Former NASA Flight Director Gene Kranz Restores Mission Control In Houston (npr.org) 79
Gene Kranz may be the most famous flight director in NASA's history. He directed the actual landing portion of the first mission to put men on the moon, Apollo 11, and led Mission Control in saving the crew of Apollo 13 after an oxygen tank exploded on the way to the lunar surface. Now Kranz, 85, has completed another undertaking: the reopening of Mission Control at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. From a report: The room where Kranz directed some of NASA's most historic missions, heralding U.S. exploration of space, was decommissioned in 1992. Since then, it had become a stop on guided tours of the space center but had fallen into disrepair. Kranz led a $5 million multiyear effort to restore Mission Control in time for the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing on July 20.
"I walked into that room last Monday for the first time when it was fully operational, and it was dynamite. I literally wept," Kranz said in an interview with NPR. "The emotional surge at that moment was incredible. I walked down on the floor, and when we did the ribbon-cutting the last two days, believe it or not, I could hear the people talking in that room from 50 years ago. I could hear the controllers talking." The room also brought back memories for Kranz of a shared sense of purpose. "That group of people united in pursuit of a cause, and basically the result was greater than the sum of the parts. There was a chemistry that was formed," Kranz said. "[The room] also has a meaning related to the American psyche, that what America will dare, America will do," Kranz said.
"I walked into that room last Monday for the first time when it was fully operational, and it was dynamite. I literally wept," Kranz said in an interview with NPR. "The emotional surge at that moment was incredible. I walked down on the floor, and when we did the ribbon-cutting the last two days, believe it or not, I could hear the people talking in that room from 50 years ago. I could hear the controllers talking." The room also brought back memories for Kranz of a shared sense of purpose. "That group of people united in pursuit of a cause, and basically the result was greater than the sum of the parts. There was a chemistry that was formed," Kranz said. "[The room] also has a meaning related to the American psyche, that what America will dare, America will do," Kranz said.
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Re: I miss this time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Those on the political left intentionally misconstrue it as "racism" or "bigotry", but this NASA restoration work parallels what President Trump means when he says "Make America Great Again".
It's a philosophy based around restoring the values that let Americans of all typed come together and accomplish great things like having people visit the Moon.
It's a philosophy built around doing hard work, whether it's intellectual work or hands-on work or manual exertion work.
It's a philosophy built around an America that can manufacture highly complex products because it has heavy and light industrial capabilities.
It's a philosophy built around people identifying as Americans, and only Americans, and not as hyphenated-Americans who put their other identity first.
It's a philosophy that conflicts with left wing politics. Left wing politicians want a docile, incapable, dependent American population that they can manipulate. This is the complete opposite of President Trump's vision, which I think is built upon a strong, independent, self-sufficient American population that can come together and accomplish amazing things.
Americans get a sense of nostalgia from this because they know deep inside themselves that America was a greater place and society in the past, and that the political left has caused regression. Americans know things could be so much better than they are noe, because at one point not too long ago things actually were so much better!
Re: I miss this time... (Score:3, Insightful)
That comment shouldn't be at -1. It's the most insightful I've seen here in ages. So much of the modern world was developed in the 1960s and early 1970s in the US. Semiconductors, computers, the Internet, advanced aerodynamics, advanced rocketry, the C programming language, UNIX, and relational databases are just a few of them. What really makes one think is how little progress there has been since. We're still using CPUs based on the 8088. We're still using IPv4. We're still using C. We're still using UNI
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So much of the modern world was developed in the 1960s and early 1970s in the US. Semiconductors, computers, the Internet, advanced aerodynamics, advanced rocketry, the C programming language, UNIX, and relational databases are just a few of them.
Somehow I feel like half of those things might not properly belong on that list. At the very least, C cost us many exploits and bugs I definitely wouldn't be proud of, many major advancements in computing were done outside of the US, and the most advanced and successful US launch vehicle until recently is using a Russian engine.
Even smart phones are just smaller versions of computer architectures conceived decades ago.
And they're using the American RISC Machine, invented in the US.
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And much of that was driven by the cold war and fears the the other side was gaining on us. The fact that we're getting a bit soft maybe is a good thing?
Re: I miss this time... (Score:4, Insightful)
Those on the political left intentionally misconstrue it as "racism" or "bigotry", but this NASA restoration work parallels what President Trump means when he says "Make America Great Again".
With Trump it is more like "Make America White Again." Coal-fired and male dominant.
Trump is illiterate and incoherent. He does not read. Evidence and argument means nothing to him. Nor do ethical or legal restraints. He is a bully who runs on gut instinct alone and has the attention span of a fruit fly. Why the geek should chose him as an exemplar I can't begin to guess.
Re: I miss this time... (Score:2)
FWIW I have noted this trait particularly in autistic people, which I have spent gobs of time around groups of.
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NPC says "Orange Man Bad!" :-P
Forgot one small detail trumptard (Score:5, Insightful)
If the "left" is so anti-american as you say, then how come the Apollo program was started by a democratic president ?
