For a few minutes during re-entry, manned spacecraft are just as isolated from communicating with Houston as when they are on the far side of the Moon. Radio signals cannot penetrate the cushion of ionized air surrounding the capsule as it falls through the Earth's atmosphere.

Eventually, drag from the atmosphere slows the capsule enough that the air around it no longer ionizes, and the astronauts regain radio contact with Houston. Unlike today's space shuttle or the Soviet Soyuz capsules, Apollo capsules returned to the sea, using parachutes to slow their final descent. There, a team of naval ships and helicopters recovered both crew and capsule.

Photo: NASA

This blog post is part of the @ApolloPlus40 series, which accompanies the ApolloPlus40 Twitter project by Nature News, a re-telling of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, 40 years later.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 24, 2009
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Luna 15 was the last-ditch Soviet attempt to upstage the American landing on the Moon. While Armstrong and Aldrin prepared to leave Tranquility Base, the Soviet robot began its descent towards the lunar surface. At 10:51 Houston time, British observers at Jodrell Bank lost track of the radio signal. One observer commented, ""I say, this has really been drama of the highest order."

Listen to a recording of the Jodrell Bank commentary here: http://bit.ly/KbAj5

Overview of the Luna programme: http://bit.ly/11cCE1

NASA page on Luna 15: http://bit.ly/In9O9

Read more about the demise of Luna 15 - http://bit.ly/AwIko

Previous @ApolloPlus40 coverage of Luna: Odds against Luna 15, (13 July 2009) and Russian rumours (2 July 2009).

This blog post is part of the @ApolloPlus40 series, which accompanies the ApolloPlus40 Twitter project by Nature News, a re-telling of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, 40 years later.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 21, 2009
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A lunar language all its own?

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed the Eagle on the lunar surface at 15:17 Houston time on 20 July 1969. Their first words from the surface were the mundane jargon of the space age:

"Contact light."
"Shutdown."
"Ok, engine stop. ACA out of detent."
"Out of detent. Auto."
"Mode control, both auto. Descent engine command override, off. Engine arm, off. 413 is in."

Armstrong completed his checklist, saying "Engine arm is off," before pausing and delivering the words the world wanted to hear: "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

Duke and Aldrin exchanged thanks and congratulations, before Armstrong reminded them that their first duty was to prepare for an emergency escape. He told Aldrin "Ok. Let's get on with it," before telling Duke "Ok. We're going to be busy for a minute."

The pair ran through a checklist that prepared the Eagle for an emergency ascent, and then spent a few hours preparing for their excursion on the lunar surface.

Later, as Armstrong stepped from the Eagle's landing pad onto the lunar surface, he made his second historic statement of the day, telling the world, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

After the mission, Armstrong said that he meant to say "a man," provoking countless acoustic analysts to pore over the audio tapes to see whether his word was lost in the radio transmission or simply left unsaid.

First science controversy on the Moon

Armstrong and Aldrin were engineers and pilots, but some of their training for Apollo 11 was in field geology. Their training probably did not prepare them for what happens when geologists disagree. Here, from Eric M. Jones' unparalleled Lunar Surface Journal, is a commentary on the reaction to their descriptions of the rocks they found on the Moon:

[During the Apollo 17 review, Jack Schmitt recalled that some geologists had been critical of Buzz's use of the term "biotite" which, formally, is a black to dark green form of mica. What Buzz was looking at was not biotite; however, as Schmitt points out, the description gave an excellent first impression of the appearance of the minerals Buzz could see in the rocks. Schmitt believes that the criticism was entirely unwarranted and, more than twenty years after the fact, still gets angry when he thinks about it.]

[Aldrin - "It didn't bother me too much."]

[Armstrong - "(Chuckling) All the geologists have vested interests; they make statements (that) they work hard to defend."]

[Aldrin - "The statement about 'purple' rocks was really a stretch of being kind of facetious (that is, he was joking). But it didn't come off. Since it didn't come off well, I let it go at that. What I was kind of thinking of was 'what's the most absurd color you could think of for a rock?' 'Purple.' But it just didn't come out right."]

A book by Elbert A. King on the Apollo missions from the perspective of a geologist is available on the Lunar and Planetary Institute website: http://bit.ly/3l0HSp.

Photo: Aldrin at Tranquility Base / NASA

This blog post is part of the @ApolloPlus40 series, which accompanies the ApolloPlus40 Twitter project by Nature News, a re-telling of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, 40 years later.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 20, 2009
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"During the Apollo 11 mission, members of the Lunar International Observer Network (LION) made continuous observations of a lunar area where illuminations had been noted. At 18:45 GMT (2:45 p.m. EDT), the astronauts sighted an illumination in the Aristarchus region, the first time that a lunar transient event was sighted by an observer in space. The sighting was confirmed by a LION observer in West Germany."

