HOME | DD
markkarvon — First True Spacecraft
#aldrin #apollo #armstrong #moon #nasa #space #spaceart #spacecraft #karvon #apoll11
Published: 2019-04-14 16:36:21 +0000 UTC; Views: 3871; Favourites: 216; Downloads: 66
Redirect to original
Related content
Comments: 29
I lived on Long Island 2 miles from the Grumman Bethpage plant, where parts for the lunar lander were built. My friends father worked on the wiring and electronics for the lander, which still resides on the moon. Every time I look up at the moon, I think of him. I stayed up that night and watched the landing. At 19 yrs of age, and despite the angst of the times, I was both amazed and very proud of my country and what we accomplished. That night, after the landing, I walked out onto my front porch, looked up and said, wow, there really is "a man in the moon" as the old nursery rhyme used to say.
This now much older military veteran still remains proud of my country and the advances--both technically and socially--we have made.
God bless America!
👍: 1 ⏩: 0
Favourite, not least because I was another one who watched the launch and landing live.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
And all this was done using slide rules and paper.
We all stayed up to watch as it landed about 2am.
I was 17.
It was nearly aborted as some sensors were giving them bad readings which they correctly assumed were in error.
A radar switch was in the wrong position and they mis-estimated the landing speed.
In space momentum is everything.
Out of all that stuff just a small three man capsule returned with a load of rocks and dirt.
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
As noted they had computers; you can actually download emulators from the Web.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
True but they were primitive by today’s standards.
It was a simple navigation calculator on Apollo.
Crunched numbers to aid the pilot who had to make the adjustments manually
Two years later TI produced the hand held calculator . I had one.
The one on Apollo weighed 30 kilos.
It was ingenious in design helping the pilot fly the lander and worked flawlessly once the set the radars to the correct configuration.
But it was no problem solver just a math whiz.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Well, not really. They did have revolutionary computers for the day. The moon landings could not have been accomplished without them. They were nothing in power compared to today's computers though.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
True however they were just big calculators.
Aiding navigation by reading sensors on the craft as the pilot was actually blind flying.
Keep the dot in the center.
Had it been in control the landing would had aborted when an error reading popped up due to a miss setting on the ground radar.
Aldrin continued the landing while that alarm chirping indicated disaster. Houston was freaking as they were seeing it too. A simple missed switching of a radar nearly ended the mission.
True........a computer does calculate numbers which was all these did. It did the math. Pretty good for the time.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
The computer did a lot of the flying and stabilizing of the spacecraft from the Saturn V to the CSM and LM. Especially during launch, lunar landing and re-entry. They were more sophisticated than big calculators. Of course the astronauts could always go manual and often did. The whole endeavor would not have been possible without them. That is why huge amounts of manpower and money were spent in developing new computers. The Apollo program is what created Silicon Valley. You don't invest that kind of money in big calculators.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
And to think if we tried we could not duplicate the feat today unless we had significant help from private industry. If people only knew how much the Apollo mission lead to economy booms...*shakes head* A bloody shame what all happened
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
Meet the SLS. www.nasa.gov/exploration/syste…
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Are you saying that, for example, Grumman wasn't a private company in the 1960s?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Private company yes, but also under government contract and NASA had a budget and thus the control of the project rested with NASA. I do not think such would be the case today is all. Not necessarily a bad thing per say, but the drive I think is far different than it is in the 1960's when Kennedy gave his promise to get a man on the moon and back safely in his historic 1961 State of the Union address.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
And are you suggesting that, say Space-X would not be under government contract? Grumman were given a pretty free hand to design the LM as long as it met the contract specifications. Hence, for a couple of examples, why they lost the (unnecessary) acceleration couches, and had the rectangular "Moon exit" hatch (which is also how it was Neil rather than Bud who became the first man on the Moon; they literally flipped a coin to decide which side the hinges would be on). This stuff is actually documented in various project histories.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Is this a picture or a drawing? If it's a drawing take that as a compliment, it looks so real I can't tell the difference.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
This is a digital painting.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
We don't seem to have the same spirit for adventure we did then...or do we?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