This has nothing to do with being on the "left" or on the "right", and has everything to do with the fact that in those days, left and right disagreed but were still able to work together for a common goal, while today, leftists and rightists are so polarized, divided, and hate each other so much that many of them would actually destroy their country before letting it be governed by the "other side".
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You've got that exactly backwards. It's the Republicans that have taken a hard turn to the right.
Take Richard Nixon, who proposed things like universal health care, and programs like Family Assistance Program (FAP) which would have provided poor and unemployed families with a guaranteed income (aka welfare). He also implemented the first Affirmative Action program at the Federal level. He created both OSHA and the EPA. He took the final steps end to the gold standard, and opened negotiations with China.
Re: Forgot one small detail trumptard (Score:1)
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It's a philosophy based around...
It's a philosophy based around gaslighting and obfuscating real, continuing problems, attempting to sweep them under the carpet because America accomplished A Great Thing, and therefore should be immune to criticism.
It's a philosophy based around bedtime stories and marketing, picking specific accomplishments to showcase in order to suppress discussion of other problems, because addressing those other problems is un-American (e.g., would cost certain people money).
It's a philosophy of enlightened ignorance,
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What you just described has nothing to do with right vs. left and everything to do with a natural human tendency. It's how every community describes "the good old days", the "Golden Age of X", or anything else they view through rose-colored glasses, and it's the natural result of a person's changing perspective over the course of their life.
I've seen it time and time again: the people who have been in a community for a period look back fondly on the things they accomplished—which at this point have be
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Too bad you took an otherwise neutral feel good story and turned into a politically partisan screed. You are the one that don't want Americans to be defined as just Americans; you are the one who is demonizing Americans with a distorted description because they have a political stance that is not your.
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it's a very nice sentiment, if it wasn't disregarding most of the facts of how Trump is acting.
Restoring the values? To that of the bigotry and racism from those days?
Doing hard work? As if he even knows what hard work is, has he actually ever worked a day in his life?
Manufacture highly complex products? The only reason the us was able to do those things is by working together with it's allies and by trading, 2 things Trump has actively been dismantling over the past 3 years
People identifying as Americans?
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Those on the political left intentionally misconstrue it as "racism" or "bigotry"
This is why things don't get better. Any time anything positive happens, some whiny AC meta-complains about the imaginary communists calling it racist. It's go so far divorced from reality we have logged in accounts that genuinely seem to believe there are groups of communists running around rioting all over the US.
Stop blaming fake people and start taking responsibility. If you want a great space programme don't whine about "the left", get on with building one. Be like your hero Trump and just ignore all t
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You've attached an entire personality to a campaign slogan. If Donald Trump actually wanted to make America great (again), and he had a plan for this that seemed like it could actually work
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They were doing things that had never been done before, ever. And these weren't simple things, either. These were among the most difficult and challenging tasks ever accomplished. Of course it cost some money to do this. Doing great things is never free!
Yeah, and they for example showed you that kerolox worked very nicely, only to be completely ignored by the following SRB/hydrolox boondoggles like the STS or the Delta IV.
What's worse is how I think you're not willing to acknowledge that women and African-Americans made some of the most significant and important contributions to the American space program.
Wow. That came out of the blue. Is this some kind of troll bait?
Re:tribute to govement waste (Score:5, Insightful)
I much rather see funding going towards increasing our engineering and science ability then spending money to lock up and split up families, because they cross the border without following the correct protocol.
Or sending the military to remote countries, to show force, because we decided to break treaties.
NASA use to be the symbol of progress, and showed what American's can do if we put our minds to it. Technology from the Space Race brought us, GPS, Global Communication, more accurate weather prediction. Telescopes that increased our knowledge of the universe, and showing us they are other planets out there.
Sure the moon landing was mostly a PR Stunt, but what a stunt it was, it solidified American dominance in the world, if we can put a man on the moon, we could put troops or a bomb on your country.
The US Today is rotting, not from a lack of ability but from a lack of will. We don't want to see those Liberal Cities get upgrades while the poor farmers are being ignored, We don't want to see those Conservative Farmers get per capita more investment for where the general population is in serious needs for upgrades.
Most of the problems is because we put ourselves in the little camps, ignoring others problems, complaining about how we are being left out. There is no greater goal anymore. Our actual enemies are no longer as large of a threat, so our problems cannot be pointed to someone else. So we are just bickering internally.
If we as Americans are going to so penny pinching and putting money into what we want now, vs long term improvement, we are going to save ourselves to death.
If not Space, we should be working on some larger goal that transcends partisan bickering.
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War is a great motivator, because all our silly differences doesn't matter when there is gun pointed toward us.
As well as many aspect of the Civil Rights movement comes from War, because people of different races and religions fought together on the same side. Formed bonds and showed to people who needed to depend on each other for their survival that they are not really that bad.
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If not Space, we should be working on some larger goal that transcends partisan bickering.
Battery technology gets my vote.
After that, we should work towards nuclear fusion. We can build it safely, and prove it is safe by testing it: build a nuclear reactor and cause it to fail in various ways, in each case showing that it doesn't destroy thousands of square kilometers of land.
I'd love to hear other people's ideas.
