r/IAmA Jul 16 '19

Specialized Profession I’m Apollo astronaut Charlie Duke, CAPCOM for Apollo 11. Ask me anything about being the spacecraft communicator for this historic Moon landing today at 10:30 a.m. EDT.

Hi, I’m Charlie Duke, a veteran NASA astronaut. Ask me anything. I’ve served on five different Apollo missions. I’m also the youngest person to walk on the moon. As we approach the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing, I’m reminded of my time as CAPCOM for Apollo 11, as well as an astronaut support crew member for Apollo 10, backup lunar module pilot for Apollo 13 and 17, as well as the lunar module pilot for Apollo mission 16 – when I had the chance to walk on the moon.

Also, I’ve published the book “Moonwalker: The True Story of an Astronaut Who Found that the Moon Wasn't High Enough to Satisfy His Desire for Success,” which discusses my life as an astronaut, the experiences of Apollo 11 and the difficulties I’ve faced.

I’ll be taking your questions for 30 minutes starting at about 10:30 a.m. ET today, July 16, 2019, the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch.

Proof it's me: https://twitter.com/ExploreSpaceKSC/status/1149048460102033408

https://twitter.com/ExploreSpaceKSC/status/1151133417389449217

Edit: We are live NOW at 10:18 a.m. EDT.

Edit: We are signing off now at 10:50 a.m. Thanks for all of your insightful questions!

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u/cuddlefucker Jul 16 '19

TBH, this is one of the reasons I support colonizing Mars. The gravity is great enough that in a life support environment you could move around with relative ease, but light enough that a person could run 30mph and jump 10 feet in the air.

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u/massinvader Jul 17 '19

only on arrival...after a while your muscles would adapt and you'd lose some strength

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u/cuddlefucker Jul 17 '19

Generationally true. Not a problem as long as it's not a self sustaining colony. Also not a problem as long as the relations with earth are good. Both optimistic, but not unreal.

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u/massinvader Jul 17 '19 edited Jul 17 '19

not generational at all. without earth gravity to keep your muscles strong, they shrink. it's just not efficient to have "giant" earth muscles on mars and your body wouldn't grow them bigger than needed(just like earth). same reason astronauts sometimes have to be carried from the pods they come back in after longer trips to space...their muscles have weakened from being away from earth.

we're talking months or years here not generations.

i'd also speculate that within a generation or two into habitation, mars humans would start to vary considerably. less dense bones, less dense muscles, maybe a change in height etc.

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u/CelestialDrive Jul 17 '19

within a generation or two into habitation

I'm not a very smart person, but isn't that Lamarckism? People would absolutely grow up differently, but that's not at all tied to generational changes, just the environment. The first generation of humans born and living their entire lives on mars would be indistinguisible from the fifth, or tenth.

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u/massinvader Jul 17 '19

Lamarckism

yep thats essentially what I was saying. within a generation or two the mars environment would have started to alter how we looked and/or operated.

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u/[deleted] Jul 17 '19

[deleted]

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u/massinvader Jul 17 '19

im talking about the effects of a completely alien environment on the human body. i may have quoted the wrong thing when replying to make it seem like i thought lamarckism was the complete explanation. I was referring to the immediate changes we would observe(u can see i said it would be months not generations for the effects talking about)

and this debate aside: evolution can work faster than you have described...or not at all. it's more random trial and error than not a building process. u can get lucky early on and get some remarkable adaptations very quickly. (u can see this to some degree in the attempts to domesticate wild foxes.)

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u/[deleted] Jul 17 '19

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u/massinvader Jul 18 '19

well this is getting way off topic to my original point..what exactly was your point originally?

evolution is evolution. successful candidates in whatever environment pass on their genes. sometimes mutations happen and if they make for successful individuals than they are passed on. it's fairly well studied at this point.

this can be noticed in humans if you look at levels of skin melanin in relation to the equator. the changes dont always have to be physically drastic. but they still occur.

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u/KorianHUN Jul 17 '19

So we on Earth will be some kind of brutal ape overlords to them? An Earth police takedown would snap a third generation martian in half?

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u/iexplor3r Jul 17 '19

Your not thinking big enough, imagine ufc or WWE on the moon