NASA Office for Manned Space Flight, “Manned Space Flight Weekly Report - August 11, 1969.”

Some modern TLP astronomy research.
See Nature News coverage here (13 May 2009).

This blog post is part of the @ApolloPlus40 series, which accompanies the ApolloPlus40 Twitter project by Nature News, a re-telling of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, 40 years later.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 19, 2009
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For a close-up view from a camera on the gantry, check out this video [3:31].

For a transcript and audio clips of Jack King's narration of the launch and subsequent parts of the mission, see the Apollo 11 Flight Journal.

This blog post is part of the @ApolloPlus40 series, which accompanies the ApolloPlus40 Twitter project by Nature News, a re-telling of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, 40 years later.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 16, 2009
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The day before the launch, newspapers carried profiles of the Apollo 11 crew and commentary on the scene near at the launch site.

In an article about Neil Armstrong AP writer Paul Recer revealed that as a teenager Armstrong had worked in a drugstore for $0.40 an hour in order to save up enough money for flying lessons that cost $9 an hour, the equivalent of about $110 today. His father told the AP that he had taken the boy for flights in an old Ford Trimotor instead of Sunday school, because morning flights were cheaper. Armstrong, Collin, and Aldrin and their contemporaries had trained their whole lives to prepare for the challenges of space flight, the article implied.

In another, less adulatory, article a journalist asked whether the rest of the nation was quite so well prepared for the lunar landing. A selection:

Tomorrow, men will be going to the moon. At a dock at Port Canaveral, a black, sinister-looking British submarine called the Renown waited to take on a cargo of Polaris nuclear missiles, and a few miles south a blond bronzed young god browsed, with sensual touch, through the merchandise at "Soul Surfboards," and men drank at the "Ali Bar" and "The Satellite Lounge," it being too early for the topless girls at the "Missile Lounge," and in the black ghetto of Cocoa, Fla., an old man stared wordlessly through the window of the tiny "Working Man Friend Cafe" on Magnolia Street. Tomorrow, men will be going to the moon.

Another:

"At the 'Wooden Nickel Saloon,' a man noted that all the government people coming here represent the biggest exodus of brass from Washington since the gentlemen and their ladies rode buggies out to witness the first Battle of Bull Run."

Finally:

"...tomorrow, they will be going to the moon. They seem ready. Are we?"

This blog post is part of the @ApolloPlus40 series, which accompanies the ApolloPlus40 Twitter project by Nature News, a re-telling of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, 40 years later.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 15, 2009
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After the Apollo 8 mission, which orbited the Moon in late December 1968, acting NASA administrator Thomas O. Paine called the achievement "a triumph of the squares." (See a version of the UPI wire story in the 28 December 1968 Bend, Oregon Bulletin.)

The phrase resonated throughout the press. An editorial by William Hines widely syndicated on 14 July 1969 claimed the moniker and the astronauts' clean-cut image was a good thing. He wrote:

"The Apollo program is not only run by squares, but for squares; its thrills and glories appeal to the vast majority of Americans who, at bottom, are just as square as any Armstrong on Earth-Jack or Neil or any other."

Addressing public complaints that Apollo astronauts had sworn during their missions, Hines wrote somewhat presciently that "The Apollo 11 crew can be trusted to handle the English language, if not fluently, at least aseptically."

Photo: Thomas O. Paine / NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 14, 2009
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The Reverend Ralph Abernathy (see In The Field, 7 July 2009) led 25 poor Southern families on mule-drawn wagons to the Kennedy Space Center to protest federal funding priorities. Thomas O. Paine, NASA administrator, met the group outside the gate, according to New York Times and Washington Post reports.

Abernathy asked Paine to join the fight against poverty by converting NASA's technology to find better ways of creating food. He also asked for 40 passes to the Very Important Person launch viewing area for his mule-drawn companions.

Paine gave Abernathy the entry passes, but said that "it will be a lot harder to solve the problems of hunger and poverty than it is to send men to the moon." But, "if it were possible for us not to push that button tomorrow and solve the problems you are talking about, we would not push the button."

He added that, “I want you to hitch your wagon to our rocket and tell the people the NASA program is an example of what this country can do.”

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 14, 2009
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US President Richard Nixon sent Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin a telegram in advance of the launch of Apollo 11. A selection:

“On the eve of your epic mission, I want you to know that my hopes and my prayers-and those of all Americans-go with you. Years of study and planning and experiment and hard work on the part of thousands have led to this unique moment in the story of mankind; it is now your moment and from the depths of your minds and hearts and spirits will come the triumph all men will share. I look forward to greeting you on your return. Until then, know that all that is best in the spirit of mankind will be with you during your mission and when you return to earth.”

