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Space Science

Apollo 12 at 35 242

Posted by CowboyNeal from the looking-back dept.
neutron_p writes "Thirty-five years ago this week, the sedentary, fine-grained powder began to rise, billow and race off toward the horizon. Soon after - at 1:54:35 a.m. EST on Nov. 19, 1969 - the lunar module Intrepid landed, bringing two more humans to the surface of another world. Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad and lunar module pilot Alan Bean would be on the Moon for more than 31 hours, with crewmate Dick Gordon orbiting above in the command module Yankee Clipper."
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Apollo 12 at 35 More

Apollo 12 at 35

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  • Of course (Score:5, Funny)

    by RealProgrammer ( 723725 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @10:32PM (#10861567) Homepage Journal
    But you can't prove it!

    I hate wasting K on redundant slashisms, but there it is.

    • Re:Of course (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ravenspear ( 756059 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @11:44PM (#10861934)
      Seriously though, it's the kind of utterly stupid people that whine and carry on about the moon hoax crap that are more responsible than anyone for assisting the cultural decline of support for NASA and space exploration.

  • amazing programing in 256k, and no serious bugs (Score:5, Insightful)

    by yorkpaddy ( 830859 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @10:35PM (#10861583)
    Its amazing that those guys had 256k of memory (I think, maybe that was the space shuttle), and they managed to write the flight control programs without any bugs. Programmers today have trouble with 256 megs of memory

    • Re:amazing programing in 256k, and no serious bugs (Score:5, Informative)

      by Steve1952 ( 651150 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @10:40PM (#10861612)
      256K Hah! The Apollo landing module had 2K of RAM and 36K of ROM. Now that's tight!
    • Its amazing that those guys had 256k of memory (I think, maybe that was the space shuttle), and they managed to write the flight control programs without any bugs. Programmers today have trouble with 256 megs of memory

      Maybe that should be:

      Programmers today have trouble due to 256 megs of memory

    • Is it really that surprising? When you have some room to work with, you're more likely to be sloppy, because after all, what's a little memory leak here or there, you've got 250 megs to spare, right? When you've got so little memory to work with, every bit is important. There's no room for waste or carelessness.

      • When you have some room to work with, you're more likely to be sloppy...

        Surely if you're programming for 256 megs it's at least as much a question of complexity as of having room to be sloppy in. With the best will in the world the difference in potential complexity, and the consequent chances of introducing bugs, between 256k and 256 meg is staggering.

        I don't imagine for a minute that if you'd offered the apollo engineers 256 megs they'd have turned you down and said "sorry we'll stick to 256k thanks, it

    • Re:amazing programing in 74k, and no serious bugs (Score:5, Informative)

      by RealProgrammer ( 723725 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @10:52PM (#10861680) Homepage Journal

      From abc.net.au [abc.net.au]:

      Do this with a computer that has barely 5,000 primitive integrated circuits, weighs 30 kg and costs over $150,000. In order to store your software, the computer doesn't have a disk drive, only 74 kilobytes of memory that has been literally hard-wired, and all of 4 Kb of something that is sort of like RAM.

      NASA [nasa.gov] explains it a little better, noting that the 74KB is actually 37KW, using 16-bit words:

      • Hardware

        The guidance computer is a general-purpose digital machine with a basic word length, in parallel operations, of 15 bits with an added bit for parity checks. The instruction code includes subroutines for double and triple operations. Memory cycle time is 11.7 microseconds with a single addition time of 23.4 microseconds. The 'core rope', used for the fixed memory, has a capacity of about 36,864 words with an erasable memory (of ferrite core planes) of 2,048 words. The processor is formed from integrated circuits (ICs). The total computer weight is 29.5 kg. The fixed memory contains programmes, routines, constants, star and landmark co-ordinates and other pertinent data. The erasable memory acts as an intermediate store for results of computations, auxiliary programme information, and variable data supplied by the G&N and other systems of the spacecraft.

    • They had bugs... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Goonie ( 8651 ) <.robert.merkel. .at. .benambra.org.> on Thursday November 18, 2004 @11:34PM (#10861884) Homepage
      The Apollo 11 landing was nearly aborted due to computer problems, according to this account [nasa.gov] which goes into some detail.

      I love the bit where the writer describes the recommendation by the software engineer to ignore the reported errors as "a gutsy call". There's these guys, in a tiny little spacecraft, about to land on the moon, with most of the world watching, and the prestige of the USA and indeed democracy and capitalism at stake. The computer's screaming error messages. If you call for an abort, the moon effort is a flop (at least temporarily). If you call proceed and the thing craters, you're going to be the guy whose screwup killed two American heroes. "Gutsy"...more like balls of titanium!

      • Re:They had bugs... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @12:19AM (#10862075) Journal
        I keep reading different accounts of that Apollo 11 landing problem.

        The account I read was that because the gravitational center of the moon is a bit off-center from the physical shape, there was not enough margin of extra fuel and Neil spotted a bunch of sharp boulders below that he wanted to avoid. So, he took a detour and because of that the craft was almost out of landing fuel and thus fuel warning lights were beeping like crazy.

