MetaFilter posts tagged with Apollo

Space Shack

Chinese Jet Pilot — Tue, 14 May 2013 12:03:12 -0800

Skylab, NASA's budget space station, launched 40 years ago today. Designed as an orbiting optical laboratory, she served as a cold war weapon, underwent an historic salvage job, and was the site of America's first space mutiny before landing hard in Australia while waiting for the Space Shuttle to be invented.

belters expanse trajectory: working up the Epstein Drive

kliuless — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 23:11:41 -0800

How NASA brought the monstrous F-1 "moon rocket" engine back to life - "The story of young engineers who resurrected an engine nearly twice their age."

The question, though, is whether or not the practical side of the equation can balance the romantic. The Advanced Booster competition will run through 2015, at which point a winner will be chosen, solid or liquid. The F-1B could be the engine sending astronauts to Mars—or it could wind up as one more Wikipedia footnote.

also btw... -NASA's Space Launch System -NASA's Space Launch System Advanced Booster -Comparison of orbital rocket engines -Comparison of orbital launch systems oh and How NASA's Nuclear Rockets Will Take Us Way Beyond Mars &c. Almost 40,000 People Have Signed up to Go to Mars—One Way

"Where is the moon?" "Right straight ahead of you, John."

ardgedee — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:30:01 -0800

Distractions in Space: Because astronauts also have problems with directions, coworkers, and poop.

"We found so much."

Chutzler — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 11:55:22 -0800

As promised, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his team have recovered several Apollo F-1 rocket engines from the bottom of the ocean. "Finally, I want to thank NASA. They extended every courtesy and every helping hand – all of NASA’s interactions were characterized by plain old common sense, something which we all know is impressive and uncommon. We're excited to be bringing a couple of your F-1s home." Or, technically, enough parts to rebuild two of them. But who's counting? (Via Ars Technica)

Viewing the Earth from orbit changes your perspective

Brandon Blatcher — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 13:21:08 -0800

The Overview Effect

One small clarification for a man, one giant scene of drama for mankind

Brandon Blatcher — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 11:40:40 -0800

Months after the death of Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, a question arises: when did he think of the infamous quote "One small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind"? His brother Dean says, in a BBC documentary, it was not made up by Neil after landing on the moon, as the astronaut has said for 40+ years. Instead, Neil asked Dean for his opinion on the quote several months before Apollo 11 even launched.

Newspapers headlines asked "Did Armstrong lie", prompting protest, clarifications and remembrances from space historian Andrew Chaikin and longtime friend Dudley Schuler.

Not because it was easy, but because it was hard

Artw — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 00:03:59 -0800

Apollo 40 years on: how the moon missions changed the world for ever

This is a post that explains the sky flying thing that makes a lot of noise and fire

Brandon Blatcher — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 18:11:40 -0800

XKCD explains explains the major parts of the Saturn V rocket.

Testing spiders and gumdrops on Apollo 9

Brandon Blatcher — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 09:28:32 -0800

In March of 1969, Apollo 9 was launched into low earth orbit as critical test for future lunar landings. The Duet of Spider & Gumdrop is a half hour film, set to music from The Yellow Submarine, that publicized highlights of the mission.

Astronauts and religion

Brandon Blatcher — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 18:59:29 -0800

Communion on the Moon: The Religious Experience in Space.

An Audience With Neil Armstrong

dng — Wed, 23 May 2012 14:28:05 -0800

An Audience With Neil Armstrong is an hour long interview with Neil Armstrong about the moon landings from 2011, including a comparative view of footage from the Eagle's landing alongside Google Moon maps. The talk was given to Certified Practicing Accountants Of Australia, so has occasional bursts of business motivational phrases amid the moon talk.

F-bombing the moon.

srboisvert — Sat, 05 May 2012 04:36:43 -0800

Farting and f-bombing on the Moon - Apollo 16. [SLYT] Houston: "Okay John. We have a hot mike." Commander John Young: "How long we had that?"