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 14, 2009
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The Moon's gravity, which is only about one sixth of the Earth's, will give the Apollo medical team another new thing to study, Dr. Charles Barry told the Associated Press in an interview published on 13 July 1969.

After over 4500 hours in spaceflight, the astronauts had not had any serious medical problems. "We've knocked down one medical fear after another in manned space flight," Barry said.

For an early overview of the problems associated with manned spaceflight, check out this history of Project Mercury, the US manned space program that preceded Gemini and Apollo: http://bit.ly/

Photo: Joe Kerwin gives Pete Conrad a dental examination aboard Skylab on 22 June 1973 / NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 13, 2009
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The chances of the robotic USSR mission Luna 15 returning to earth with a lunar sample were small, NASA associate administrator Dr. George E. Mueller told reporters at the Kennedy Space Center on 13 July 1969 Exploring the Moon "remotely is more difficult than doing it with men in space. I don’t think by any means impossible, but . . . the chances of being able to carry it out on the first mission are relatively low compared to the kind of probability that we would associate with our own landings.”

Mueller added that "The first sample returned ... and the first man landing on the moon are significant events, each in their own right." Still, Luna XV threatened to steal some of Apollo 11's limelight--it was due to arrive on the Moon while the astronauts were there.

See also the ApolloPlus40 blog post reporting America's first inklings about Luna 15 (In The Field, 2 July 2009).

Photo: NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 13, 2009
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The National Academy of Sciences published a Plan for U.S. Participation in the Global Atmospheric Research Program (GARP) in 1969. It grew from a plea by US President John F. Kennedy in 1961 for "further cooperative efforts between all nations in weather prediction and eventually weather control" in a speech to the United Nations in 1961. (From the Colby College Guide to Historical Resources in Atmospheric Sciences)

GARP called for a series of regional studies leading up a global weather observation test studying the Pacific Ocean and atmosphere in 1973. The observational network would need 2 satellites, almost 1,000 balloons, 135 buoys, and a dozen aircraft . It anticipated that computers would be 100 times faster by then. It also said that developments in computers and satellites had made it possible “to advance toward the goal of accurate two-week forecasts and, eventually, toward intelligent modification of the weather.”

Photo: The first image from a weather observation satellite, taken by TIROS-1 on 1 April 1960. / NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 11, 2009
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National Geographic Society cartographer David Moore would follow the Apollo 11 launch through his backyard telescope, the Washington Evening Star wrote on 10 July 1969.

The Wheaton, Maryland, resident was one of just a few amateur astronomers NASA selected to help nearly 200 professionals, in part because he caught a rare glimpse of the previous Apollo launch, Apollo 10. He told the newspaper he would look for "small brilliant flashes when rocket engines are turned on or ‘burned’ or . . . when waste water is ejected from the spacecraft," and freezes into reflective ice crystals.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 10, 2009
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NASA has long touted the unplanned technological side effects of its cutting-edge research and engineering work.

Scientists, engineers, and contractors told the Wall Street Journal about a life raft with a bucket keel to prevent capsizing in rough water and an inner tube that inflated automatically to keep the raft afloat if its outer skin was punctured, a computer system to track down deadbeat dads, the inertial navigation systems that became standard equipment on commercial aircraft, and a thermal mapper developed for satellites used to prospect for oil, diagnose cause of sinking airport runways, and find sources of water pollution.

The list went on:

Other space age spinoffs were plastic resin marketed as commercial laminates, adhesives, and coatings ; devices to monitor internal stress in dams during earth tremors; data-processing techniques to record train traffic and to match power-generating capacities to demand; electromagnetic hammer that smoothed and shaped metal without weakening it; and luminous devices for aircraft exit signs, map reading, and gun sites. Medicine was benefiting from miniaturized electronic devices in cardiac pacemakers, remote-handling and manipulation equipment that had improved prosthetic devices like artificial limbs, space-helmet-like hoods to measure oxygen consumption while patient exercised, and computer to provide sharper x-ray photos.

For a sneak preview of the future, check out NASA's modern Spinoff website, which also has a document listing Apollo-era spinoffs [pdf].

Photo: Dialysis machines like this one were simplified by NASA's water recycling technology / NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 09, 2009
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...nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

-Inscription on the James A. Farley post office in New York City, adapted from Herodotus

The Apollo 11 crew would deliver mail to the Moon, announced US Postmaster General Winton M. Blount on 9 July 1969. They would carry the die proof of the pictured 10-cent airmail stamp attached to an envelope and cancel it on the Moon.

