The Internet is full of bad information, and you have to be really picky to care enough to try and correct it, but this one is a labor of love.
Many film sites make mention of a "goof" or "continuity error" in the 1968 film, Marooned.
The film of the rescue craft sitting on the launch pad is clearly a
Titan IIIC; but the launch sequence is often claimed to be a Titan II,
without the strap-on solid rocket boosters (SRB) attached.
Space
exploration enthusiasts know the Titan II well, both as America's Cold
War era Intercontinental Ballistic Missile and, moreover, as the launch
vehicle which put all of the Gemini astronauts in orbit.
Here are simple, single barrel, Titan II rockets in both ICBM and Gemini configurations at launch:
Titan II - ICMB launch.
Titan II -- Gemini launch
Now, in Marooned, the launch sequence provides two problems for us. First, it is a rare night launch. There were only three, and that makes it difficult to see the details. Second, the camera is positioned in-line with the roll-away tower, so the view is across the line of boosters, rather than perpendicular to the line.
Two scaled screen shots from the film, Marooned:
Left: Titan IIIC on the pad, from oblique angle.
Right: Titan IIIC at launch.
At first, we only notice the slim single barrel of the Titan II; but next we can make out the red (or orange) painting of the TVC tank. No Titan II ever carried an external TVC tank, much less a red one.
Watching the video, that red band on the tank moves with the rocket from the moment of launch-- it is not part of the launch tower.
On closer inspection we can also see not one, but two nose-cones. We see the nosecone on top of the main booster-- but we also see, lower down, the top of the shorter SRB.
We can also match the black striping; which matches the Titan IIIC configuration-- but that also nearly matches Titan II striping such as can be seen in the Gemini launch photo already shown.
Finally-- and if you are already something of a rocket nerd-- the most obvious proof that the launch is of a Titan IIIC is the exhaust plume.
Liquid fuel rockets (such as the Titan II) do not blow bright yellow exhaust plumes. A Titan II's plume (as can be seen in the first two images) is nearly invisible, very narrow, and slightly blue.
The central unit of the Titan III is a Titan II, but the main booster's plume is overwhelmed by the always grandiose plumes of the strap-on SRBs.
So what?
There are two reasons to make note of this film sequence.
To begin with, we have a very rare, and very dramatic film of a Titan IIIC night launch, and even better-- it was recorded using cinematographic equipment, because it was recorded for a major motion picture.
Also, we have a mystery...
We do not know which of three Titan IIIC night launches we are witnessing on the screen.
There were three night launches of the Titan IIIC, 28-Apr-1967; 26-Sep-1968; and 23-May-1969-- as the film was released in late 1969, this could be any one of those.
Here is the lowered quality video than the film or DVD would provide:
I am uncertain if the first two clips of the nosecone are actual closeups of the launched craft or if they are of a mock-up.
Marooned is a 1969 Columbia Pictures film, and the cinematographic quality of the shots of the Titan suggest that this is not "stock footage" and so is not in public domain. Therefore, this is offered under "Fair Use" but with due credit to:
Columbia Pictures;
M. J. Frankovich, Producer;
Daniel Fapp, Director of Photography; and
W. Wallace Kelley, Director of Photography, 2nd Unit
I takes me a while to remember that Fundamentalists, whether Christian
or Muslim, hold legalistic understanding devoid of spirituality, because
legalism is all they crave for their cultures. There is no room for
the mystical, or the transcendent in Fundamentalism.
Fundamentalism is new to Christianity, and the result of a separation from the mystical, spiritual, and historical Church.
I am reminded of a title of a C.S. Lewis book: Your God is Too Small.
Legalism
makes enemies of all who are unlike yourself, and that cannot be
reconciled with a Gospel of "Good News" or what God has revealed of
Himself in the New Covenant-- much less what He accomplished on the
Cross.
The Bible is not a weapon, and if you insist on using it as such, there ought to be a "Conceal and Carry" law regulating who is authorized to use it.
You protest against gays at the grave side services of
veterans and before their bereaved families and friends. You seek to
LEGISLATE your faith so as to FORCE others to accept it.
Yet, the
human soul is attracted to God by its own nature. While sin separates
us, as does death, God the Son has provided a means to overcome all
which separates us from Him.
The journey of such a soul, however,
finds it very difficult to find that journey toward God inside a Church
whose members and leaders would seek to block them from entrance--
intent on denying them access to grace. That is the failure of
Fundamentalism.
To such, knowing Church history, the development
of Christian theology, the great and early saints and theologians who
fought against heresy, endured persecution, and passed on the teachings
of the Apostles-- some before the Christian Bible even existed-- is a
dangerous thing to be avoided.
But study these things, some of us
do-- most of the Church does. The vast majority of the Church is
engaged in theological dialogue with one another. The Fundamentalists
except themselves-- deny themselves a place at the table by their
refusal to read and study what the Church has always said about the
faith.
