Sherpa Who Led Neil Armstrong To Moon Dead At 71.
“I know it was a different time, but I still regret that Dorje wasn’t allowed to wear a suit like the astronauts.” Aldrin added. “He never complained, and he didn’t really need one anyway. Phurba was as much a member of that team as anyone. Probably more than [Michael] Collins was.”
From Le Cebolla, of course.
Tip o’ the spacesuit visor to BABLoggee Slither.
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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May 1st, 2009 at 9:53 am
Took me a couple of seconds to actually parse that quote. Really a shot shot at the whole mountaineering thing.
May 1st, 2009 at 10:05 am
“NASA recruited Dorje from a lunar-savvy band of coastal Sherpas outside Cape Canaveral. The small tribe is locally known for its proficiency in high-altitude work and its ability to survive in the harsh regions around the moon.
Recognized for his innate skill at navigating the upper stratosphere, Dorje was chosen by John Glenn to be lead guide on the 1962 Mercury-Atlas 6 mission. Dorje worked with NASA cartographers for months to map out his people’s ancient navigational route to the moon, which, until that time, was known only through oral tradition.”
ROFLMAO. Got to love the Onion. Great stuff there.
May 1st, 2009 at 10:16 am
…Had me scratching my head there until I saw The Onion banner start to load.
…”He was a true hero and a wonderful cook.”
Thanks, Phil.
May 1st, 2009 at 10:47 am
Outside Cape Canaveral is Cocoa Beach…my home town. The Sherpa are legendary there, and have many skills aside from leading America’s space effort. They are incredible surfers, explorers and fishermen nonpareil.
Little known is that the Coastal Sherpas also were known the travel atop balsa rafts in the Atlantic Basin. Many centuries ago, one lost a special bottle that he had been given as a gift on one of his journeys when it fell overboard. It washed up near Sebastian’s Inlet, and an Air Force major found it there laying in the sand. He took it home, opened it up and out pours smoke and a blonde in pink pajamas ready to grant every wish.
His first was to star in a sit-com with his friend, also an Air Force major. As a favor to his wife (she wanted him out of the house) they also included their commanding officer, a harried colonel.
Many dubious yet hilarious adventures ensued from there until the Sherpa sued to have their lost property returned to them.
May 1st, 2009 at 11:04 am
Polonius ironically spoke the truth when he told Claudius that “brevity is the soul of wit.” The Onion has long had the habit of telling an authentically funny joke, and then telling it some more, and telling it some more, and telling it some more, until the humor has had its face ground into the dirt.
May 1st, 2009 at 11:07 am
They couldn’t go with an American guide? I hear that Sacagawea is still available and she knows the way as well as any Sherpa.
May 1st, 2009 at 11:18 am
The Onion is brilliant. But even for The Onion, this one was FREAKIN’AWESOME!!!
May 1st, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Onion
In Space, no one can see you cry?
J/P=?
May 1st, 2009 at 1:12 pm
This line had me *rolling*:
“In the film Apollo 13, however, Dorje’s story arc was reduced to a pair of two-minute cameos played by George Takei and eventually cut at the request of Tom Hanks.”
May 1st, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Anyone want to start a petition to lobby NASA to induct Dorje into the Astronaut Hall of Fame posthumously?
May 1st, 2009 at 1:26 pm
So Cape Canaveral was home to the original Lunatics?
Oh, and dibs on bidding on that yurt when Constellation is ready to go pick it up.
May 1st, 2009 at 1:53 pm
KC, I’ll sign it
Soryy Harold, I must disagree, I was laughing more and more as the story unfolded.
May 1st, 2009 at 2:02 pm
I don’t think Dorje should be inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame as that is for men with the right stuff.
May 1st, 2009 at 4:03 pm
That should probably read *la* cebolla phil.
Unless it was a clever ploy to mix both spanish and french to further confuse us? Or a typo.
May 1st, 2009 at 5:04 pm
“that is for men with the right stuff”
Seems to me that they had to stuff their pants, if that was what you meant.
[If Dorje had been a bad cook I might have argued differently - but it turns out he was an expert in low pressure cooking.]
May 1st, 2009 at 5:44 pm
That was great!
May 1st, 2009 at 7:09 pm
I call BS. Everyone knows dehydrated water wasn’t invented until the 1980’s!
May 1st, 2009 at 7:55 pm
His yaks??! That was definitely my favorite part.
May 1st, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Great satire ‘Onion’ but I did prefer the NSFW Moon landing print & the astronauts die from helium …
Plus in the non-stop barking dog newscrawler :
‘Fossil of T-Rex eating an angel complicates Creation theory.”
Funny website. Not subtle but funny.
May 1st, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Oh & the North Korea brings the Moon to North Korea one too!