When they returned, the US Postal Service would use the die to produce commemorative stamps. Of course, the hand-canceled “Moon Letter” would have to undergo quarantine, just like everything else from the mission, before it could go on public display. The stamp was designed in acrylic on board by Paul Calle with art direction from Stevan Dohanos, modeled by Robert J. Jones, and engraved by Edward R. Felver and Albert Saavedra.

Art: US Postal Museum

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 09, 2009
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From the NASA-commissioned report, Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1969 Chronology on Science, Technology, and Policy [pdf]:

Microscopic examination of dust particles collected from the spacecraft after the Apollo 10 mission and of samples collected from the inside of nine garments worn by the Apollo 10 astronauts confirmed preliminary findings that the itching experienced by the astronauts was due to the insulation in the tunnel hatch of the command module. Investigation showed the fiberglass insulation had flaked off during LM pressurization. Review of thermal conditions indicated the insulation was not essential and it was eliminated from future vehicles. [Letter] Kenneth S. Kleinknecht, [Marshall Space Center], to George W. Jeffs, North American Rockwell Corp., July 9, 1969.

For diagrams and photos of the lunar module assembly process, see Myspacemuseum.com

Photo: Apollo 15 crew member David Scott practicing opening the hatch in the docking tunnel between the Command Module and the Lunar Module. / NASA via Honeysucklecreek.net

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 09, 2009
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Congressman John V. Tunney (Democrat, California) introduced H. R. 810 on 8 July 1969, “designating the day which man lands on the moon, and the anniversary of that day each year thereafter as a national holiday to be known as ‘Space Exploration Day.‘ ”

The resolution was referred to House Judiciary Committee. Such declarations became a perennial feature of American political grandstanding in subsequent decades. A record of presidential, congressional and state declarations is available here.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 08, 2009
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NASA brought Biosatellite III back down not long after Bonnie, the pig-tailed macaque on board, refused to eat or drink despite getting 10 emergency water commands from Mission Control.

Was it a hunger strike? NASA couldn't know. But telemetry told the mission controllers that Bonnie's body temperature was dropping, his heart rate was low, he was taking shallow breaths and sleeping too much during his last days in orbit. Since his value as a biomedical experiment depended on his health, NASA decided to bring him back down.

Unlike the first Biosatellite mission, in which the retrorockets failed to ignite, stranding the crew of frogs and insects in orbit, Biosatellite III returned successfully to Earth.

Recovery aircraft were supposed to catch Biosatellite III as it parachuted through the atmosphere near the Hawaiian island of Kaui, but clouds and rainstorms made that impossible and NASA had to recover Bonnie from a tiny bobbing capsule in the Pacific, just like its human-crewed missions.

The recovery team rushed Bonnie to Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu, Hawaii, where a medical team treated him and collected data from his flight. Bonny died unexpectedly at 5:04 am Houston time on 8 July 1969.

According to one report, "the science results were compromised, probably because too many bioinstruments were implanted in the monkey. Despite the failure of the mission's scientific agenda, Biosatellite III was enormously influential in shaping the life sciences flight experiment program, pointing to the need for centralized management, more realistic goals, and substantial preflight experiment verification testing."

See also the previous ApolloPlus40 post on Bonnie's mission (In the Field, 29 June 2009).

Photo: RIP Bonnie. NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 08, 2009
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Tektites are glass-like rocks first found scattered around the Earth.

"Prior to the receipt of the lunar samples, it was the scientific consensus that tektites were melted and splashed material formed during large cometary or meteorite impact events. Whether the impact took place on the Earth or the Moon was the topic of a long-standing scientific debate, which raged with particular intensity during the decade previous to the lunar landings."

-from "Tektites: A post-Apollo view," by Stuart Ross-Taylor in Earth Science Reviews, Volume 9, Issue 2, p. 101-123.

On 6 July 1969 Dean R. Chapman [pdf], a physicist at NASA Ames Research Center, explained the lunar origin to a reporter from the Los Angeles Times, and suggested that the rocks brought back by Apollo 11 would not be the first lunar samples studied by scientists.

Photo: Typical tektites. NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 07, 2009
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Newsweek ran a special on 6 July 1969, asking prominent figures to weigh in on space exploration. The opinions were not all positive.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference President and civil rights activist the Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy said:

“A society that can resolve to conquer space; to put man in a place where in ages past it was considered only God could reach; to appropriate vast billions; to systematically set about to discover the necessary scientific knowledge; that society deserves both acclaim and our contempt . . . acclaim for achievement and contempt for bizarre social values. For though it has the capacity to meet extraordinary challenges, it has failed to use its ability to rid itself of the scourges of racism, poverty and war, all of which were brutally scarring the nation even as it mobilized for the assault on the solar system.”

