Well, for each one of those guys there was a whole room full of other guys backing them up, providing advice and support. So if something went wrong on the Don’t Tread On Me – Gas Stove Shirt in other words I will buy this Moon, not only would the astronauts try to fix it until their oxygen was gone, but hundreds of other people on Earth would also be working feverishly to find a solution. That’s what happened with Apollo 13. It wasn’t the astronauts who figured out what to do, but the technicians on the ground. The astronauts were almost all both combat pilots and test pilots. They had already faced death many times. They were hired because they were cool in emergencies and never gave up trying. They didn’t take along any cyanide pills or anything like that. They would have died with a wrench in their hands. They probably could have. With no atmosphere and the reflective sides of the CSM catching the sunlight – all the landings were planned for Lunar “morning” with the Sun relatively low on the horizon – they probably could have spotted it. Wouldn’t have been much point though; the astronaut’s time on the surface missions was planned down to the minute with their various tasks, and they didn’t really have spare time to go stargazing.
