Thursday Throughput: Michael Collins Edition

Photo of the Eagle lander and the Earth from the Columbia orbiter.

[ThTh1] When Apollo 11 reached the moon to initiate the first landing on the surface, someone had to stay in space to coordinate the rendezvous when the lander returned. That man was Michael Collins, veteran of the Gemini 10 mission. Collins was such a professional, he wrote a 117-page manual to deal with every possible rendezvous situation. Thankfully, the return of Eagle from the surface went smoothly. But one of the many things that made that mission a success was having a skilled pilot ready in case of any eventualities (and Collins did have to deal with a coolant problem while Armstrong and Aldrin were on the surface).

While in orbit, Michael Collins was arguably the most isolated human who had ever lived. He snapped this picture of the lander:

“I’ve got the world in my window.”

Michael Collins snapped this photo of the lunar module returning to the command module after landing on the Moon. With the Earth in the background, all of humanity is in this photograph, save Collins himself. pic.twitter.com/5StJrvzB0T

— NASA Moon (@NASAMoon) April 28, 2021

Michael Collins was offered a spot-on Apollo 17 but declined, citing the strain the program had put on his family. He went on to maintain an involvement with NASA, became the director of the National Air and Space Museum, worked in aerospace, retired as a consultant and raised three kids. He died yesterday at the age of 90.

Dear Mike,
Wherever you have been or will be, you will always have the Fire to Carry us deftly to new heights and to the future. We will miss you. May you Rest In Peace. #Apollo11 pic.twitter.com/q4sJjFdvf8

— Dr. Buzz Aldrin (@TheRealBuzz) April 28, 2021

All great men are dying, as the saying goes. Of the 12 men who have walked on the moon, only four — Aldrin, Scott, Duke, and Schmitt — are still with us. Of the 12 men who’ve flown around the moon, only six — Borman, Lovell, Anders, Stafford, Haise and Mattingly — are still with us. And they are all over 85.

We are rapidly approaching the point where no living human will have flown to the moon. And that thought makes me very sad. One of the most daring and successful endeavors in human history is fading into the past.

Ad Astra, sir. And we thank you.

[ThTh2] One of the concerns we have about COVID-19 is how well the vaccines will hold up as the virus mutates. We just got a big test. One of the variants of the virus broke out in a nursing home. Most of the resident had been vaccinated.

The results are … actually reassuring. Of the eight residents who had not been vaccinated, all eight got sick and two died. Of the 75 who were vaccinated, 18 were infected and only 1 died. Most did not even have symptoms. While the numbers are small, this indicates that Pfizer vaccine was 66-76% effective in preventing the variant disease, and 86% effective in preventing symptomatic disease. This is extremely encouraging, especially given, as Allahpundit pointed out, that this was basically the worst case scenario: seniors in poor health and crowded conditions being hit by a variant.

COVID vaccines use a new approach to vaccination. Rather than exposing your body to the virus, it exposes to a part of the virus. In this case, the spike protein that the virus uses to attach itself to human cells. The idea is that the vaccine gives your body’s defense system the equivalent of a WANTED poster, telling it that if it ever sees this protein, it should call the immune system, which has crafted the tools needed to destroy it.

In the case of variant, the virus has made some changes to the spike protein. These changes make it more effective in attaching to your cells but also might fool the body because they don’t look quite like the spike proteins it has seen before. Thankfully, the early data is showing that the body is not particularly fooled, at least not so soon after vaccination. It quickly figures out what it’s dealing with and revises its defense protocols. You can imagine it playing out like this as the virus shows up on your immunological doorstep:

Immune System: “Hey! You look familiar.” [looks at wanted poster; looks at virus]. “Are you … are you COVID-19?”
COVID-19: [wearing a huge false mustache and faking a British accent] “No, of course not, old chap. I’m just an innocent protein.”
Immune System: [giving COVID-19 the side eye] “I don’t know. You look an awful lot like COVID-19.”
COVID-19: [stealing stuff from the counter] “No, haha. I am just an innocent protein minding my own business.”
Immune System: “Wait! You ARE COVID-19! Get ‘em boys!”

[a bunch of white cells jump on COVID-19 and beat the crap out of him]

That brief interlude between when COVID-19 shows up and when your body figures out how to deal with it is the dangerous time. Based on these early results, it looks like the variants are not variant enough to fool the body for very long.

It’s possible that as the vaccine immunity fades and the variants get more variant, we will need a booster shot with the variant version to remind our bodies what to look for. But the immediately results indicate that the initial immunity is strong enough for the body to recognize and fight off the variants. Let’s hope that holds up.

[ThTh3] What’s better than a picture of a black hole? How about dozens of them, spanning from the radio to the X-ray?

[ThTh4] You may have heard people saying that a Stanford study proves that masks not only do not work to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but actually worsen people’s health. This claim is garbage. It’s not a study, it’s not peer-reviewed, it’s not from Stanford. It’s some guy speculating on what might be true. You may also have heard that MIT says that social distancing is useless. It says no such thing. It’s a theoretical study that said that exposure, duration and masking are far more important for indoor spread of the virus than distance.

[ThTh5] Another shortage is hitting the scientific world. This time it’s pipette tips.

[ThTh6] This article has a great review of the budding field of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. One stat that jumped out at me: one of these particles — a tiny subatomic particle mind you — had as much energy as a bowling ball dropped on your foot.

[ThTh7] It’s looking the Russians made a mistake in their Sputnik vaccine, which means that it will have more significant side effects. Basically, they left intact too much of adenovirus which delivers the vaccine. So, in addition to fighting off a piece of COVID-19, recipients are also fighting off a fully active cold virus. Virologist Dr. Angela Rasmussen explains the details here.

Vaccine skeptics have claimed that the US vaccines were “rushed”. I disagree. They came out quickly because we already had most of what we needed and could start trials almost immediately. And the Phase 3 trials were massive compared to previous Phase 3 trials. No, this is what it looks like when a vaccine is rushed.

[ThTh8] And we’re not done with vaccine. New results continue to show that the malaria vaccine is effective. This is a disease that infects 200 million and kills 400,000 every year.

[ThT9] Finally, to close it out on space again: here’s what happens to your body in freefall.

What exactly happens to the human body in space pic.twitter.com/q2XtczeYjO

— Space Explorer Mike (@MichaelGalanin) April 19, 2021