Philosopher Lewis Mumford said: “Space exploration . . . is strictly a military by-product; and without pressure from the Pentagon and the Kremlin it would never have found a place in any national budget.” On the bright side, he thought “that this colossal perversion of energy, thought and other precious human resources may awaken a spontaneous collective reaction sufficient to bring us down to earth again. Any square mile of inhabited earth has more significance for man’s future than all the planets in our solar system.”

NASA hosts a collection of space-age magazine covers here.

Photo: Ralph Abernathy at National Press Club luncheon. Photograph by Warren K. Leffler, 1968 June 14. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, U.S. News and World Report Collection: LC-U9-19265

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 07, 2009
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Mike Collins was the only crew member of Apollo 11 who would not land on the Moon, since his role as command module pilot required him to stay aboard Columbia while Armstrong and Aldrin took Eagle to the surface.

He told reporters "I’m going 99.9% of the way there, and that suits me fine,” and that he was not the "slightest bit frustrated" by his role, though he may have been frustrated with the continual questions about his feelings. Like John Young on the Apollo 10 lunar landing dress rehearsal mission, Collins would experience the privilege of solo flight around the Moon. He later wrote Carrying the Fire about his experience.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 05, 2009
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A contemporary article in Science discussed how geologists might use lunar samples to establish the age of the lunar crust: [pdf]. The age of such rocks and their chemical composition could help geologists determine whether the Moon was formed gradually from dust in the solar system, or formed by a cataclysmic encounter between pre-existing planets in the early solar system.

For a modern overview of Moon formation theories check out this NASA site: http://bit.ly/dxoUE

The Moon's history is intimately tied to Earth's. Photo: NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 04, 2009
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Dr. Lee A. DuBridge, the Presidential Science Adviser, gave an Independence Day speech in Dearborn, Michigan. A biography of him is available here: [pdf]. Selections from his speech below:

“For untold millions of years the human animal was chained to the earth. Sixty years ago he found a way of soaring into its atmosphere. Ten years ago he learned to break the chains of gravity and to soar out into space. This month the first man will set foot on another world. Later this month two spacecraft will reach Mars and send back new information about that Planet. Americans will have no reason to be ashamed of their nation on those days. Is it worth while? Is it worth while to lift the spirits of millions of human beings? If not, what else is worth while?”

“The laws of nature which made it possible have been well known for a long time. The engineering skills required ... were available and were brilliantly organized. Hundreds of thousands of Americans worked together to make this dream come true. They had faith and they had hope.

“The problems of our cities and the other social problems which beset us are not all that easy. In this area human beings are not working together but are in conflict. We find that we do not yet know the cause of these troubles nor do we yet have the mechanisms for curing them. Hence we must study, we must experiment, we must try and we will often fail. . . . And we shall learn from our failures.”

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 04, 2009
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Apollo 11 astronauts would leave a miniature inscription, an American flag, and a plaque on the Moon to commemorate their landing, according to a NASA press release.

The inscription contained quotations from US Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, messages of goodwill from the leaders of 73 countries, the names of congressional leaders and members of four congressional committees responsible for NASA legislation and the names of NASA’s management, past and present. The message was shrunk 200 times and etched on a 3.6 cm silicon disc using electronic circuit-board-making techniques.

The crew would also erect a US flag held up with tubing.

Finally, the descent stage of the Eagle, which would be left behind, bore a plaque with images of the Earth and read: "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind." President Nixon's name appeared beneath the names of the Apollo 11 crew.

Photo: NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 03, 2009
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Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman took a "sight-seeing" tour of the Soviet Union in the early summer of 1969. His visit coincided with the Moon landing, the culmination of the long space race, but on 3 July his focus was on lobbying for a joint Soviet-American mission, a topic his Soviet counterparts had alternately encouraged and discouraged in previous years.

The two countries did eventually run a joint mission, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, docking a surplus Apollo command module from a cancelled lunar mission to a Soyuz capsule in1975. NASA provides a history here: http://bit.ly/xIIDP with specific reference to the personal relationships between astronauts and cosmonauts here: http://bit.ly/pxLvp

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 03, 2009
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The World Conference of Science Journalists 2009 is over. Next time such a large group of science hacks meet together will be in 2011 in Cairo.

