Apollo 11's 35th Anniversary 318
colonist writes "35 years ago, on July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 began to achieve the goal set by the late President Kennedy: '...before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth'. On July 20, Michael Collins orbited the moon in the command module Columbia while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface in the lunar module Eagle. The descent engine was halfway through its final 12-minute burn when a yellow caution light lit up on the display of the lunar module computer. [ARMSTRONG: Program Alarm... It's a 1202. ALDRIN: 1202. (Pause) ARMSTRONG: (To Buzz) What is it? Let's incorporate (the landing radar data). (To Houston) Give us a reading on the 1202 Program Alarm.] Buzz Aldrin's recollection: 'Back in Houston, not to mention on board the Eagle, hearts shot up into throats while we waited to learn what would happen. We had received two of the caution lights when Steve Bales the flight controller responsible for LM computer activity, told us to proceed... We received three or four more warnings but kept on going. When Mike, Neil, and I were presented with Medals of Freedom by President Nixon, Steve also received one. He certainly deserved it, because without him we might not have landed.' Fred Martin describes the incidents, and Peter Adler looks at the design of the system."
HP 65 (Score:1, Interesting)
Celebration (Score:5, Interesting)
Pretty amazing if you ask me... (Score:5, Interesting)
35 years ago we put a man on the moon.. Pretty awesome if you ask me.
What kills me is that people exclaim how the iPOD, XBOX or Furby is "revolutionary" or will change how the world does [insert buzzword here].
I wonder how many high school students today even know we put a man on the moon...
Re:Apollo 11: proudly brought to you by... (Score:1, Interesting)
Good book for geeks on Apollo 11 (Score:4, Interesting)
When I was eight or nine years old a neighbor gave me a copy of The Invasion of the Moon 1969 by Peter Ryan. I've read it at least a dozen times since then.
It's a paperback, mostly consisting of transcripts of the communications between Mission Control and the Apollo 11 mission, with commentary and explanation interspersed.
Sadly, the book is long out of print, but you can find used copies through the usual sources. I bought one a couple years ago for a friend who read mine and liked it.
413 is in.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Drifting forward just a little.
That's good.
Contact light.
Shut down.
Okay. Engine stop.
ACA out of detent.
Out of detent. Auto.
Mode control, both auto. Descent engine command override off. Engine arm off. 413 is in.
We copy you down eagle.
Engine arm is of. Houston, Tranquility base here. The eagle has landed.
Roger Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue, we're breathing again, thank you.
I wasnt born then. Still there is a lump in my throat when I read those words. I wish I am alive when we hear something along these lines when we touch down on the Red Planet..or even farther..
Wish for a moment, we could stop all this crap going around and remember those brave souls who perished in our urge to leap higher and honor their souls by setting higher goals and achieve them.
Re:From Earth to the Moon (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:35 years... (Score:4, Interesting)
2. Skylab and Mir were tiny and tested only the tech of the time. And they encountered a number of failings that have been remedied with the ISS. And the ISS is, in turn, uncovering a number of failings. We need to be able to fix things if we want to become a spacefaring race.
Rant (Score:5, Interesting)
I have been reading Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct (borrowed from my father-in-law) and yesterday I came to a conclusion. I must mention that I have some very deeply held political ideology: I am a strong anarcho-libertarian. I believe all taxation ought to be repealed, the purpose of government ought to be limited to defense of rights against aggression, important government projects like space exploration ought to be handled through voluntary donation and/or private enterprise, and government ought to relinquish its monopoly and allow competing governments to be set up within the same geographic region.
HOWEVER
Reading Mars Direct yesterday I suddenly found myself just amazingly mad. Yes, space exploration ought to be handled by private enterprise ... but the reforms needed to bring about the ideal libertarian society I believe would handle this are decades off and will probably not occur in my lifetime. Meanwhile, the government is still taking our money ... and what are we getting for it? Mankind has not set foot on the moon in my lifetime, and even if he did I'm not sure what it would accomplish. But Mars has been sitting there, waiting. How many billions of dollars have been spent on the space program since man landed on the moon in 1969, and why have those billions of dollars not gotten us to Mars?
If they are going to take my money away to support space exploration, something I would have voluntarily given my contributions for, they ought to at least produce what they promise to deliver. But we're sitting on earth, noone is in transit to Mars, and noone is there to look at these emissions of ammonia and methane to see if it's rocks or life.
And the saddest thing of all is ... for a mere 20 billion dollars, someone could be sitting there right now to answer our questions for us. That's awful.
So yesterday I threw a lot of my principles out the window. Yes, I don't believe space exploration should be handled by governments instead of private industry ... but for crying out loud, it ought to be handled, somehow! And we shouldn't have to wait until my grandchildren have grandchildren to see it. It can be done, now for $20 billion. It ought to start TODAY. George Bush (I like him; I know many of you do not) should be on the news, announcing that we have a plan to take us to Mars in less than 10 years for 20 billion dollars, and it starts today. Congress ought to be passing the paperwork as we speak. This is more important than just about any other political issue. This is about the future of the human race. Are we going to stagnate, or are we going to explore the new frontier?
