Word: men
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Dehumanized or not, the crew fully measures up to Boss Astronaut Donald K. ("Deke") Slayton's tough requirements. "You're really looking for a damn good engineering test pilot," says Slayton. "They've got to be good stick and rudder men, and also real smart." Not many qualify. Of 1,400 applicants for the last batch of astronauts in 1967, only eleven were chosen. There are now only 49 astronauts and, in many ways, all are as precise as the laws of celestial mechanics?and as unforgiving as the machines that hurtle them through space. Says Slayton of his astronauts...
...group of astronauts to be chosen. As a civilian, he is paid more than any other astronaut ($30,054 a year, v. Aldrin's $22,650 as an Air Force colonel and Collins' $20,400 as an Air Force lieutenant colonel), a fact that has stirred resentment. There are men in the space program, in fact, who detect behind Armstrong's supercool all-American image a rigid character who has more faith in the perfectibility of machines than of people. "He's all scrubbed up on the outside," says a NASA official, "but inside he has nothing but contempt...
...Men Apart...
...rehearsing every move they will make in flight simulators, checking and re-checking the command module and lunar module. They practiced a single maneuver?the powered descent to the lunar surface?at least 150 times. Flight Surgeon Berry was seriously concerned about their grueling schedule. He feared that the men might become so tired that their resistance to disease would be dangerously low and that they would catch the flu or one of the gastrointestinal disturbances that afflicted three of the previous four Apollo crews. If that happens, says Berry, "I'll have the whole world on my back demanding...
...barrier that set Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins apart from their questioners was highly appropriate. When?if all goes well?the three make their next public appearance, they will do so as mankind's first voyagers to an extraterrestrial body. They are only men, chosen for their role by fate as well as by their own unquestionable talents. But by virtue of their momentous experience, they will also be men set apart from their fellows...