        Neil later said that he kept fairly close to the surface during the detour so that if the fuel did run out, the worse that would happen would be a slightly hard landing. The moon's gravity is low enough that a fall from 50 feet is just jarring rather than fatal.

        If Neil was a bit more by-the-book, he would have aborted and launched back into orbit without landing. The control room was turning pale, witnesses said, due to the stress of that landing. If something did go wrong due to that decision, Neil probably would have a boatload of blame on him.

        The lopsoded nature of the moon is part of the reason why only one side always faces Earth. I don't know if scientists didn't know it was lopsided back then, or if technicians simply forgot to include that info in their calculations. From what I gather it was a new fact whose magnitude was still under investigation, and thus they had no official numbers for calculations.

        For some reason weight constraints on the first few missions were pretty tight and that is why they had so little fuel margin, but later relaxed/expanded the constraints such that moon rovers and other doodads could be included. I don't know why later missions had more payload weight. On the first mission they were so anal about weight that they almost excluded a TV camera. They used the same basic rockets as later missions. Anybody else know the reason for the difference?

        • Re:They had bugs... (Score:5, Informative)

          by earendil ( 10880 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @03:36AM (#10862668) Homepage
          The problem that is usually quoted occurred somewhat earlier than that, during the beginning of the descent. Specifically, it was what is known as a "1202 alarm", which was a warning from the real-time part of the computer that it had more tasks to do than it had time for. The reason for this was that the astronauts had forgotten to turn off the rendezvous radar that was going to be used when docking with Columbia, so that the radar interrupts were overloading the task queue. Fortunately, the software was robust enough that the more high-prioritised tasks were still running, so they could land despite this problem.

          The landing procedure wasn't quite that critical; sure, the estimate was only 20 seconds of fuel remaining (later revised to 45), but he had after all done 100-odd test landings before. However, he was focused enough on the landing that he didn't turn notice the contact probes touching the ground, and only turned off the landing engine when they were down. The idea was to turn it off as soon as the contact light lit to avoid engine backblast damaging the lander. No harm done though.

          The missions were actually of three types. Apollo 11 was a "G" type mission, with a more limited lander, and may be considered the last of the test flights. Apollo 12-14 were "H" missions, which was basically the same as "G", but included the full instrument package which had been removed due to concerns about fuel margines, while 15-17 were "J" type missions which had an improved lander with twice the payload capacity, an LLRV (rover), better moon suits, a bay of science equipment for the command module and so forth.

          An intriguing incident with Apollo 12 was that they launched despite fairly threatening clouds in the vicinity, and the rocket was hit twice by lightning during the ascent. Needless to say, this spooked the astronauts a fair bit.

          http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/frame.html

          • Re:They had bugs... (Score:4, Informative)

            by HeghmoH ( 13204 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @06:09AM (#10862981) Homepage Journal
            To say that the lightning strike spooked the astronauts is a bit of an understatement. The strike scrambled one of the navigation systems, killed telemetry to the ground, and generally wreaked havoc with everything electrical on board. Fortunately there was enough redundancy in the systems, and nothing was actually destroyed, that the mission was not harmed.

            Details are here [aerospaceweb.org]. It must have been an awfully exciting few seconds.

          • God bless Alan Bean (Score:3, Informative)

            by runlvl0 ( 198575 )

            Control: "Flight, try SCE to Aux."

            Bean: "I know that one!"
        • > If something did go wrong due to that decision, Neil probably would have a boatload of blame on him.

          Most likely he'd have been dead, so I don't think the blame would have bothered him much.

        • The lopsoded nature of the moon is part of the reason why only one side always faces Earth. I don't know if scientists didn't know it was lopsided back then, or if technicians simply forgot to include that info in their calculations.

          The moon's rotation period is synchronous to its orbital period due to tidal forces that warp the moon into a triaxial ellipsoid shape and cause rotation energy to dissapate through friction. Scientists new very well of the existence of lunar "mascons", mass concentrations o

      • Re:They had bugs... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by cyclone96 ( 129449 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:42AM (#10862350)
        The guy in the control room that made the "go" call to the flight director was named Steve Bales at the GUIDO position. IIRC he was about 26 years old. In his back room was Jack Garman, who was the expert on the computer (most of the "front room" guys have several "back room" support engineers).

        Here's a link to the flight loop audio of the decision. [apollostory.com]

        They were prepared to make the call. In the last few weeks before Apollo 11, the "evil" engineers that ran the training simulators really hammered the flight control team on these program alarms. Bales and Garman were very well prepared to respond to those alarms because of this.

        The parent is right about being "gutsy". I happen to be a NASA flight controller - and when you are in Mission Control, you are "it". Sometimes, you must make a decision that is time critical, and there is no asking your boss, waiting until Monday, etc. - only you (and your backroom), your knowledge, and your training. While everyone that works there is used to the pressure, many times after a difficult shift you can almost be shaking from realizing what could happen if you made a bad call.
        • The guy in the control room that made the "go" call to the flight director was named Steve Bales at the GUIDO position.