A few things we learned on the way to the Moon

Brandon Blatcher — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:09:06 -0800

39 years ago today, Apollo 17 splashed down in the South Pacific, marking the end to manned exploration of the Moon. What we learned from those 10 years of discovery was amazing. It wasn't cheap or easy to send men to the Moon. In 1960 dollars, the financial cost was $25 billion dollars (estimated to be $170 billion in 2005 dollars). The human cost is harder to quantify. While it's easy to note the three astronauts who died in the Apollo 1 fire, others died during training. Meanwhile, the long hours required for training left families bereft of a spouse and parent, a hole that the wives and families had to fill on their own. Despite the long hours and the turblence of 1960s America and the world, humanity accomplished a feat that reaped four benefits. 1: The rapid developement of fuel cells and computers The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was used for control, guidance and navigation of the Command and Lunar module. Developed at MIT laboratories (then headed by Charles Draper), the computer required the large scale development of intergrated circuits, a low cost amd low power chip. This propelled the development of hardware and software, as chronicled in Moon Machines: Apollo Guidance Computer (1, 2 & 3). Yet as powerful as the computer was, the amout of RAM it used is dwarfed by the size of a font in modern day systems. To run the AGC and everything else on the ships, a power source was needed. Batteries couldn't do the job, not with the size and weight needed for a 8-12 day voyage in space. Enter the fuel cell, a device that uses hydrogen and oxygen to provide a constant supply of electricity, along with a useful by-product, water. Developed early in the '60s, fuel cells saw development and use in the Gemini program and further refinement in Apollo. These days, the technology is viewed as a possible alternative to gas cars. 2: Insight into the orgin of the Earth and the universe While Apollo was largely about beating the godless commies to the moon, scientific exploration was a major component of the program. Each mission carried numerous experiments, most of them bundled into the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package or ALSEP. The package contained instruments that measured the internal structure of the moon, revealing that moonquakes occurred, information that indicates the moon did not form at the same time as the Earth. Also measured was the "atmosphere" and the solar wind that mixes with it; the distance from the Earth to the Moon, within centimeters; and the magnetic field. But what about the 800 plus pounds of rocks and dust brought back from the Moon? Surprisingly, they're similar to Earth rocks, giving weight to the Giant Impact Theory. But the most amazing fact is that with no true atmosphere, there's no erosion. The Moon rocks, laying on the surface for billions of years, contain information about the universe from early era of the universe, which also reveals the conditions of Earth shortly after it was formed. 3: A stunning collection of photographs and video was taken If you just want to start clicking and viewing, check out the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, which has an amazingly huge library of images and video for missions 11-17. Be warned that many of the videos are in the RealVideo format, so one would have to download the RealVideo player to view them. All the links below are to non RealVideo Clips from other sources. Note that Apollo 11 made it into Big Picture on the 40th anniversay of the landing. Oddly enough, there are very few photos of Armstrong on the moon. Every classic and iconic picture from the mission is of Buzz Alrdin, taken by Armstrong. Rumors persist that Aldrin was annoyed about not being designated the first man out and delibrately snubbed Armstrong in revenge. All the missions carried still and TV cameras, even the unmanned Apollo 4 and 6, which produced the famous scenes of booster stages separating. This enabled Apollo 7 to be the first US mission to broadcast video from space. The next mission, Apollo 8, continued doing live transmissions, including the low resolution but moving Christmas message of 1968. Later, Apollo 9 produced remarbly better color videos of the astronauts and Earth, particularly the spacewalks. With the tenth mission, the increased quality and color provided not only breathtaking video of moon but pretty decent video of the astronauts inside the ships. Yet for the history making moon landing, that quality was noticably absent for the historic first step, probably due to the more rigorous demands of having the the camera outside. That was supposed to be remedied on Apollo 12, which had a color camera for the moonwalking astronauts. Unfortunately, the camera didn't come with a lot of instruction, so one of the astronauts ended up pointing the camera at the sun, which destroyed the video tube. Other than the landing, taken with a 16mm camera from the pilot's window, no video exists of the crew on the moon. Apollo 13 transmitted a public broadcast, as all missions did. But later the crew ran into a problem that resulted in no images from the lunar surface. For Apollo 14, good video footage of astronauts on the moon was finally seen, a trend that conintued for the rest of the program. Apollo 15, 16 and 17 increased the quality even further with a camera on the Lunar Rover, allowing the public to come along for the ride and see men leave the moon. 4: A different view of ourselves and our home As Apollo 8 circled the moon late in 1968, astronaut William Anders snapped the famous color photo known as Earthrise. Widely credited with igniting the environmental movement, the picture offered a startling view to humanity, that Earth was fragile and alone in space. As Anders himself later noted "...we came all the way to the moon to discover the Earth." This wasn't the first photo of Earth from the vantage point of the moon. Lunar Orbiter 1 had done that two years earlier, in grainy black and white. But the Apollo 8 crew had better cameras and more importantly was a sign that humans had actually traveled so far from home. 24 men traveled to the moon, thanks to the work of 4 0 0,0 0 0 p e o p l e. It wasn't easy or cheap, the cost was enormous, arguably spent better elsewhere and perhaps, in the end, the Apollo program was an anomaly. But it was worth it.

