What You Didn't Know About the Apollo 11 Mission (smithsonianmag.com) 133
"From JFK's real motives to the Soviets' secret plot to land on the Moon at the same time, a new behind-the-scenes view of an unlikely triumph 50 years ago," writes schwit1 sharing a new article from Smithsonian magazine titled "What You Didn't Know About the Apollo 11 Mission."
It's an excerpt from the recently-released book ONE GIANT LEAP: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon. The Moon has a smell. It has no air, but it has a smell... All the astronauts who walked on the Moon noticed it, and many commented on it to Mission Control.... Cornell University astrophysicist Thomas Gold warned NASA that the dust had been isolated from oxygen for so long that it might well be highly chemically reactive. If too much dust was carried inside the lunar module's cabin, the moment the astronauts repressurized it with air and the dust came into contact with oxygen, it might start burning, or even cause an explosion. (Gold, who correctly predicted early on that the Moon's surface would be covered with powdery dust, also had warned NASA that the dust might be so deep that the lunar module and the astronauts themselves could sink irretrievably into it.) Among the thousands of things they were keeping in mind while flying to the Moon, Armstrong and Aldrin had been briefed about the very small possibility that the lunar dust could ignite....
The Apollo spacecraft ended up with what was, for its time, the smallest, fastest and most nimble computer in a single package anywhere in the world. That computer navigated through space and helped the astronauts operate the ship. But the astronauts also traveled to the Moon with paper star charts so they could use a sextant to take star sightings -- like 18th-century explorers on the deck of a ship -- and cross-check their computer's navigation. The software of the computer was stitched together by women sitting at specialized looms -- using wire instead of thread. In fact, an arresting amount of work across Apollo was done by hand: The heat shield was applied to the spaceship by hand with a fancy caulking gun; the parachutes were sewn by hand, and then folded by hand. The only three staff members in the country who were trained and licensed to fold and pack the Apollo parachutes were considered so indispensable that NASA officials forbade them to ever ride in the same car, to avoid their all being injured in a single accident. Despite its high-tech aura, we have lost sight of the extent to which the lunar mission was handmade...
The space program in the 1960s did two things to lay the foundation of the digital revolution. First, NASA used integrated circuits -- the first computer chips -- in the computers that flew the Apollo command module and the Apollo lunar module. Except for the U.S. Air Force, NASA was the first significant customer for integrated circuits. Microchips power the world now, of course, but in 1962 they were little more than three years old, and for Apollo they were a brilliant if controversial bet. Even IBM decided against using them in the company's computers in the early 1960s. NASA's demand for integrated circuits, and its insistence on their near-flawless manufacture, helped create the world market for the chips and helped cut the price by 90 percent in five years. NASA was the first organization of any kind -- company or government agency -- anywhere in the world to give computer chips responsibility for human life. If the chips could be depended on to fly astronauts safely to the Moon, they were probably good enough for computers that would run chemical plants or analyze advertising data.
The article also notes that three times as many people worked on Apollo as on the Manhattan Project to create the atomic bomb.
It's an excerpt from the recently-released book ONE GIANT LEAP: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon. The Moon has a smell. It has no air, but it has a smell... All the astronauts who walked on the Moon noticed it, and many commented on it to Mission Control.... Cornell University astrophysicist Thomas Gold warned NASA that the dust had been isolated from oxygen for so long that it might well be highly chemically reactive. If too much dust was carried inside the lunar module's cabin, the moment the astronauts repressurized it with air and the dust came into contact with oxygen, it might start burning, or even cause an explosion. (Gold, who correctly predicted early on that the Moon's surface would be covered with powdery dust, also had warned NASA that the dust might be so deep that the lunar module and the astronauts themselves could sink irretrievably into it.) Among the thousands of things they were keeping in mind while flying to the Moon, Armstrong and Aldrin had been briefed about the very small possibility that the lunar dust could ignite....
The Apollo spacecraft ended up with what was, for its time, the smallest, fastest and most nimble computer in a single package anywhere in the world. That computer navigated through space and helped the astronauts operate the ship. But the astronauts also traveled to the Moon with paper star charts so they could use a sextant to take star sightings -- like 18th-century explorers on the deck of a ship -- and cross-check their computer's navigation. The software of the computer was stitched together by women sitting at specialized looms -- using wire instead of thread. In fact, an arresting amount of work across Apollo was done by hand: The heat shield was applied to the spaceship by hand with a fancy caulking gun; the parachutes were sewn by hand, and then folded by hand. The only three staff members in the country who were trained and licensed to fold and pack the Apollo parachutes were considered so indispensable that NASA officials forbade them to ever ride in the same car, to avoid their all being injured in a single accident. Despite its high-tech aura, we have lost sight of the extent to which the lunar mission was handmade...