I only managed to attend the final day of the conference, and was left feeling that science journalism is in pretty good shape, particularly after hearing from Laura Chang, editor of the New York Times's science section, James Harding, editor of The Times, Fran Unsworth, head of newsgathering at the BBC and John Rennie, former editor-in-chief of Scientific American. These editors all conceded that times were tough for journalists now, but that science is of increasing importance and interest to their readers. Rennie was the one panelist who was more pessimistic, saying that the media is facing a mass extinction event, and that the question to ask is whether specialist science media deserves to survive.

Rennie also said that science news should be redefined, and should move away from the current model of reporting the 'big paper of the week'. This model feeds into the debate on embargoes which continues to rage in this profession. But Rennie's tone was generally positive, or at least it seemed to be.

But my mood of optimism might have been wrong. From talking to other delegates who had been at the conference all week, I got a different impression, one of deep pessimism, perhaps. Fears that the future for science journalists looks bleak have been hanging over the conference. Freelancers are having a tough time, staff reporters are being laid off, and it isn't clear how traditional forms of media will survive.

In this mixed mood, the conference ended with a plenary session that included John Beddington, the UK government's chief scientific adviser, and his equivalent from Ireland, Patrick Cunningham, plus Tidu Maini, executive chairman of Qatar science and technology park. The main point to come from the session was the absence of an independent science adviser in the EU, something that Beddington feels is very wrong.

I expect that the organisers of the conference will be congratulating themselves today, possibly with a sore head or two. They deserve these congrats, not least for persuading such influential people to sit on the panels for the sessions. Cairo in 2011 has a lot to live up to. It will be a very different conference, perhaps more able to embrace reporters from developing countries. I look forward to it.

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on July 03, 2009
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Today a panel of speakers at the World Conference of Science Journalists (WCSJ) turned its attention to the embargo system. Are embargoes good for science journalists - and science - or not?

For the uninitiated, journals such as Nature and Science routinely give information to journalists about forthcoming academic publications before they are released to the wider world. The information is 'under embargo' until a set publication time - at which point newspapers, TV, newswires and the like are free to release their stories. Increasingly, academic institutions do the same sort of deals with the media, too.

The advantage for journalists is that it gives them more time to work on the story, talk to the researchers involved, and get the science right, argued panellist Geoff Watts, a BBC Radio 4 broadcaster.

It also reduces the chances that a poor science hack will miss a good story that their competitors cover, thus incurring the wrath of their news editor.

And it's great for the journals too. By marshalling the coverage of their science papers, big journals can virtually guarantee that their brand is splashed all over the newspapers and the web at the same time every week. They're happy; the journalists have an easier life, and arguably produce better stories; and the scientists involved can point to the coverage in their next grant application as evidence of the importance of and public interest in their work. Everyone's a winner, right?

Wrong, says Vincent Kiernan, associate dean at Georgetown University, journalist, and journalism scholar.

Embargoes have become an addiction for journalists, he said, a set of "velvet handcuffs" that simply eats up time and resources that could be better spent digging up scoops. Not only does it turn journalists into propagandists for scientists and academic journals, it also reduces science to an artificial series of 'eureka' moments.

Indeed, there's no evidence that stories written under embargo are any better than those which are not, he added. And in a time when media companies are struggling, the ones that will survive are those which provide unique content - not those who follow the pack and write the same stories about science that everyone else is writing.

He's even written a book on the subject - Embargoed Science - and his advice to journalists is: "It's time to walk away from the embargo. Just walk away."

So what does Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet - which operates a very strict embargo policy - think? "I'm Richard," he shouts, "I'm 47 and I've been addicted to embargoes for 14 years."

In a remarkable diatribe, delivered at top volume and with tongue only slightly in cheek, Horton explained that embargoes were all "about power and control - my power to control you, turning journalists into agents of propaganda."

Eyes abalaze, he continued, almost mocking the open-mouthed hacks in the audience: "Look at this story, don't you want it? Your rival wants it!" he cried. "But you've sold your soul to publicity masquerading as science."

Ultimately, getting rid of the embargo system would improve the quality of science journalism, he concluded, because it would force editors to employ reporters who actually knew what they were talking about, rather than simply being able to read and regurgitate a weekly press release at leisure.

So, an audience member asked him, if you think embargoes are so damaging to decent journalism, why doesn't The Lancet get rid of them: "Are you afraid of the journalists?"

"No, I'm afraid of Tony [Kirby, The Lancet's chief Rottweiler - er, press officer - and a former colleague of mine]," Horton replied. Despite the fact that the embargo system repels Horton, the reality is that his colleagues tell him it's good for business, he explained.

But Horton has a plan. To test the hypothesis that embargoed journal papers get more, and better-quality, coverage in the popular press, he suggested that all the papers published by The Lancet over, say, a month or two, could be divided into two randomized groups. One set would be press released under embargo; the other merely published by the journal at the usual time.