So "God became man so that man[kind] might become God" is an alien expression to the Fundamentalist? I have yet to find one who even knows this, THE fundamental statement encompassing the Gospel and the Christian faith.
So
are the Three Creeds (Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian) and the
Definition of Chalcedon-- all historic attempts by the educated leaders
in attempt to preserve the authentic faith from before there was a canon
of Christian scripture.
Such scholarship was used by the ancient
Church to determine which, of many, sacred writings were authentic--
either written by Apostles, or by those who studied under one of the
Apostles. Prior to that, the traditions had been passed down from
bishop to bishop-- each accountable to the other, and none presuming
that their own own privateinterpretations could negate the rest of the Church.
That
requires extraordinary faith... plus discipline and study. Those who
lack any of those requirements will dismiss all scholarship and therefore
be unable to draw persons to Christ as He charged the Church to do.
You may draw some to the Bible, but the Bible is not Christ. You may draw them to legalism, but legalism is not Christ.
The
teachings of the ancient and undivided Church are not Christ, either,
but they are the fullest expression of what He taught and desires for
us-- but you would not learn them-- and accuse, berate, and abuse those
who do.
Christianity is a
broad and deep faith, while some
show only a familiarity with the Bible-- estranged from the discussion
of the much greater, much richer fullness of the faith.
It
frightens you only because it is unknown to you-- but that is your
choice. The Apostles knew it, and their successors knew it-- and it was
dangerous for them, too. As you see, it is dangerous for non-Fundamentalists to study
it as well... but that, too, is by your choice.
I
submit "urban youth" (the visual identity in the video):
...is a euphemism
for teenage boys living in a matriarchal society-- and if so, who is
defining "being a man": for them? Their mothers, their female teachers,
or other teenage boys?
I had a father. I know what a man is,
what a man does-- and it compares poorly with what mothers, female
teachers, and teenage boys claim a man to be.
First, if we know where babies come from, then we also know where the "choice" is to be made-- and was made.
Second, if we do not know when a human life begins (Feeling pain? Consciousness? Incarnate soul?), then we err on the side of caution.
Third, as a pregnancy out of wedlock is potentially two very negative things: A traumatizing social stigma and and an economic disaster. Morally and ethically, we do not get to choose to murder (see second item) to avoid these negatives.
Fourth, the baby also recognizes the father's voice! That baby is every bit the choice of the father as it was the choice of the mother (see first item).
Fifth, "conformation bias" when making a decision when in a social or economic crisis (see third item) is not necessarily forever. That is, women who have chosen to abort, often accuse themselves of murder afterward. And that has devastating traumatic effects upon the psyche.
Ask any priest, ask any psychological counselor, ask any therapist. An abortion is one of the most common self-traumatizing regrets heard from women.
In other words, if we do not know if the fetus is a human person or not, and make a decision we later regret in the case of abortion, that action is equivocal to murder which is a far greater trauma to carry than social and economic trauma.
So it is that, outside of a spiritual life, the typical reaction to choosing an abortion is to accept, as FACT, that the abortion did not take a human life. Guilt avoidance will not allow but the most introspective to even begin to consider that one perpetrated an unimaginable horror on another for the shallowest of reasons-- the ultimate betrayal of their own nature.
This then, leads to a person's determination to deny that anyone has a soul, that anyone rightly has spiritual thoughts, that anyone matters-- including themselves.
I ran across this video, doing the ghastly work of sifting through reports found at The CATO Institute.
As the Boy Scouts, churches,
and other organizations have so painfully learned, predators are
attracted to careers and work which put them in power positions over
their prey. When are the Police recruiters going to do the same?
The
police need to be hunting the predators who carry badges-- it is not
like the good ones do not have some idea of what behavior marks a
predator as such.
No one wants to be a "snitch" but we must protect the innocent from predators.
In the Church, we are trained to look for signs. We keep a silent suspicion of anyone volunteering to work with youth, for example. We check everyone through the Texas DPS sexual predator website (and most states have something similar). We do background checks and require volunteers to then take the same courses so that we are all watchdogs-- sheepdogs, really-- who know the wolves are out there. Moreover, cergy are subjected to a battery of psychological tests and profiling, before being ordained-- because they are expected to be the chief shepherd).
I imagine, that the officers who work with the predator seen in that video had been suspicious of that man prior to this, but (as extreme as it is) it is becoming increasingly common. I have never heard of a policeman being terminated because his peers suspect he manifests traits of a predator. Why?
And, by the way, if you hear a police officer yell, "Stop
resisting!" You better be watching. Do not assume the person was resisting. I have seen that tactic used twice on a perfectly peaceful and complaint person being arrested. If you can safely do so, especially from a distance, it is a good idea to make it a routine to video any arrest you witness being made.
