Re: Gruesome question apollo 13

From: Henry Spencer (henry_at_spsystems.net)
Date: 08/19/04 

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 19:19:48 GMT

In article <4124e0e7$0$99773$75868355@news.frii.net>,
Charles Buckley <rijrunner@frii.com> wrote:
>> Moreover, on a historical note, there is some reason to believe that Oates
>> took his walk simply because he was in constant pain and had despaired of
>> ever making it home...
>
>...it is entirely all too possible that Oates decided he was better off
>alone pushing ahead.

Not pushing ahead -- he didn't take anything with him, and conditions were
most unfavorable. He was definitely committing suicide; the point is that
he was quite probably doing it simply to end his own pain, rather than
nobly sacrificing himself that his comrades might live.

>They weren't going to make it if they camped
>every day the weather was bad.

Unfortunately, given that they relied on being able to *see* their supply
caches to find them, and that they'd cut their supplies too fine and could
not survive missing a cache(*), they really couldn't travel a lot in poor
visibility. And they were already suffering from inadequate clothing;
traveling in storms would have made their frostbite problems worse.

(* Partly because Scott had made little allowance for delays when he sized
the supply caches. Whereas Amundsen assumed that he would be unable to
travel one day out of every four, and planned supplies accordingly. )

Despite bad weather, the remaining members of the party probably *could*
have made it to their next cache if they'd tried pushing on from their
last camp. But they were still a long way from safety, in bad shape with
the weather steadily worsening, and that cache wouldn't have saved them. 

-- 
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend."    |   Henry Spencer
                                -- George Herbert       | henry@spsystems.net