Apollo Stories - Space History and Law During the Pioneering Years of the Apollo Space Program

By rohan Goyne

A collection of vignettes of space history and space law betweem 1962-72 with an emphasis on the Australian contribution to the Apollo Space Program.

• Language: English
• Publisher: rohan Goyne
• Release date: Sep 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393352747

rohan Goyne

Rohan Goyne is a recreational military historian based in Canberra Australia.  He is a Petherick Reader at the National Library of Australia and the Immediate Past Federal President of the Military Historical Society of Australia 2009-2018. He has had articles on a wide variety of military history topics in Australian and International military history journals.  This is his first e-book.  He is admitted to legal practice as a Solicitor In the High Court of Australia, the Federal Courts of Australia and the ACT Supreme Court.  He holds a Master of Laws specialising in international law from the University of Canberra and four other degrees.

Book preview

APOLLO 11 MOON LANDING AND THE RAAF RESERVIST – THE JOHN COLVIN STORY

Introduction:

This genesis of this chapter was a trip to the Tidbinbilla Deep Space Tracking in 2016 at which there was a small display then in the corner which briefly marked the contribution of RAAF Reservist Dr John Colvin to the Apollo Space Program which to a historian is a thread which leads on a research journey.[1]

John Colvin’s significant contribution to the pioneering years of the Apollo Space Program has largely been forgotten but with the pending 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing it is fitting to restate John’s contribution to the ultimate successful landing on the Moon.

I’ll give a summary of John’s early life then looking at his invention and his interaction with the NASA which was ultimately crucial to the Moon Landing in 1969.

Who was John Colvin?

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Australia. He also (with the technical assistance of spectacle maker Martin Hogan) played a role in the successful US Apollo space flights and extended the flying time of Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and civilian airline pilots.

Born on 14 January 1929 in Hobart, John was educated mainly in Queensland. After graduating in medicine at the University of Queensland in 1953, he spent 5 years in England specialising in ophthalmology.

Returning to Melbourne in 1961, he entered private practice and was appointed to the honorary staff of the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital. On Saturday mornings at the hospital he gave free lectures