffed, left the comment in the report to his editor.