Apollo 15, The notable and not so notable firsts

Brandon Blatcher — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 05:28:58 -0800

Designed as "an expeditionary force for a geologic assault¹" on the Moon’s Hadley Rille, Apollo 15 was a groundbreaking lunar mission. Designed to be devoted entirely to scientific exploration, it included a number of notable firsts: first to land outside of the lunar mare; first 3 day stay on the moon; first use of the Lunar Rover by Commander David Scott and Lunar Module Pilot Jim Irwin; first use of the Scientific Instrument Module, used by Command Module Pilot Al Worden to study the moon from lunar orbit; and first launch of a subsatellite, used to map the plasma, particle and magnetic fields of the moon. On top of that, Scott gave a visual proof of Galileo's theory of objects in gravity fields in a vacuum, showing gravity acts equally on all objects regardless of their mass. Scott and Irwin also discovered of the Genesis Rock, a piece the moon's primordial crust, formed only 100 million years after the solar system itself.

The mission was a spectacular success, publicly called "One of the most brilliant missions in space science ever flown". The crew was lauded and their future with NASA seemed assured.

Then the stamps hit the fan and Apollo 15 became the first US space crew that was ever fired. The problem began years ago, back at the dawn of the space age. Philately, or stamp collecting, produced a subgenre, astrophilately, which specialized in studying stamps and postal history that were related to astronomy Since the early part of the 20th century, the US Postal Service has been issuing postal stamps to commemorate American milestones in space. Examples include stamps for: Palomar Mountain Observatory, commemorating “first light” of what was then the world’s largest telescope. Robert Goddard, the “father” of rockets Echo 1, the first communications satellite The Mercury program, America’s first man in space program Gemini program, the followup up to Mercury and precursor to Apollo As more people became interested in the hobby, postal covers, cachets and cancellations were added to the types of items marking events or milestones. Covers were particularly popular. With a cover, an envelope with words and art would be mailed on the particular day of an event, thus postmarking it for historical purposes. Examples include: The first chimp in space, Ham John Glen, first American to orbit the Earth Gemini 3, first manned launch of the program Gemini 4, first American EVA or “spacewalk”. More examples The Apollo program marked a particular zenith of astrophilately, with official stamp covers being included on flights. Apollo 15 contributed to this practice, with 243 official stamp covers. But the crew also carried an additional 400 unofficial covers on the flight through a deal made with German stamp collector, Hermann Sieger. The terms of deal were this: upon completion of the mission, 100 of the unofficial covers were sold to Sieger for $7,000. Those 100 covers would be sold sometime after the Apollo program ended. The remaining 300 were to split among the 3 astronauts to use as they wished. Problems arose when Seiger began selling his portion of the covers after the mission ended, not when the entire Apollo program ended, as previously agreed. When the astronauts learned of the sales, they returned the money to Sieger and asked him to cease selling the covers, but were ignored. Eventually the sales became public, prompting Congress to call for investigations, citing the issue of personally profiting by US government employees. NASA demanded and received the covers from the astronauts, then pulled the crew from their backup duties on Apollo 17. They were all placed on administrative leave and not so subtly told they’d never fly in space again. Investigations by the Justice department, Congress and NASA found that neither federal laws nor NASA regulations were broken. Dave Scott and Al Worden worked at NASA research centers for several years before moving into private business. Jim Irwin, moved by walking on the moon, completely left NASA and formed the High Flight Foundation, a Christian organization designed to spread the Word of God. He died in 1991, due a heart attack, purposes due one of the other negative firsts of Apollo 15, the heart problems Irwin had during the mission. Had he been on Earth would have placed him an ICU for a heart attack. Since he was in pure oxygen and weightless or low gravity environment, NASA doctors decided he was in the best possible place he could be for a heart attack and never informed him or the crew of the problems until some point after the crew returned to Earth. As to the unofficial covers, they remained with NASA until the early 80s. In 1983 Al Worden filed suit against NASA for return of the covers, citing the partnership between the US Post OFfice and NASA to sell covers flown on the US Space Shuttle. The courts agreed and the covers were returned to the astronauts. All three members of the crew have written autobiographies and mentioned the incident within. Scott offers a view different from NASA’s, Irwin never publicly commented, just shrugged his shoulders about it in his book and moved on, while Worden echoes Scott’s sentiments of raw deal. They weren't the first crew to profit by unofficial means, they were just the first to bring large scale notice to the practice. How much are the covers worth today? Between $10-17 thousand each. 1: Andrew Chaikin, A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts (The Penquin Group, 1994), p 408