          Dude, "Guido" is not the preferred nomenclature. Italian-American, please.

        • Flight control (Score:3, Insightful)

          by ghostlibrary ( 450718 )
          >happen to be a NASA flight controller - and when you are in Mission Control, you are "it". Sometimes, you must make a decision that is time critical,

          I did some satellite control for space telescopes, and even when it's an unmanned mission, it's tough. We had ops stationed 24/7, with mostly routine work, but they earned their pay whenever trouble hit.

          Weird thing is, with it being unmanned, the usual procedure for trouble is 'go into safehold, then we'll diagnose on the ground'. But then you have to d
    • Everything had to be written from scratch - no API to use, no legacy code to support, and, no 3rd party drivers giving you the black screen of death.

      Basically, it had to be right because it was important and because there was no room for screw-ups, literally!

    • Doesn't seem that amazing... The smaller the code the less likely it has bugs. Whats really amazing is that they got everything to work in that small space.

  • Wouldn't it suck... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TWX ( 665546 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @10:36PM (#10861593)
    ...to be stuck in the command module, so close to the Moon yet to never set foot on it?
    • That's why you should always choose Rock in Rock, Paper, Scissors.

      Yup, trusty old Rock. Nuthin' beats Rock.

    • Re:Wouldn't it suck... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by RealProgrammer ( 723725 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @11:12PM (#10861781) Homepage Journal
      • ...to be stuck in the command module, so close to the Moon yet to never set foot on it?

      Only if you have a small, envious mind. I'll be NASA tested for that, too. Some pluses come to mind:

      1. You get to go into SPACE!
      2. You get to live in zero gee for a long time
      3. You get to make fun of the landlubbing quasi-astronauts who couldn't stay in space
      4. The view is pretty good.

      • Re:Wouldn't it suck... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by tooth ( 111958 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @06:53AM (#10863081)
        I've always respected Michael Collins for being (at the time) the most distant and remote human in history as he orbited the far side of the moon. Radio blackout, the nearest 2 people are on the other side of the moon, and then the rest of the 4(?) billion people way back on the earth. No one else in history had been so distant from any human contact and so far out into 'real' space. I reminds me of Ford in H2G2 where Adams talks about distance from your birth place and how lonely it makes you feel.

        People always remember Armstrong, and some remember Buzz, but to me it's always seemed important to remember who piloted the command module while the other two walked on another world. Besides, the view would be fantastic! Only 18 people have ever seen the moon so close with thier own eyes.

        It's also sad to think that this is as far as humans have got into the solar system (machines don't really count in this regard to me). It's hardly down to the end of the block, mum can still see you as she waters the front garden and then you turn your bike around and head for home when the whole "world" is out there begging for you to explore it.

        • Only 18 people have ever seen the moon so close with thier own eyes.

          Your count is off. It's 27.

          Apollo 8, 10, 11, 12, 13 (yes, they went around the moon), 14, 15, 16, 17.

          That's 9 missions with 3 guys each for 27 people.

    • It was a stepping stone to being a moonwalker (Score:4, Informative)

      by grahamwest ( 30174 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @12:38AM (#10862151) Homepage
      Most things in the astronaut corps came through experience. You were backup crew on a mission and 3 missions later you were usally prime crew, for example. Being the command module pilot put you in good stead to be the mission commander on a later flight. Jim Lovell was CM pilot on Apollo 8 and commander on Apollo 13 (Frank Borman was commander of Apollo 8 and probably would have been commander of Apollo 11 if he'd not quit being an astronaut). Dave Scott was CM pilot of Apollo 9 and commander of Apollo 15. John Young was CM pilot of Apollo 10 and commander of Apollo 16.

      As for the others, Apollo 7's crew was blacklisted because of their "grumpiness" in flight, Mike Collins quit being an astronaut after Apollo 11, Dick Gordon did the same after Apollo 12 and so did Jack Swigert after Apollo 13 (can't say I blame him). Stu Roosa was Apollo 14's CM pilot but his shot at commanding Apollo 17 was overtaken by Gene Cernan who had been LM pilot on Apollo 10. Apollo 18, 19 and 20 were cancelled and that was that.
    • Think about it this way: a dozen people walked on the moon, but only six stayed overhead in the command module. It's an even more exclusive club.

  • Space exploration compared to F1 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by yorkpaddy ( 830859 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @10:38PM (#10861601)
    I think that the benefits of actual space exploration are extremely limited. But there are many positive externalities. Tang, goretex, materials advancement, programming advancement (fill me in on more, those are off the top of my head). I personally like F1, but see no great societal value in the actual racing. Many benefits have come however from the tech development required to make the cars go fast.

  • Furby (Score:5, Funny)

    by StarWreck ( 695075 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @10:39PM (#10861609) Homepage Journal
    Just think, this Apollo 12 in all its glory had less computing power than a Furby.

  • Huh? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Performaman ( 735106 ) <<Peterjones> <at> <gmail.com>> on Thursday November 18, 2004 @10:41PM (#10861621)
    "Thirty-five years ago this week, the sedentary, fine-grained powder began to rise, billow and race off toward the horizon."
    I always thought that cocaine had been around for more than 35 years.

