Conservation principles

When Apollo 11 returned to earth 24 July 1969 from its historic trip
to the Moon, we engineers in California at North American Aviation
(NAA) in Downey who built it were thrilled but then argued about
whether or not its external, ablative heat shield--eaten up and
damaged by cooling down the 2000 degree entry temperatures to
protect the vehicle and Astronauts--should be replaced with a
handsome, new one before it went to the Smithsonian or White House
or wherever. Well we all won and those marks and damages were left
on the aft-entry side of bird Apollo 11, as is, to show evidence of
its trip. Good conservation? Right.

Bud Goldstone
NAA Apollo Engineer 1959-1977


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 20:15
               Distributed: Saturday, September 23, 2006
                       Message Id: cdl-20-15-004
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