Astronauts who got creative about their experiences

Brandon Blatcher — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 15:50:43 -0800

Over 500 people have traveled into outer space. While many have written books about the experience, only a few have used more creative means to express what they saw and felt. Here are a few: :: Alfred Worden :: For three days in 1971, he circled the moon alone during Apollo 15, as his two crewmates walked on the moon below. As they journeyed back from the moon, he become the first person to do a space walk in deep space. In 1974, he wrote a book of poetry based on his experiences, Hello Earth! Greetings From Endeavour!. Here are few samples, found around the net. Oceans, July Launch and Cycle Here's a few more (Hello Earth! Cycle, Oceans, Quietly Like a Night Bird) from the Kate Bush forum, where it's speculated that some of his poetry inspired her. An interview with Worden. The audio portion is only a small part of the written version. :: Alexei Leonov :: The first human to walk in space and later, commander of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the first joint mission between American and Soviet Union. Even as a child he was interested in art, so it was natural for him to continue painting and drawing after he had traveled into space.. Here's couple of his paintings: "Open Space" "The Moon. First Moments After Landing" :: Alan Bean :: Became the fourth man on the moon during Apollo 12, later commanded a Skylab mission. Deeply inspired by walking on the moon, he quit NASA to become a full time artist. The distinction of being the only artist to travel to another world earned him a spot on the Colbert Report. :: Story Musgrave :: Mission Specialist on six Space Shuttle missions, Musgrave has lead an extraodinary career as a doctor, scientist, pilot and astronaut. A recital of Spacial Speed. More of his poetry is at the same site. Another recital, this time of "Mother Earth".

Apollo 11, as seen through Google Moon

Philosopher Dirtbike — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 10:22:27 -0800

The descent of the Apollo 11, plotted with Google Moon Pictures from the actual moon landing side-by-side with Google Earth, as the lander descends. [via]
Also, try the Google Earth KML file for the Apollo 11 landing.

Moon Camera's Missing Instructions

Chinese Jet Pilot — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 14:47:59 -0800

It's probably too late to take your Hasselblad aboard a Space Shuttle, but if the opportunity arises, read the Astronaut's Photography Manual (PDF) and you might capture photos like this one. Previously.

What's in Apollo 18's name?

Brandon Blatcher — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 11:46:40 -0800

The movie Apollo 18 opened recently. The plot centers around a supposedly secret Apollo moon landing mission (the last actual mission was Apollo 17). But never mind the space stuff, what is up with the title of the mission? It's been used for a couple of non-space related music projects. They Might Be Giants used it for the title of their fourth album. Then there's a Korean indie rock band with the name, who won the Rookie of the Year award at the 2010 Korean Music Awards. Of course, the title of the mission was used for space related projects also. The game company Accolade made a video game with the title for the Commodore 64. As to the movie itself, the reviews have good, though critics have noted plot implausbilities, such as secretly launching a Saturn V rocket (you gotta see this). Still, Apollo Flight Director Gerry Griffin, who worked as an advisor on the movie, thinks the film's creators got most things right. But what about those last three unflown Apollo missions? Oddly enough, the Apollo 18 movie was released exactly 41 years after the NASA mission was officially canceled. It was to land in Schroter's Valley and be commanded by Gemini and Apollo veteran Richard Gordon, with Vance Brand serving as Command Module Pilot and Harrison Schmitt as Lunar Module Pilot. The mission was to mark the first time a geologist, Schmitt, was to walk on another world. When the mission was canceled, Schmidt was moved to Apollo 17, bumping Joe Engle from that mission and putting him on the short list of people who were supposed to land on the moon but didn't. It is debatable whether Alice Kramden should be on that list. Apollo 17 wasn't the last Apollo mission though. Apollo-Soyuz was the 1975 joint project with the Soviet Union and is unoffically called Apollo 18 at times. It featured a docking between the Apollo command module and Soyuz craft and is viewed as the end of the space race as well the beginnings of the International Space Station.