The space program in the 1960s did two things to lay the foundation of the digital revolution. First, NASA used integrated circuits -- the first computer chips -- in the computers that flew the Apollo command module and the Apollo lunar module. Except for the U.S. Air Force, NASA was the first significant customer for integrated circuits. Microchips power the world now, of course, but in 1962 they were little more than three years old, and for Apollo they were a brilliant if controversial bet. Even IBM decided against using them in the company's computers in the early 1960s. NASA's demand for integrated circuits, and its insistence on their near-flawless manufacture, helped create the world market for the chips and helped cut the price by 90 percent in five years. NASA was the first organization of any kind -- company or government agency -- anywhere in the world to give computer chips responsibility for human life. If the chips could be depended on to fly astronauts safely to the Moon, they were probably good enough for computers that would run chemical plants or analyze advertising data.
The article also notes that three times as many people worked on Apollo as on the Manhattan Project to create the atomic bomb.
Re:The location (Score:5, Funny)
The hoax was a Kubrick production, but Kubrick was such a stickler for detail that he insisted on doing all the filming on the actual moon to maximize the hoax's realism, which required a lengthy R&D program to accomplish.
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What you didn't know about the Apollo 11 Mission:
It actually happened. :-P
Mars (Score:2)
Thats nothing. Elon is taking us all to Mars.
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I bet you can't wait for him to take you up uranus...
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Elon should probably work on building a profitable car company first, or he won’t be able afford a ride there.
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b) Musk is just a heavy aroma until the delivery.
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A prince of adhominems, a duke of strawmen, a model of brainless acceptance of propaganda, I bow to you.
I've always envied people like you, who can embrace their cognitive dissonance and make it a shield from reality and a weapon against it.
You, my fellow AC, are a true follower of your great president.
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When We Left Earth (Score:1)
For anyone interested in this topic, there was a very good 3-part documentary on this about 10 years ago called "When We Left Earth". I'd highly recommend it. It goes into tons of detail on every topic...all the incremental missions to get us there, all the planning and testing that went into the design of the space suits and lunar rovers, countless problems big and small they had to engineer around, and then continues on to more modern topics like the shuttle program and Hubble
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and about 25 years ago HBO had a miniseries called "From the Earth to the Moon" which was a dramatized series starting with the Shephard's suborbital flight, and carries through to the last Apollo mission. They go into some of the engineering challenges, as well as the human story behind those amazing years.
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about 25 years ago HBO had a miniseries called "From the Earth to the Moon"
If you can find it, watch the episode 'Spider'. Very funny...
m
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Also, take a look at the cast list, a lot of stars or to-be stars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Regarding the 6 parts, I forgot they actually structured it as 6 one-hour episodes, even though it originally aired as 2-hour blocks on 3 consecutive weeks.
Say what you will (Score:3)
The fracking lander could've floundered into
Oh, and there's a small chance, that, if it's not so deep it buries the first humans to die on another rock, the dust might ignite and kill you there anyway.
The astronauts were clearly comfortable with the thought they would likely never return to the earth.
The spirit continues (Score:5, Interesting)
The astronauts were clearly comfortable with the thought they would likely never return to the earth.
That is very true, they all knew it was risky, especially the first ones with a lot of unknowns holding together for them to arrive and come back.
That spirit is alive and well still I'd say, as there are a lot of people OK with a one-way trip to Mars - even if they have zero possibility of coming back The astronauts knew they at least had a plan to come back.
Many war stories (Score:2)
There are many, many war stories, especially from WW II and prior, of huge heroism and people taking technical risks. Heck, the first man to manage controlled flight, Otto Lilienthal, killed himslef in the process.
The Soviets should have made a one way trip (Score:2)
The hard part was not getting to the moon. The hard part was getting back to earth.
Imagine if the soviets had simply sent someone one way. No big deal for them. And it could have been someone with a slow but terminal disease like cancer.
It would also make the military point that the Soviets are much tougher when it comes to suffering than the Americans.