  • Top Five reasons why the space program should be a (Score:4, Insightful)

    by lessthanjakejohn ( 766177 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @10:42PM (#10861627)
    Top Five reasons why the space program should be among our top priorities as a nation:

    5. The world population doubles every 40 years. Eventually, we will have to either expand across other planets or enforce population control.
    4. Every dollar invested in NASA pays off seven dollars in terms of technological development for the US economy.
    3. We must expand from Earth to escape the threat of civilization-ending natural disasters, like a supervolcano, which could lower global temperatures below freezing for years. The chance of dying in a civilization-ending event is 1/455. Not to be grim, but that's 10 times more likely than dying in an commercial aircraft.
    2. Scientific Exploration: Learning more about the universe around us will teach us more about our own world, ourselves, and our origins.
    1. To provide the sense of progress which yields human happiness. No one likes stagnation. I can think of nothing more repulsive than the idea that in 200 years we could still be Earth-bound.
    • 4. Every dollar invested in NASA pays off seven dollars in terms of technological development for the US economy.

      Wow, 700% returns! Wouldn't that be even more of an argument for expanding private space exploration? Governments may overlook profitable opportunities like this, but surely greedy capitalists wouldn't pass up a chance to octuple their money.

      Cheers,
      IT
      • I'm not a native latin speaker, but I think you mean "heptuple" not "octuple". A 100% return yeilds nothing. You got exactly what you sponsored. A 200% return is double what you invested. You see where I'm going with this?
      • Part of the reason they're so profitable is that technology produced for NASA is done on their dime. So companies save nearly all their R&D budget.

        Also, NASA, and people working for NASA, don't have to pay for the license to use chemical process X, or spend millions on patent research to make sure their product doesn't infringe, or pay hordes of lawyers to stave off competitors who hold patents on something similar. So say you're doing research into growing modified plants for a Mars mission. Instead o

    • Re:Top Five reasons why the space program should b (Score:5, Insightful)

      by chrysrobyn ( 106763 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @11:29PM (#10861862)

      Space exploration is cool. I support it. Please allow me to be a devil's advocate:

      5. The world population doubles every 40 years. Eventually, we will have to either expand across other planets or enforce population control.

      It seems to me that first world countries are having trouble keeping people procreating. The more advanced the society, the more rights the women, the better things the women have to do than sit at home and rear a half dozen to a dozen kids. Countries like Canada only grow because of immigration. Is it Taiwan that is trying to encourage procreation with subsidies?

      4. Every dollar invested in NASA pays off seven dollars in terms of technological development for the US economy.

      NASA is, by every account, a grossly large organization with bureaucracy the likes of which no other entity in the world can hope to measure up to. They're too bureaucratic to save the Challenger. Why not invest incredible amounts of money in some targetted industries (A mach 10 aircraft has little real world application today) and in some "emerging" industries with higher financial risks / humanitarian rewards?

      3. We must expand from Earth to escape the threat of civilization-ending natural disasters, like a supervolcano, which could lower global temperatures below freezing for years. The chance of dying in a civilization-ending event is 1/455. Not to be grim, but that's 10 times more likely than dying in an commercial aircraft.

      Most of the world ending scenarios seem to have other, potentially more beneficial solutions. Sure, leaving the world to go to the moon or someplace else may be a good way to spread the risk. It would be quite some time to set up the infrastructure to support a self sustaining populace that would not suffer from inbreeding. We may get to the point where this is possible, but NASA is not heading down a path to enable this. If there's a scenario that leads to a (nuclear or CO2) winter, why aren't we making subterrainian cities 10+ feet underground? I would expect one could even justify this by pointing out that such a city would be a prototype for an offworld city. Not that it should necessarily be a self contained monstrosity / joke [bio2.edu], but something that starts to set up the infrastructure and maybe includes some geothermal carnot generators (what better way to take advantage of the perpetual winter outside than to make self-sustaining power by harnessing the power of the earth?

      2. Scientific Exploration: Learning more about the universe around us will teach us more about our own world, ourselves, and our origins.

      The inherant scientific value is irrefutable, but there is little real world application to this.

      1. To provide the sense of progress which yields human happiness. No one likes stagnation. I can think of nothing more repulsive than the idea that in 200 years we could still be Earth-bound.

      The dark ages were brought about because innovation stagnated. Everyone ran out of ideas and got so concerned with today that they stopped worrying about tomorrow. These days, we're perhaps on the brink of a newly perceived stagnation. We're masters of the air (airplanes), sea (gigantic boats and submarines) and land (earth destroying cranes, cars, trucks, trains, etc.). Microelectronics are banging against the Laws of Physics, with only nanotechnology seemingly a solution. In our daily lives, few people can think of a way to continue to innovate that makes a difference. Heck, most people don't want to upgrade their life centers (TVs) because the upgrades (HDTV) are too expensive despite how much better they are. Life changing innovation, the kinds of which impact "human happiness" are those leaps and bounds we've been hitting in the past century or two. You can't predict them, an

      • The grandparent said of NASA, with your reply:

        2. Scientific Exploration: Learning more about the universe around us will teach us more about our own world, ourselves, and our origins.