Lift and separate

Herodios — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 09:14:28 -0800

Initially the conventional wisdom was that spacesuits “would be like rockets: adamantine, metallic, armored and smooth.” But in practice, rigid spacesuits repeatedly failed under testing. So when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon they were protected from the vacuum of space by flexible spacesuits crafted from twenty-one layers of fabric, “each with a distinct yet interrelated function, custom-sewn for them by seamstresses whose usual work was fashioning bras and girdles” for the Playtex Corporation. The Spirit of the Spacesuit , Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo by Nicholas de Monchaux, assistant professor of architecture and urban design at UC Berkeley. This is the story of the Playtex Corporation’s triumph over the military-industrial complex—a victory of elegant softness over engineered hardness, of adaptation over cybernetics. Anticipating the space age, the International Latex Corporation (ILC), known by its consumer brand “Playtex,” conducted basic research on adapting its latex expertise to pressurized suits. Initially ignored, this research became central to the development of the Apollo space suit. This is the story of the idea of layering itself, and the related strategies of redundancy and interdependence. The suits were stitched together from 21 layers of different materials as varied as Teflon and Lycra. Each solved a specific problem . . . a literal patchwork of improvisations and adaptations, the kind of invention that typically takes place in the garage, not the lab. Crafting Shuttles: Labor of love, vanishing art The Handmade space shuttle As space shuttle Atlantis [concludes] NASA's last shuttle mission, it's worth remembering that key parts of this high-tech spaceship were handmade by people back here on Earth. . . using everyday tools like sewing needles and X-ACTO knives. . . Theresa Haygood, an expert seamstress constructed small, white quilted blankets using glass thread and special heat-resistant cloth. These thermal blankets are part of the heat shield that protects the shuttle during its fiery re-entry. Haygood sewed them into precise shapes that would fit onto the shuttle like pieces of an elaborate jigsaw puzzle. The job used skills she had been perfecting since she was a child, begging her grandmother for needle and thread to make Barbie clothes.

On President Kennedy, the Space Race, legacies and politics

Brandon Blatcher — Wed, 25 May 2011 12:13:00 -0800

50 years ago today, on May 25 1961, US President John F. Kennedy decided "...this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." Eight years later the Apollo program fulfilled the task, leaving the world with a legacy that includes advances in computers and communciation, lessons in managing complex projects, technological innovations and new views of the Earth. Yet Kennedy wasn't exactly enthusatic about a manned space program. As a Senator, he opposed it and as President would have probably loved to opt out of a big space program. But the supremacy of the Soviet Union in space and the domestic disaster of the Bay of Pigs caused the President to rethink his position. This prompts a question: If Kennedy had lived, what would have happened to the Apollo program?

For All Mankind

puny human — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 18:10:58 -0800

For All Mankind "Al Reinert’s documentary For All Mankind is the story of the twenty-four men who traveled to the moon, told in their words, in their voices, using the images of their experiences. Forty years after the first moon landing, it remains the most radical, visually dazzling work of cinema yet made about this earthshaking event." "For All Mankind is irreplaceable: one of a kind and likely to remain so. It is, formally, among the most radical American films of the past quarter century and, emotionally, among the most powerfully affecting. It makes its impossible title stick. In For All Mankind, we all lift off together, and we all come home the same way, and few movies have captured so well the rhapsodic absurdity of our common voyage." 1 :: 2 :: 3 :: 4 :: 5 :: 6 :: 7 :: 8

Apollo 14 note

Brandon Blatcher — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 08:26:13 -0800

Apollo 14, with Alan Shepard, American's first man in space, as the Commander, Stuart Roosa, Command Module Pilot and Edgar Mitchell, lunar module pilot, splashed down forty years ago today. It was flight of the rookies (total previous time in space was 15 minutes, all by Shepard). There were several odd things about the flight, but no need to worry, the moon trees are doing just fine.

People who changed the way the world works

finite — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 00:05:36 -0800

They Were There is a 30 min video from IBM, who is turning 100 this year. "told by first-hand witnesses—current and retired employees and clients—who were there when IBM helped to change the way world works."

Cosmic Journeys and other space-related videos

Kattullus — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 08:45:00 -0800

Cosmic Journeys is a documentary series on various astronomical and space-related subjects, e.g. supermassive black holes, Apollo 12, whether the universe is infinite and many more. The creators, SpaceRip have a lot of other, shorter videos online as well. They are indexed here. Most, if not all, of the videos are available in HD.

"You're right. Man, this is beautiful"

garrett — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 06:34:02 -0800

Built as part of the fifth /dev/fort developer retreat, Spacelog.org allows you to explore early space missions via the original NASA transcripts. Currently live are Mercury 6 which made John Glenn the first American in orbit, and the 'successful failure' Apollo 13 (The transcribed key moment and the original). Alongside the transcripts are supporting materials from the NASA archives including photography and descriptions of the mission phases. The developers are looking for help to digitise the Gemini 7, Apollo 8 and Apollo 11 missions.