The audience giggled uncertainly. But talking to Horton after the event, I challenged him to follow through with the plan. After all, it could turn into a fascinating experiment. He promised to discuss it with Tony - so let's see what happens.

Posted by Mark Peplow on July 02, 2009
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The Associated Press picked up rumours that the USSR would make a third attempt at a lunar sample-return mission on 10 July, almost a week before Apollo 11's scheduled launch. If successful, the Luna mission would land on the Moon, scoop up some lunar soil and make other measurements while on the surface, and then a small rocket would return the soil sample to Earth for study.

The Soviet space programme made no secret of its secrecy, preferring to hide its failures and bask in the publicity of its successes, but occasionally negative information did leak out. The AP reported that the first Luna mission exploded on the launch pad at Baikonur, the Soviet launch facility, in early April 1969, and the second exploded in flight on 14 June 1969. A source told the AP that Soviet space officials were "very disturbed over the success of the American Apollo program. Losing the moon race will be a terrible blow to them." (Via NASA/Library of Congress history: [pdf])

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 02, 2009
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Here I am at the WCSJ (haven't worked out how to say that as a word yet) in the midst of a scorching warm spell in London.

One of this morning's sessions tackled the thorny, often emotive issue of "big pharma" and whether the media is used merely as an extension of a PR machine for the industry. Feelings ran high in the room, with a wide sweep of panelists. These included Paul Stoffels, head of global pharmaceutical research and development for Johnson & Johnson, and at the other end of the scale Vera Hassner Sharav, founder and president of the alliance for human research protection, a public interest watchdog that wants to stop biomedical research results remaining secret. Between them were John Ilman, a pharma journalist, Sarah Garner from NICE, the UKs drug regulator, and Cripsin Slee, head of PR for the ABPI.

Feelings ran high, and Stoffel gave a good overview of why he believes in the pharmaceutical industry, recounting his years of experience as a physician in AIDS and HIV-ridden Africa in the 1980s and 1990s. He admitted that there is a tension for pharma companies between making money and being a healthcare provider, yet this is what public companies must learn to balance.

Vera Sharav, on the other hand, gave another empassioned presentation, included slide after slide of information telling us how evil pharmaceuticals companies are.

But it struck me, thanks to a question from the floor, that the involvement of science, and scientists, in the debate about whether pharma companies ruthlessly push un-needed, dangerous drugs on the populus or not, is vastly overlooked. The role of the media should not only be about exposing bad practice after the event, but should be in reporting the scientific advances, and yes reporting who is paying for what. The perception of the pharma industry remains poor, and the importance of the science going on behind closed doors often brushed over.

Of course, another problem is in getting hold of that information, and gettting access to scientists who work in industry to comment on stories, both general and specific. If pharma copmanies want to embrace transparency, for this science journalist at least, that should include allowing me to talk to the world experts on certain diseases and drugs, which often reside inside the "Bunker" that Crispin Slee eloquently put it in the discussion.

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on July 02, 2009
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Time-Life, Inc., offered $400,000 for exclusive book rights to the Apollo 11 story, reported the Washington Daily News.

The fee would be split equally into 60 shares for the 52 active astronauts and the widows of 8 deceased astronauts. The arrangement reflected earlier exclusive publishing deals negotiated by Time-Life with the astronauts. Other press outlets complained about the arrangement to NASA, but NASA argued that since the exclusivity only covered the astronaut's private lives, there was no breach of NASA's outreach duty.

A NASA history explains that the first deal was set up before Project Mercury even got off the ground:

The astronauts were to receive $500,000, to be divided equally, without regard to who was to be the first American —and, it was hoped, the first human— in space. The stories, to be written by Life staff, were to be presented under first-person bylines, and the astronauts and their wives had final approval over the contents. Life's intention was to make the astronauts and their families look good. The astronaut's wives were full partners in the deal and in the stories that were told." From The Collier as Commemoration: The Project Mercury Astronauts and the Collier Trophy by Jannelle Warren-Findley

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 02, 2009
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It's a controversial claim and one that would be easy to dismiss if the man saying it hadn't been Brian Deer. For those that don't know Deer's work at The Sunday Times and elsewhere, check out his articles on the MMR vaccine and Andrew Wakefield here. Deer says it took him months to dig behind the original paper to get the facts and he believes that a number of characteristics of medical research papers make them easy to falsify - such as the fact that patient records have to be anonymiszd to protect privacy. As a result, Deer claims clinical research is "chock full of charlatans". Such "cheats" are not easy to spot, Deer says, though many eventually give themselves away because they get greedy.