        The inherant scientific value is irrefutable, but there is little real world application to this.

        That's right, and the inherent scientific value was irrefutable of the subjects studied by Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Marconi, Einstein, Bohr, Feynmann, etc etc, and at the time there was little real world applica

        • That's right, and the inherent scientific value was irrefutable of the subjects studied by Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Marconi, Einstein, Bohr, Feynmann, etc etc, and at the time there was little real world application to any of their studies either. You seem to propose studying the technology of today instead of investing anything for the pure sciences, which would yield the technology of tomorrow. If people with your mindset had their way for the past few centuries, then as an example we'd have h

      • The dark ages were brought about because innovation stagnated. Everyone ran out of ideas and got so concerned with today that they stopped worrying about tomorrow.

        Well... actually, the Dark Ages were brought about because hordes of barbarians invaded Western civilization, killed a great many people, burned the cities, and completely destroyed the economy. People didn't "run out of ideas" - concepts like "using horses to pull plows" and the water wheel became popular during this period.

        This "everybody was


    • Nice of you to have figured all this out for us dimwits. After all, the sky is falling. Well, OK, maybe not right away, but it will, eventually. Long after everyone's great, great grandkids are dead. Presumeably the pace of technology will slow to a crawl and the next generations will be drooling morons.

      Am I correct in assuming that, to you, cool toys and the wow factor are the only things that make/keep you happy?

      If so, you are a marketer's wet dream. There are enough shiny, worthless things already
    • You missed a few.

      6. The more money invested in space exploration, the less money that goes to war.
      7. Space exploration is one of the few things that many countries are working on together. This helps bring peace.
      8. If all good scientists worked for NASA, or a privately funded space program, then there'd be no scientists researching weapons.
      9. Australia started off as a penal colony. Perhaps this would be a good use for Mars
      • Better yet use the moon as a penal colony, much closer than mars. as long some computer tech doesn't find the colony's main computer has gone self aware and get involved in a revolution where they start tossing tons of grain back at us with a mass driver it should work out just fine.

        Mycroft (if above don't ring any bells hopefully my pseudonym helps)
    • Population is NOT a good reason to colonize space.

      Think about it. Billions of people. We will not be able to move that many people off world, it's just logistically obsurd. If north america were complete empty, think about how difficult it would be to thin out china by moving them to America. It'd be almost impossible, and that's just an ocean.

      It'd be useful for the survival of the human race to not all be on one planet, but to think we're going to move a significant part of the population to colonies is
    • Space colonies aren't going to solve the population crunch any time soon, if ever. Assuming your claim of population doubling every 40 years is accurate, and a start value of 6 billion, you'd have to send 10 million people off into space EVERY YEAR to keep the population constant. This doesn't even consider the fact that by the time we have technology to colonize, the population isn't going to be 6 billion...

      That's not to say the project isn't worthwhile (I agree that it is), but you can't use population c
      • How many passengers fly on airplanes each year?
        • Are you proposing we just stuff 10 million people in airplanes and send them off without food, equipment, or machinery? These craft aren't coming back -- planes fly repeatedly and each trip counts separately. If each airplane was good for exactly one trip, there's no way there would be enough resources to fly 10 million, and that ignores the fact that it's much harder to escape a gravity well than it is to fly around within it (by lift or ballistics). Also, if you expect your colonists to survive, they're g
    • 3. We must expand from Earth to escape the threat of civilization-ending natural disasters, like a supervolcano, which could lower global temperatures below freezing for years. The chance of dying in a civilization-ending event is 1/455. Not to be grim, but that's 10 times more likely than dying in an commercial aircraft.

      I'm not sure where you got this, but it sounds off.
    • 5. The world population doubles every 40 years. Eventually, we will have to either expand across other planets or enforce population control.

      Wrong. Human population growth has not been linear throughout human history. Starting around 1946, the human population grew explosively *way* more than doubling within 40 years. Before that, human population was much more stable. Anyway, traveling to the moon is one helluva long way from inhabiting another planet.

      4. Every dollar invested in NASA pays off seven dolla

  • What has our fascist consumer state done since? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by blueberry(4*atan(1)) ( 621645 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @10:42PM (#10861631)
    This is depressing. It used to be we had both _technological_ AND _social_ progress. For the last ~30 years, the social progress has flattened out and we are now going backwards, turning into a paranoid fascist consumer/security state with a bunch of robber-barons at the helm. Their slash-and-burn profiteering has now caused the U.S. to lose it's manufacturing and technological lead, so we are also stalled in technological progress also. Their criminal mismanagement is blamed on outsourcing and globalization, instead of bad trade policy and stupidity. Our country is now dumbed-down and medicated on a steady diet of poor public education, glorification of stupidity, media whores, and mind-numbing propaganda. The recent thievery of the national election is a new low point in our descent. RIP American Democracy, we hardly knew ye.
    • Heh, yes, well the supposed fight against the spread of communism was the driving factor for most of the explosion of tech. As were the world wars. We fought two 'wars' to stop communism. We fought two wars to fight facism. Hopefully this -ism of terror doesn't make us break that pattern.

