Moon Machines

January 10, 2009 9:32 AM

Spacesuits ll LunarRover ll NavigationComputer ll LunarModule ll SaturnV First aired on Discovery channel as part of Space Week, Moon Machines tells the story of the over 400,000 engineers and technicians that made it possible for us to go to the moon. Lots of gorgeous Nasa archival footage throughout.
posted by vronsky (14 comments total)

Perigee moon tonight too...
posted by sshelato at 9:55 AM on January 10, 2009

vronsky, I want to have your space babies.
posted by popechunk at 10:27 AM on January 10, 2009

The Saturn V is without a doubt the single coolest thing ever built by human beings.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 11:35 AM on January 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

My first job out of college was as a junior project engineer with NASA, at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. I was at Cape Kennedy (Canaveral) for the first launch of the Saturn V, November 1967. Those were heady times.
(Good slide rules and drafting equipment were stocked in the office supplies area- free to engineers. Still have mine.)
And the rest of you kids, get off my lawn!
posted by drhydro at 12:17 PM on January 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

Oh man, the footage at the end of "Spacesuits" is amazing. I would totally just watch a show of only that.

"Ah, the old rock trick? Make sure not to hit the rover!"
posted by The Bridge on the River Kai Ryssdal at 12:21 PM on January 10, 2009

drhydro: you may have worked with my godfather, Bud Herman, who was an engineer at Marshall at the time. He was a great guy. When he was in the hospital dying of untreatable cancer, he wove a series of tiny trapezes out of dental floss, which he would then suspend and place spinning tops on. I remember him sitting in his hospital gown, grinning like a kid, while tops swayed on dental-floss trapezes hung from ever available surface.

I have one of those slide rules, too. :)
posted by BitterOldPunk at 12:35 PM on January 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

Everyone, everyone should visit the all-up Saturn V launch stack in Huntsville, Alabama. The divine is fully expressed in every nuance of that elegant machine.
posted by Kikkoman at 12:48 PM on January 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

This dude loves science. Scroll to Moon Machines-Spacesuits and click play all
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 4:52 PM on January 10, 2009

Rewatching the 4th part on the Saturn V -- it has 5 engines guzzling 15 tons of fuel a second and generates 160 million horsepower! that is truly amazing.
posted by vronsky at 7:43 PM on January 10, 2009

it has 5 engines guzzling 15 tons of fuel a second and generates 160 million horsepower! that is truly amazing

Man, if only I could shoehorn that setup into my ol' Chevy Nova ...
posted by kcds at 5:46 AM on January 11, 2009

Thanks for posting these, vronsky. So far, I've only watched the first one on space suits, but I'm looking forward to watching the others during the next couple of days. I'm going to have my own little Space Week here. :-)
posted by amf at 6:39 AM on January 11, 2009

vronsky, I want to have your space babies.

You inspire all kinds of lust.

Joining the lunatics in this thread with sheer enjoyment. Thanks for the post vronsky.
posted by nickyskye at 8:03 AM on January 11, 2009

Great stuff. Check out The LOL Method (I'm trying to link to 4:30 into the video but it doesn't seem to work consistently).
posted by exogenous at 10:57 AM on January 11, 2009

I finally finished watching them all, what a treat.

The most surprising fact for me in the whole series was finding out that the LM ascent engines were single-use items that could never be tested due to the corrosiveness of the fuels. The engines upon which the astronauts safe return depended had never once been test-fired to see if it would even start.
posted by popechunk at 7:27 PM on January 13, 2009