The claim caused some ripples at the World Conference of Science Journalists session with former medics or medical journalists leaping to the defence of the medical profession. I doubt that Deer was suggesting that the majority of doctors are "cheats" - though that was how some attending the session interpreted his comments. Instead, I think he was raising an important point about the nature of clinical papers - that despite peer review, the academic process (particularly in clinical research) depends on trust and is open to abuse. And the extent of that abuse is difficult to gauge.

Posted by Ananyo Bhattacharya on July 01, 2009
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Has the press played up fears when reporting the swine flu epidemic? An unpublished study, commissioned by the European Centre for Disease prevention and Control, suggests not. Looking at swine flu coverage in 33 European countries between 27 April and 5 May, the analysis found that 94% of articles were either factual or supportive of measures being taken by international organisations such as the WHO or national governments. Just 4% criticized governments or international organisations for not doing enough.

The findings were presented by MIke Granatt, a partner in City of London consultancy Luther Pendragon and a former holder of various communications posts within the UK government at a session on swine flu at the WCSJ 2009.

Posted by Ananyo Bhattacharya on July 01, 2009
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A room full of sweaty press officers, at the World Conference of Science Journalists, eager to learn more about the international media climate and how achieve ‘Global Coverage for Science’ weren’t expecting to hear about powerful and rich PRs in Nigeria. But these sessions often contain surprises, and after being lulled into the international media scene with case studies on outreach to international media by British Antarctic Survey’s Linda Capper we met journalists Mohammad Kaswar Uddin from Bangladesh and Diran Onifade who took us further from our comfort zones.

According to Uddin science journalism is not yet recognised in much of South Asia, and media often reel out the government line. Health and science are more likely to be translated versions of UK, US, Canadian or Australian news articles. But this seems tame compared to Diran Onifade’s depiction of a corrupt media where in order to achieve coverage money needs to change hands. PR, it seems, can involve more negotiation skills than many of us currently employ.

With costs increasing and the PR middlemen benefiting more than anyone else in the equation, some are earning more than their CEOs. Diran tells us that we can write as many press releases as we like but a great photo of your CEO with, say, Bill Gates, would make more of a splash as you could pay to have it appear on the front pages.

But, let’s not forget this is a skills building workshop, intended to help find solutions rather than wallow in problems. What are the answers? How can this grim picture improve?

Certainly one solution offered for the South Asian scene is that UK and other developed world press officers could help with training and mentoring (count me in!). For Nigeria and other nations with corrupt media the picture seems more complex but there is light at the end of this tunnel.

Capacity building is crucial to improving the scene. Onifade says he’s been inspired by the force of the Arab Science Journalism Association and that different African countries’ associations are looking to merge and create a powerful network.

Previous President of the Arab Science Journalism Association, Nadia El Awady was also on the panel and agreed that although training is key the language barrier is a huge problem in her region. Her Association's media list is a fantastic tool to help local reporters understand material that is rarely provided in their mother tongue. Members forward information, with a short summary of what it is, why it’s important and if it’s relevant in the region. Discussion follows and other members add further translation and information.

The panel pondered issues of mentoring, and organisations like SciDev.net and the International Development Research Council who provide similar services for journalists but not press officers.

Training of press officers is vital also in Latin America where Luisa Massarani says journalists are hungry for stories but can have trouble finding them. PRs are uncommon and have low self esteem in her region. Currently they have to look to international science if they are to feed their editors’ and readers’ thirst.

The message of the morning seems that the problems are similar wherever you look and that press officers wanting to achieve the desirable ‘Global Coverage for science’ need to understand the landscape in the target region, provide translation of material, or translators for interviews. First and foremost though is training. Training of reporters. Training of press officers. And training of scientists to speak out about their work.

Posted by Ruth Francis on July 01, 2009
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The morning plenary of the World Conference of Science Journalists was Gearing up for Copenhagen and David KIng was on the panel, together with the Guardian's Damian Carrington and climate scientist Rajendra Kumar Pachauri of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

So in the run up to Copenhagen what sort of coverage would King - former chief scientific adviser to the UK government and now advising Rwanda's government - like to see? King says journalists need to focus on the approach being taken by leading nations in the run up to Copenhagen. To what extent, for example, is Canada's position driven by the country's desire to extract oil from its tar sands? King's claim that no-one is covering this seems a bit strong - see the Nature News online special, for example, where we'll be tracking national positions over the next few months. However, King is right to demand more analysis on this - he points out that both Japan and Canada have both recently got rid of their science advisers. Given their stances in the run up to Copenhagen - are these countries moving away from science and taking a more narrow stance based more simply on economic gain?

Posted by Ananyo Bhattacharya on July 01, 2009
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