      We still have innovation. Except that after the wall fell, our newfound enemies were/are far smaller than the USSR. Our innovations were built on the assumption we were one team against another, similarly sized te
    • This is depressing. It used to be we had both _technological_ AND _social_ progress. For the last ~30 years, the social progress has flattened out and we are now going backwards, turning into a paranoid fascist consumer/security state with a bunch of robber-barons at the helm.

      Perhaps you could explain what you mean by "social progress". Do you believe that our society is in worse shape than it was in 1974?

      Our country is now dumbed-down and medicated on a steady diet of poor public education, glorificat
    • No progress? What about the incredible amount of technology and infrastructure that's been developed over the last thirty years that culminated in your being able to make your post to slashdot? Aerospace is not the only measure of the progress of mankind.

  • Good (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FiReaNGeL ( 312636 ) <.moc.liamtoh. .ta. .l3gnaerif.> on Thursday November 18, 2004 @10:50PM (#10861671) Homepage
    It's good to see success commemorated. These days, when talking about the past NASA Space Program, we only hear about failures (Challenger) or near failures (Apollo 13). Incredible achievements for the time... let's hope Bush's Trip to Mars is a serious endeavor, because I can't wait to see that!
    • I don't look at Apollo 13 as any sort of failure.
      Look at what those people did in order to survive. The story (no matter where you find it) is just awe inspiring, what the people did on the ground and what the astronauts did in space.

      The fact that they returned alive is a success of a magnitude that everyone should be happy with.

      What would be a failure is if NASA and intellectuals didn't go over the incident with a fine tooth comb and learn everything they could.
    • let's hope Bush's Trip to Mars is a serious endeavor, because I can't wait to see that!

      Bush is going to Mars? Gosh! I mean, invading Afghanistan was good and Iraq was also ruled by a bad guy. Those were understandable.

      But Mars? Noooo!!!

      What does Bush have against the POOR MARTIANS now??!

  • Shows what the right way to do it is. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Artifakt ( 700173 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @10:55PM (#10861693)
    This was the space program with NASA in peak form. Perhaps it wasn't their finest moment (maybe either 11 or 13 was), but the breadth and ambition is utterly above NASA today. This was only the second landing, yet NASA aimed for that 31 hour stay on the surface.
    They were confident that their communications around the world would keep the uplink with the astronauts as Earth rotated, confident that the first landing wasn't a lucky fluke, and willing to commit to keeping the crew there long enough to do a little real science. If the focus on 11 was largely on the medical situation of the crew, by 12 we were increasingly confident that people could survive on the Moon long enough to do something useful, and the focus began to shift to building a permanent presence there and answering some of the more interesting questions of the Planetologists.
    The near disasterous shortage of fuel and over-abundance of rocky ground in the final seconds of Apollo 11's landing could have made NASA rely more on cautious approaches and more intensive micro-management, but instead it led to an increased recognition of the role of the astronauts on site in making the final decisions. That in turn gave us six successes and one gloriously redeemed failure.

  • Desperately needed Rewrite! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Mulletproof ( 513805 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @11:05PM (#10861749) Homepage Journal
    ""Thirty-five years ago this week, the sedentary, fine-grained powder began to rise from a secret soundstage in the Nevada Desert. Soon after - at 1:54:35 a.m. EST on Nov. 19, 1969 - the lunar module Intrepid was lowered by crain onto the manufactured lunar set. Apollo 12 actor Pete Conrad and his fellow actor Alan Bean would be filmed on the set for more than 31 hours, with director Dick Gordon filming the worlds most elaborate hoax from his studio nicknamed 'The Yankee Clipper.'"

    And don't even get me started on the NASA Earthquake machine...

  • Leonid Meteors (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Xetrov ( 267777 )
    Isn't Nov 17 the time of the year when we pass through the Leonid meteor shower [wikipedia.org]? They launched on the 14th and landed on the moon on the 19th, so that means they were out there in time to fly through the debris...

    Wasn't that a bit dangerous?
  • The episode for Apollo 12 with Dave Foley as Al Bean is easily my 2nd favorite after the Lunar Module episode. They really brought the characters to life, and I'll be damned if I didn't want to get to know all 3 of the Astronauts as friends after watching that.

    I haven't watched it in years, but I just like Beano, I can remember to switch SCE to AUX.

  • I'm frustrated.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MysticalMatt517 ( 772389 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @11:36PM (#10861893) Homepage
    I'm frustrated with the direction our space program has taken over the past couple decades. I'm grateful to see things like the X Prize happening, but I wish that as a nation we would make space exploration a high priority. I mean perhaps all that's there is a big bunch of rocks, but there are so many benefits that come from the technology built to make space exploration posible.

    Whatever happened to exploration for explorations sake? I think that a good measure of the health of a society is it's curiosity about what's around the next corner, and it's willingness to find out. This truly shows the measure of the people.