What did the Soviets in was that they purged their best engineer, Korolev. He was rehabilitated, but then died from the long term effects of his incarcer
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> there are a lot of people OK with a one-way trip to Mars - even if they have zero possibility of coming back
I've said it and I'll say it again. I love my family, I love my children. Yet I would gladly kiss them goodbye and board for a one-way trip to Mars. I would do so even if the goal was just to see at which stage I would die painfully, so that the engineers might fix that problem and work on painfully killing the next in line.
I may be an idiot, but I'm not stupid. The way forward to Mars will take
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I love my family, I love my children. Yet I would gladly kiss them goodbye and board for a one-way trip to Mars.
As opposed to what most people want to do, which is to live as absolutely long as possible, squeezing out every second of life, including spending the last 15 years of life as a living corpse, demented and immobile, while a nursing home extracts every last cent of their wealth. Because that's what is going to happen, despite what people think.
The fate that awaits so many of us.
Which is why I agree with you 100 percent. A death with the chance for doing interesting and often great things before it happe
Re:The spirit continues (Score:4, Insightful)
I think Armstrong was fairly confident of surviving. He certainly told people as much. He rated actually landing and walking on the moon at 50/50, but presumably was thinking along the lines of having to abort rather than being killed.
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The problem we have these days (more so than back then) is that there's now a whole class of people wanting to do things to get the youtube views or social media 'fame', rather than because they're really happy with it. How you tell them apart from people who genuinely don't have a problem with the risk is anyone's guess, but it's sure going to be a hard lesson for the kid that goes to mars for the fame and then has to live with that decision for the rest of their (probably short) life.
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The astronauts were clearly comfortable with the thought they would likely never return to the earth.
That is very true, they all knew it was risky, especially the first ones with a lot of unknowns holding together for them to arrive and come back.
That spirit is alive and well still I'd say, as there are a lot of people OK with a one-way trip to Mars - even if they have zero possibility of coming back The astronauts knew they at least had a plan to come back.
This is also why a majority of astronauts have military backgrounds. They've already learned to cope with their mortality.
Re:Say what you will (Score:5, Informative)
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The soviets were first at everything, including soft landing on the moon. So you should have said "both the Soviets and the USA...".
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They've never landed a man there. Therefore certainly NOT first at everything.
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They were military test pilots, for the most part.
Their entire day was about flying around in things that nobody had ever tested, with the potential of never coming back. That was their damn job.
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3 tired queries, then:
Dumbass.
Did you capitalize because you recognized my dumbassedry exceeded your expectations, or out of a semi-particular anal adherence to Strunk & White?
Who wouldn't want to be safely on their home planet?
Adventurers and malcontents, I'd venture to guess, with the latter significantly outweighing the former.
You are so stupid I bet you can't even balance a checkbook or write a small web page. Rot.
I don't want to jump to conclusions, but it seems like your personal attacks are indicative of someone a bit too familiar with my banking habits.
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We Know Nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact is we knew nothing for sure until we try. This is what no one understands. A simulator only accurately simulates what has been done. Extrapolation cannot be known to be accurate or precise. We actually thought that maybe humans might die at high speed. We did I not know. Now we do. Science is of no interest to some people because they think we know and can simulate anything.
On the topic of the IC. Texas Instruments invented the calculator to sell the IC they invested, simultaneously, more or less, withFairchild. This is innovation. The space program, along with oil location research, lead to the world In which we live today. A lot of things were not invented for NASA, that was a myth, but many technologies and processes were perfected by and for NASA. We know how to attach a bolt so it won fall out because of NASA.
I will plug this guys book and comics [slashdot.org] because they are cool.
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A lot of things were not invented for NASA, that was a myth, but many technologies and processes were perfected by and for NASA. We know how to attach a bolt so it won fall out because of NASA.
People attach way too much weight to the invention. The Patent office files are full of inventions. Who did it first is just for listkeepers and famous cigarette fans. I'm more interested in who figured out what to do with the inventions.
The moon has a smell (Score:3)
As some sysadmins could tell you - that's what happens if you don't bathe for 4.5 billion years.
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I believe in Donald Trump he can make the Moon landing happen before the Chinese do.
I'm no fan of Trump, but I, too, believe he can make this happen. Trump has proven time and time again that, if nothing else, he's remarkably good at taking credit for things other people have already accomplished. So it would not at all surprise me if, before the end of his term, he has achieved "the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth".