Re: tribute to govement waste (Score:2)
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A significant part of NASA's mission was and still is development and deployment of weather satellites.
Weather prediction, including hurricane prediction, has gotten VASTLY better, as a direct result of those satellites.
Losses of life and property from hurricanes has dropped dramatically since those satellites went up.
A very strong argument can be made, with solid numbers, that the savings to the nation from the weather satellites more than paid for Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, without considering any of th
Just saw "For All Mankind" recently (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a pretty old film at this point, and has kind of an odd approach of combining the various moon missions into one meta-trip to the surface of the moon... but after you watch the whole thing I think it works as a great composite of what it took to get to the moon, and shows a lot of both in space and controller footage so you can appreciate what mission control was like back then...
I'll have to go back for sure to see the restoration, sounds like they did an amazing job!
P.S. if you get a newer version of For All Mankind, one of the special features on the disc is Alan Bean talking about the scenes represented in 50 different paintings he did of the moon visits.
My post is about a movie (Score:2)
My post was about the movie "For All Mankind" which I am thinking anyone interested in a re-created mission control should see, to fully appreciate what they are seeing.
I mentioned one of the extras, but really all of the extras are great (and as I said make sure you are getting a newer copy as it has more things than does my original DVD).
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Thanks Kendall, I'll have to check that one out. Do you know if it's online/Netflix/Amazon etc?
I've always loved "From the Earth to the Moon", and still watch it regularly. The episode about Apollo 9, titled "Spider" is one of my favorites.
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Can anyone recommend something that goes beyond just an overview of the moon missions? I want technical details of things like the software development process. How they engineered the LM. What they did to plan the EVAs.
If you didn't get chills reading that (Score:1)
You don't belong here.
The Space Center (Score:2)
Lighting is for preservation (Score:2)
The displays there were so poorly lit that I could barely see them.
The lighting in places like that is often low so as to prevent degrading items.
I think with the overhaul though the mission control center may be better lit. If you are talking about the artifacts, it helps if you give a few minutes for your eyes to adjust, or wear sunglasses before you go in (which may help with over-bright gift shop pricing as well :-) ).
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They have a Saturn 5. 'Nuff said. And the space suits and clothes were pretty cool.
The tram ride was more about a sense of scale.
And when we visited they had a special "Dead Squirrel" exhibit in the parking lot and the kids posed with it for "Memories of NASA"postcards!!! Saturn 5 was the best thing, but the squirrel was #2.
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extraordinary guy (Score:3)
I've had the opportunity to see Gene Kranz at a conference. I sat right up front because nobody likes to sit up front Really humble and intelligent guy. I can definitely see how he would be the right leader in a crisis situation.
And yet (Score:2)
Congress won't create a moon landing day.
Smoking (Score:5, Informative)
The article on Ars about this is pretty cool....Gene said that the place looks exactly like Mission Control did back in 1969, but doesn't smell like it did. They actually put ash trays and packs of cigs on the consoles to recreate the look, but of course you can't smoke in there anymore.
https://arstechnica.com/scienc... [arstechnica.com]
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I'm kinda surprised they allowed smoking back in the 60s, around all that expensive equipment. Having see what the inside of computers look like when they have been exposed to tobacco smoke, the fur can easily cause electrical and cooling problems.
Data Request (Score:2)
Does anyone have any information about what kind of processor technology they used in the MC? What drove those displays and graphics? Did they even have PDP 11s at that time?
A few years back I found a cache of PDF files that documented (scans of the originals) the controls and architecture of the command and lunar modules. Also an explanation of how the flight computer aboard worked.
All I can say is man. That was primitive (but reliable I am sure) stuff. No fat at all just what was needed. Forg
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I read somewhere years ago that the console displays weren't interactive in any fashion....they simply displayed information to the flight controllers. Of course that doesn't answer your question, because that data had to come from somewhere.
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I remember seeing an article somewhere.
Mission Control was driven by a specialized version of the IBM 360, running a modified OS/360.
A quick Google search gives https://history.nasa.gov/compu... [nasa.gov]
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A quick Google search gives https://history.nasa.gov/compu... [nasa.gov]
That's a great find, thanks.
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I suspected that it may have been an IBM 360, but for some reason I thought those didn't rollout until '69. doh.
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Cool,but sad (Score:2)
If we had regular missions to the moon and mars, this would be a great historical display. As it is now, its a bit sad - recreating the image of former greatness that is now lost.
Blame Nixon. (Score:3)
He cut Apollo down to nothing, and the last Saturn V became Skylab, which was so underfunded it never reached it's goal of being a space station.
It never made proper orbit, and came down too fast to achieve any of the goals that were set.
Nixon needed money for the Vietnam War, and for Lawyers.
He even spent money to get the Smothers Brothers off the air, lol.
US Greatness is politically unviable (Score:3)
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Sometimes I wonder if the moon landings were an aberration. If proposed today they would be described as "communist", similar to the Green New Deal. Government involved where it shouldn't be, massive cost to taxpayers, let Bezos and Musk go there if they want to.
It seems like NASA only exists for historical reasons and to give the Air Force a space capability without it being officially military use.
Finally! Whew! (Score:2)