    I know that at this point all of the social bleeding hearts usually chime in "but what about all the problems right here one Earth???". Unfortunately these people are focusing on the problems, not the solution. For these problems to be fixed society has to advance as a whole, not be drug down by social agendas. When a society advances, solutions to the previously mentioned problems will come. It's simply par for the course.

    Exploration is fundamental to this advancement. There's an infinite universe of stuff out there that's waiting to be discovered, and we're content to just let it be? How is that healthy? How do we know that there isn't anything there until we look? Just because the few measly areas of the universe we've looked at "don't have anything" doesn't mean there's nothing out there. This would be like flipping open a random book, reading 10 words, and determining that it has no plot.

    I for one support space exploration. If the human race is going to grow we need to renew the spirit of exploration. After all, where would we be if nobody questioned the fact that the world is flat and the sun revolves around it?

  • Unique to 12 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @11:54PM (#10861973) Journal
    IIRC, there were two unique things to Apollo 12. First, they landed amazingly close to an unmanned Surveyer probe that landed a couple of years before. They did this in part to test precision-guided landing techniques for later missions and to bring back samples of the old probe to see how it weathered on the moon.

    They actually found viable bacteria spores on parts of the returned probe that lasted the entire flight from Earth and survived for two or so years on the Moon. They learned they had to improve the sterilization process for later probes to Mars and beyond to reduce the risk of contamination from the smallest Earthlings.

    Another notable is that they accidently ruined the only TV camera they had by pointing it too long at a reflection of the sun off of a peice of equipment. It used new compact color technology and was fragile. Thus, there were no live TV pictures.

    They perhaps should have brought along a lighter black-and-white one as a backup. However, weight was a premium, especially in the earlier missions. In fact, Apollo 11 (the first landing) almost skipped having a TV camera altogether because of load constraints. But mission planners were talked into carrying one.

    • Re:Unique to 12 (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MavEtJu ( 241979 ) <<gro.ujtevam> <ta> <todhsals>> on Friday November 19, 2004 @12:47AM (#10862192) Homepage
      However, weight was a premium, especially in the earlier missions.

      Why didn't they go for midget-astronauts?

      • Re:Unique to 12 (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )
        [weight was a premium] Why didn't they go for midget-astronauts?

        At first I chuckled at that response, but then started thinking about it more (a geeky trait that ruins good lunches). I suspect for two reasons:

        1. Astronauts were chosen from the pool of test pilots, and there probably were not a lot of midget test pilots because they are testing planes designed for average-sized people.

        2. Prestige. Not to bash midgets, but frankly, midgets don't make very inspiring, bold magazine covers, at least not in t
      • There were maximum height and mass requirements.

    • Re:Unique to 12 (Score:2, Interesting)

      by dprovine ( 140134 )
      Another notable is that they accidently ruined the only TV camera they had by pointing it too long at a reflection of the sun off of a peice of equipment. It used new compact color technology and was fragile. Thus, there were no live TV pictures.

      The camera in question was designed and built by my father. After the return to Earth, NASA sent it back to Westinghouse for inspection and possible repair.

      In what is clearly among the best job perks of all time, my Dad got moon dust on his hands when he went

  • The photo's in the article link look somewhat fake. What's with the crosshairs... and the scenery that repeats itself. :-D

    Sorry, couldn't resist.

  • Yankee Clipper (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    and lunar module pilot Alan Bean would be on the Moon for more than 31 hours, with crewmate Dick Gordon orbiting above in the command module Yankee Clipper."

    Those were the days. They orbited the moon with Yankee Clipper. Today we Yank with Clippy.
  • Congratulations to the ESA. This landing shows that we're a world leader in the exploration of space, and highlights the prestige and technologic prowess of our space agency. I think every nation on Earth can recognise the bravery of our astronauts and the epic accomplishment they have achieved. Feats such as this prove that with ambition, determination, and the world's most brilliant scientists, we can achieve great things. This is truly a wonderful day for Europe, the ESA and the human race as a whole.

    Ed
  • I was eight at the time. Grand high (vicarious) adventure for kids, yessir. I discovered an Estes catalog the next summer and haven't stopped since.

    Captain Kangaroo did a live-at-a-simulator show to accompany Apollo 12. He gadded about a moonscape set in a helmetless moonsuit, showing how the astronauts would descend from the LEM.

    I recall having to explain to my excited toddler brother than NO, the Captain was NOT on the moon, if he really were he'd DIE!

    I don't remember much of 12's news coverage, althou
  • the sedentary, fine-grained powder began to rise, billow and race off toward the horizon.

    Nope. No air on the Moon, the dust did not billow, and did not race farther away than a few meters.

  • How to get back to the moon: t/Space (Score:4, Informative)

    by FleaPlus ( 6935 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:57AM (#10862394) Journal
    Back in September, NASA selected 11 companies [spaceref.com] to conduct preliminary concept studies for human lunar exploration and the development of the NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle [wikipedia.org]. Many of these are your typical aerospace dinosaurs [linuxinsider.com], but a notable exception is t/Space [transformspace.com], a new company which includes people like Burt Rutan [wikipedia.org] (of Scaled Composites and SpaceShipOne), Elon Musk [hobbyspace.com] (of SpaceX [spacex.com]), Red Whittaker (of the Red Team, which constructed an autonomous vehicle which competed in DARPA's Grand Challenge), and several of the new companies in the budding private space industry.