And you know what? That $20 billion is trivial. Governments spend that all the time. That's less than 1% of the national debt. And after all the trouble we went to to get a balanced budget, we're currently running a deficit again. Look, if we can pay off $3 trillion (that was the national debt when I was about 15; I don't know what it is, now) at some unidentified future date, we can pay off another $20 billion at some unidentified future date. Quit whining, borrow the money, and do it! The plans are sitting on your desk.
NASA could be scrapped and we'd free up $15.5 billion for this project. But actually if we spread the plan out over ten years, it's only $2 billion. Half of NASA's plans are silly float humans in LEO plans that are doing nothing, anyway. (Many of these are designed to research irrelevant Mars mission scenarios, like long term effects to zero-g. Mars Direct provides for spinning the transit vehicle (duh!) to provide gravity. What a waste!) Drop a few of those, free up the money, and do it. Better yet, forget NASA altogether. Let NASA go ahead with their work (yes, much of it is excellent; I'm just in rant mode; the rovers are great, the probes are great, but the places we are sending humans stink). Meanwhile, we could just increase
Report on 2004 Centennial Challenges Workshop (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's a list of possible prize goals which were examined in detail (from TOC):
- Precision Lander
- Astronaut Glove
- Mobile Power Breakthrough
- Micro Reentry Vehicle
- Robot Triathlon
- Lunar Processing Demo
- Quantum Computer
- Lunar Landing
- Telerobotic Race
- General Aviation
- 3-Dimensional Detector
- Autonomous Earth Analog Sample Return
- Long-Duration Cryogenic Propellant Storage Tank
- Perpetual (30-Day) UAV
- Aircraft Engine
- Deployable Telescopes
- Aerocapture
- Autonomous UAV Cargo Hauler
- Human Radiation Shielding
- Solar Sail Race
- Rover Survivor
- Planetary Surface Power Transmission
- Extreme Environment Computer
- Mars Com/Nav Micromission
- Autonomous Drill
- Nanotube Tether
- In-Situ Life Detector
- Asteroid Mission
- Miniature Robotic Flyer
- Human Space Flight - Orbiter Technology
- Human Space Flight - Suborbital Flight
- Human Space Flight - PVT APOLLO 8
- Education
- Suborbital Flights for Scientific Payloads
Re:35 years... (Score:3, Interesting)
Eagle Lander 3D (Score:5, Interesting)
Doom. Quake. Unreal Tournament. All games where you play the role of a hero against insurmountable odds. All deliciously showy and fun as hell. But... Could you step into the shoes of an actual hero and land Apollo 11?
Download Eagle Lander 3D [eaglelander3d.com] and find out. From their home page:
I don't know about anyone else, but this simple simulation has somewhat skewed my view of FPS games. I have passable 5k1llz in QuakeWorld and UT, but they are absolutely useless trying to land a LEM. Patience and attention to detail are the key here, not twitch-and-fire. (You couldn't "twitch" a LEM, anyway.) I've played Eagle Lander a bit, and I'm no damn good at it.
Think about that for a second. I've wrecked a LEM several times in this game/simulator. Hey, no big deal, right? Just restart the game. Now, think about Neil Armstrong, sitting there in the middle of what's essentially the ultimate desert, a half million miles from home, being watched by a billion people, flying this tiny little metal can, trying to kiss the surface of the moon. Granted, he had years of training in simulators and mockups, but this is the real deal, and he absolutely cannot fuck this up! No retries, no $0.25 for three more lives. One shot. Success or absolute failure.
Now, keep that frame of reference in mind when you grab the controls of Eagle Lander 3D, and see if it doesn't even slightly mess with your sense of gravity about what you're doing (pun not intended).
Schwab
Re:No mention of the mistake? (Score:3, Interesting)
In those days, translunar trajectories were customarily computed by the "sphere of influence" method, which meant that you ignored Moon gravity out to the point where Earth and Moon gravity were equal, then ignored Earth gravity for the rest of the way. It introduced some error, but saved a lot of primitive computer time, and it would put you close enough to make a final course correction when you were almost there.
So here was one of the Apollo missions on the way home, and Houston commented "You crossed into Earth gravity at such-and-such time." The flight commander, in a jaunty mood, said "Yeah, we felt a little jerk just now."
And Walter Cronkite bought it.
Within a few hours there were headlines saying APOLLO SURGES AHEAD INTO HOME PLANET'S GRAVITY. Of course Cronkite was one of NASA's biggest supporters, and they weren't about to make him look silly, so they just shut up about it. I have never seen it mentioned since.
rj