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I thought the quote made it obvious enough, but maybe I was too subtle. The joke was that it wouldn't be surprising to see Trump take credit for landing a man on the moon in 1969.
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I believe in Donald Trump he can make the Moon landing happen before the Chinese do.
I'm no fan of Trump, but I, too, believe he can make this happen. Trump has proven time and time again that, if nothing else, he's remarkably good at taking credit for things other people have already accomplished. So it would not at all surprise me if, before the end of his term, he has achieved "the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth".
He showed us how in the mid 1700's, a small band of patriots took over all of the British Airports in the USA. The sky is the limit with the greatest man ever elected to the presidency.
The book link is wrong! (Score:4, Informative)
The book link above goes to the wrong book about Neil Armstrong published by the wrong publisher back in 2005.
Here is a correct link to this book on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/One-Gia... [amazon.com]
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Woven software or core memory? (Score:1)
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Just give is a rest (Score:2)
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Nothing like yet another book on the Moon landing I always say. Can't wait for the next one and the next...
Best reason I've heard yet to go back. Someone needs to walk on the Moon again just so the books can finally change. That franchise is definitely way oversold.
"because NASA did it" (Score:2)
Using NASA as a measuring stick for safe operation is insane.
Unless you're good with 3% of your operators dying a horrible death.
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Using NASA as a measuring stick for safe operation is insane.
Unless you're good with 3% of your operators dying a horrible death.
Are you kidding? I'd take those odds any day. 97% chance of success? Journey of your life and one that virtually no one else will ever get to go on or die a horrible death? Sure, I'd do it. I bet plenty of people would.
OTOH, I wouldn't do a Mars trip. That's a one way proposition right now. It's not likely you'll even make it.
Not surprising (Score:2)
The article also notes that three times as many people worked on Apollo as on the Manhattan Project to create the atomic bomb.
Well yeah. The Manhattan Project was a military secret. They told as few people as they could possibly manage. The Apollo Project was a dickwaving contest. They told as many people as they could possibly manage. I'm only surprised it's just a factor of three difference.
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Probably still butthurt that the N1 was such a disaster.
Re:What exactly is so amazing about going to that (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder why nobody has ever made a movie about that, BTW. Space travel with late-19th century technology. That would be amazing. And I don't mean some kind of surrealistic fantasy stuff like that early silent movie from the early 20th century, but a concrete, detailed description of them going to space with some huge machine using only technology available or "could have been invented" in the late 1800s... I'd love to watch that!
From the Earth to the Moon, Jules Verne, 1865. They shoot 3 men in a massive gun shell, fired from a giant gun in a place in coastal Florida, went to the moon, and landed in the Pacific Ocean.
There are... similarities... in velocities, dimensions of the capsule, etc. Verne did his homework.
It's a good read. Try it. I think it's free online somewhere now.
Re:What exactly is so amazing about going to that (Score:5, Informative)
I wonder why nobody has ever made a movie about that, BTW. Space travel with late-19th century technology. That would be amazing. And I don't mean some kind of surrealistic fantasy stuff like that early silent movie from the early 20th century, but a concrete, detailed description of them going to space with some huge machine using only technology available or "could have been invented" in the late 1800s... I'd love to watch that!
From the Earth to the Moon, Jules Verne, 1865. They shoot 3 men in a massive gun shell, fired from a giant gun in a place in coastal Florida, went to the moon, and landed in the Pacific Ocean.
There are... similarities... in velocities, dimensions of the capsule, etc. Verne did his homework.
It's a good read. Try it. I think it's free online somewhere now.
Even better, the movie, from 1902; Public Domain:
https://archive.org/details/Le... [archive.org]
There is also a sequel by Verne,
Round the Moon:
https://archive.org/details/ro... [archive.org]
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"I wonder why nobody has ever made a movie about that, BTW."
Stanley Kubrick is dead.
Re: I am anxious about the Apollo 11 mission (Score:2)
https://youtu.be/kGD0zEbiDPQ [youtu.be]
Interesting story about the lunar computer
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Yeah, Goddard "invented" that stuff so well, that the US military had to kidnap the German rocketry program wholesale so that they could get a working one of their own. Meanwhile, while Goddard was wasting his time, the Nazis were pounding London... With rockets.
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He was a party member - something he downplayed later.