1484: Apollo Speeches

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Apollo Speeches

Title text: While our commitment to recycling initiatives has been unwavering, this is not a cost any of us should be expected to pay.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: The framework is laid out. Needs a much more in-depth explanation, however. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

As explained in the comic, Nixon Staffer William Safire wrote two speeches for the United States President to deliver depending on whether or not the Apollo 11 return launch was successful. The reason for two different speeches having been written was that the return launch had an outcome that could not be predicted with certainty. Such an uncertain event could be called a contingency, making the speeches "contingency speeches".

The rest of the comic runs with this theme, making the false claim that Safire had written several other such contingency speeches for increasingly unlikely possibilities. First listed is the speech to be delivered in the event that the astronauts were left stranded on the moon. Laying on top of that is a speech to be delivered in the case that the spacecraft goes missing altogether, which is relatively unlikely. The speeches after that deal with the following contingencies: the astronauts had stolen the ship and piloted it to Mars; upon landing, more astronauts were found in the ship; the ship had hit the U.S.S. Hornet and crushed Nixon; and the ship had been sold for scrap and crushed along with the astronauts inside.

The title text builds upon this last contingency speech, delving into the irony of the horror of the spacecraft's recycling and its passengers resulting deaths despite the U.S.'s commitment to recycling initiatives.

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

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Discussion

Speech for referenceBlawho (talk) 06:40, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Any chance the scenario with extra astronauts coming back is a reference to Scott Card's Xenocide, in the book they find a way for FTL travel but some odd things happen on the first voyage including extra people coming back (click if you're not afraid of spoilers)? 188.114.98.29 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The scenario that the spacecraft was sold for scrap might be a reference to the apolo having a fire during a training and trapping the asyronauts inside. 173.245.52.127 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Probably it could also be a reference to Tarkowski's movie "Solaris"? 141.101.92.93 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

It's also similar to the premise of the comic The Chimpanzee Complex. Probably just a coincidence, though. – PhantomLimbic (talk) 17:06, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Anyone remember the Saturday Night Live skit with Dana Carvey as Tom Brokaw recording contingency broadcasts reporting on Gerald Ford's death from more and more unlikely circumstances (including one where Brokaw was told to add, "and also, I'm gay", because "If that happens, you don't want another reporter to get the scoop!") mwburden (talk) 17:55, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

"there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind" has to be a reference to the Rupert Brooke poem The Soldier, which Safire no doubt knew. It begins "If I should die, think only this of me:/That there's some corner of a foreign field/That is forever England." 108.162.246.219 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Maybe, but that would not be a reference in the context of the comic, since the first two pages are from the actual speech. -Pennpenn 108.162.250.155 23:19, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Exactly, it's a reference that Safire was making in writing the speech.Silverpie (talk) 18:15, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

You know, technically Apollo 11 probably had enough delta-v to make it into Mars orbit - the service module alone had around 2.8 km/s - although I don't know if there was a point in the actual mission where you could have made this work. Nobody would have survived the trip, of course. Ijkcomputer (talk) 15:33, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

According to this chart they could have maybe gotten a Mars intercept, but using simple Hohmann transfers, there is no way the Apollo spacecraft would have been able to make Mars orbit. 198.41.243.249 18:08, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

They probaply could have preformed an aerocapture to get into Mars orbit (if they had not died on the way there from lack of food, water, heat and oxygen). The landing, however, would have been unsurivable as the parachutes were designed for the much thicker athmosphere of earth. Landing with the Moon lander would probaly also not be possible, as for once it was designed for the much weaker gravity of the moon, and secondly it probaply would have been destroyed on athmospheric entry. And even if they had somehow surived both the trip and the landing, it would have been a one-way-trip. 162.158.88.146 14:19, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

So, the contigency speech for the capsule killing the President implies that the astronauts survived - would this be even remotely possible? I'm not sure what order of magnitude of velocity or momentum the capsule would have on impact, but I would think water would be a softer landing than a ship(?), and impact with the ship would not be accounted for... Wouldn't it damage the contents of the capsule (kill the astronauts), if not tear the whole thing apart? -- Brettpeirce (talk) 14:28, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I think the astronauts would probably actually survive this. Battered and bruised, certainly, possibly even with a few broken bones. But they would be alive. Descent velocity (from what I could figure out via Google) would be roughly 20 km/h to 25 km/h, and an impact at that speed (shown by a very large number of car crashes) is definitely survivable. 198.41.243.249 18:08, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

As a side comment, "an unholy zeal for recycling programs" is probably the best phrase I've ever read. 108.162.221.117 13:49, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

There was an incomplete tag on this comment stating that "more in depth discussion is needed". Without a specific point at which the discussion is incomplete, this struck me as too vague and not really solvable (or clear what is even missing). I removed the tag. If someone wants to put it back, please go ahead, although I'd request that a more specific reason and/or description of what part of the explanation is lacking be given. Djbrasier (talk) 13:53, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Regarding being sold for scrap, note that the Eiffel Tower was sold for scrap, not once but twice! ([1]) -- Jorgbrow (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I was thinking, maybe the last one is a joke on how notorious Nixon got in the later years? Like, in that alternate universe, he would've been remembered not as the perpetrator of a conspiracy, but rather as a martyr of humanity's advancement? 141.101.81.87 14:28, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Could the scenario when the astronauts go to Mars perhaps be a reference to "The Martian"? In the book, the astronauts aboard the Hermes technically mutiny and use Earth's gravity to head back to Mars.

I think the reference to losing Apollo 11 is regarding the lose of signal that actually happened. The 2000 Australian movie 'The Dish' is based the Park's Observery losing the signal leading up to the moon landing.

I believe the title refers to the original Apollo 11 transmission tapes, which were actually recycled.141.101.77.80 13:13, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Re the extra astronauts option - maybe the original astronauts were women disguised, and it was a plot to have the first babies born on the moon American, so they could claim it...which didn't work. 198.41.238.64 18:41, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

There was actually a attempt to get to mars in the apollo missions. apollo 23 was a saturn V rocket planned to go to mars but ended up imploding on itself during liftoff. Fortunately, the crew managed to jettison from the spacecraft using the launch escape system and survived.I HAVE NO NAME (talk) 09:16, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

That would be (non-xkcd-)fictional. And not the only fictional Apollo 23. 172.69.195.5 10:47, 21 August 2024 (UTC)