    According to their page: Our core mission requirement is to enable prompt, affordable, safe and sustainable lunar exploration and development by the largest possible number of Americans, both in person and via telepresence.

    Under our approach, government incentives focus exclusively on top-level goals, with technology and operational choices left to the private sector. The government incentives will be matched to specific top-level needs, but the "invisible hand" of market forces will shape choices as they flow down multiple supplier chains. Incentives will be structured so that several companies in each major area have an opportunity to win this support. With this competitive industrial base, two major processes become possible:

    * Market forces will continually launch new products that replace established goods and services (the "creative destruction" that Joseph Schumpeter [Austrian economist 1883-1950] identified as the key element of capitalism). Poorly performing systems will be killed off quickly via competition rather than via burdensome NASA reviews or Congressional intervention.
    * Capability gap analyses will be performed by dozens and ultimately hundreds of companies on a continuous basis. As happens now in all competitive industries, the successful companies will be those who listen closely to their customers and accurately predict their future needs - in other words, capability gap analysis by multiple independent profit-seekers.

    Commercial firms will create and own infrastructure that offers services that overlap in many cases. The overlaps found in a competitive private space economy will provide the resiliency now lacking in single-string solutions such as the Space Shuttle and Space Station, for which there are no ready alternatives. While functional overlaps are viewed as inefficiencies in centrally-planned systems, in a market-based system they drive costs lower (by reducing monopoly power and spurring innovation) and accelerate schedules (by eliminating single-point bottlenecks among suppliers and spurring competition).

    If I understand correctly, tSpace's plan is to design an overall space architecture, and have companies compete for different components, whether they be launch vehicles, space station life support modules, or lunar landers. Many of these components will also be available commercially, keeping the price down and the reliability high. I suspect it's going to be difficult to keep from being eaten alive by the huge aerospace companies (Boeing, Lockheed, etc.), but I have a hope that they'll somehow end up getting the contract and end up completely reforming our approach to space.

    I highly recommend reading through their presentation [nasa.gov]. The things they discuss are quite insightful, and they have some incredible ideas. Here's a few of their points:

    Safety results from design choices, not oversight
    * Attempting to produce safety by inspection, quality control,

  • Karma whoring (Score:4, Informative)

    by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @02:12AM (#10862446) Journal
    Apollo 12 lunar surface journal [nasa.gov].

    Actually, they have all of them [nasa.gov] and some are pretty good reads.

  • Memory? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19, 2004 @02:13AM (#10862450)
    In 1979 we still worked with those old FCUs (Flight-certified CPUs.) They all had 4k ram, and were 4-bit bit-slice. We looked UP to the Commodore64 and even the TI-99-4(A). We begged to use the 8085-A2 like the mil guys. And that was already obsolete. But the space environment dictated what was usable: if it had not been tested proven, forget using it on board a spacecraft. Ok, we learned/knew this. Apollo used transistor logic because what was already available was not yet proven killable (within accepted parameters) by space radiation. NOTHING else could be used until after LDEF came down, and that was delayed by Challenger by 4 years. It's all about radiation. In space, we need wide circuit paths to make up for cosmic bombardment, until we all go to photons, and prove it unkillable. I'd bet a dime that's what Putin is suggesting his new rocket/orbit-vehicle uses as control circuit, and is much-less-killable. Think nuclear exclusion principle.

    • Re:Memory? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Everything up to and past LandSat4 (like ERBS) was based upon that same flight cpu system. We ground tested against a Cyber 175, 64 bits simulating 4, all done in Fortran/assembly. What a game. I stole clocks while burning my thesis on x-ray burstars, and then spent the years measuring the ground parallel of LDEF. Interstellar buckeyballs, anyone? RIP my advisor J. Petterson.

  • Conrad and Bean? Never heard of them. (Score:3, Funny)

    by jayveekay ( 735967 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @03:09AM (#10862605)
    Apollo 12 was unforunately sandwiched between two much more famous missions: 11 and 13. I will never remember the names of those on 12, but names like Armstrong, Aldrin, and Hanks I will never forget.

  • Insensitive Clods! (Score:3, Funny)

    by LittleGuy ( 267282 ) * on Friday November 19, 2004 @07:15AM (#10863129)
    And you ignore that this is the 35th Anniversary when 'Green Acres' and 'The Beverly Hillbillies' (among other landmark shows) were pre-empted because of a boring moon landing?

    Where are your priorities?!?
  • to say that dust "billows" on the moon. Without air to form currents and eddies, anything tossed up just follows a ballistic path until it hits the ground again.

    I'll mitigate the annoying inanity of my nit-picking by adding that I learned this from BadAstronomy [badastronomy.com], where the fact was used to counter "evidence" used by moon-hoax loonies.

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