With this month marking the 50th anniversary of "One giant step," I thought it appropriate to post a link my son-in-law sent me to a really cool site:
https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/mobile/
There is a laptop version as well. They have restored 50 channels of internal mission control audio, just for starters!
I was 17, and still have my diary from 1969 recording the event. I climbed over Striding Edge to Hellvelyn the day before they lifted off, apparently.
I'd forgotten that, but certainly not the lunar landing!
Very cool. I'm looking forward to seeing the Apollo 11 documentary movie which just came out on DVD. No reproductions, no CGI, just restored original footage.
I met Buzz Aldrin a few times in a local establishment close to where I live. He's a teetotaler, but a big college football fan and used to stop by the bar on a Saturday to catch the games. It's not often you can shake hands with a moon man!
Yes, he had a very public and alcoholic breakdown after the event, chronicled in his book.
My daughter saw the trailer for the Apollo 11 documovie at the movies just a week ago, and reckons it's very good indeed.
Her husband met Apollo 16 astronauts Charlie Duke and Ken Mattingly recently, who were at a Qantas presentation in Sydney and obviously still very active!
They must all have had nerves of steel.
I understand that all of them on Apollo 11 elected never to go into space again.
I wonder why? Was it the stress, perhaps?
Quote from: Bob G on July 11, 2019, 09:01:07 AM
They must all have had nerves of steel.
I understand that all of them on Apollo 11 elected never to go into space again.
I wonder why? Was it the stress, perhaps?
In a way, what more could they do that would top being the first to walk on the moon? NASA pulled back from moon missions in the 1970s due to cost, public opinion and perhaps a bit of "mission accomplished" as well.
I think Armstrong had the biggest pair of you know whats in the history of humanity. He nearly died in space on one of the Gemini missions, he nearly died again testing the rig for the lunar module and when they actually landed on the moon they only had a spare 30 seconds of fuel over what they needed to get home! You wouldn't have known it by the calmness in his voice as they came in to land!
These pioneering astronauts did indeed have the right stuff.
It's a shame there's not many of them left, but most of them have written excellent autobiographies, which are well worth reading if you're into this stuff.
I'm not, eh?! ;) :thumbsup:
I can remember watching it on the TV as a four-year-old George. I was absolutely glued to the set for the entire landing - no mean feat for someone so young!
So looking forward to seeing the documentary movie at the cinema next week!
Tom Hanks produced a HBO mini series of all the moon missions back in 1996, which is historically accurate.
I have the boxed set, and would use them regularly as a teaching aid before I retired.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon_(miniseries)
Apollo (and the "space race" on both sides of the iron curtain) is one of my real passions.
I was actually at Cape Kennedy around the 40th anniversary. A real aerospace Mecca, hallowed ground. If you ever get a chance go, it's worth it for the Saturn V exhibit alone.
Speaking of films and documentary, I can highly recommend HBOs series "from Earth to the Moon". The series, introduced by Tom Hanks, covers Mercury, Gemini and Apollo and many of the people surrounding it. Every episode is superb (there is an episode dedicated to the wives of the astronauts for example). The Apollo 13 episode is also interesting as, apart from Mr Hanks introducing somebody else playing Jim Lovell, there are a few more actors from the "Apollo 13" film playing different roles.
Skyline2uk
Quote from: Bealman on July 11, 2019, 09:54:37 AM
Tom Hanks produced a HBO mini series of all the moon missions back in 1996, which is historically accurate.
I have the boxed set, and would use them regularly as a teaching aid before I retired.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon_(miniseries)
:laughabovepost:
Beat me to it by seconds!
Skyline2uk
My link is a bit awkward, but it should take you there eventually.
I have two favourite episodes, twelve and seventeen. Apollo numbers, not episode numbers!
Some favourite bits for me:
Episode 1 "seriously, who wants my job" and the subsequent briefing on how the heck they were going to do it (land on the moon that is).
Whichever episode dealt with "Spider" (Grumman manufacture of the Lunar Module). The concept of travelled work should be familiar to any engineer now!
Apollo 12 (Pete Conrad and "Mr Bean" as I call him).
Skyline2uk
Totally agree. To be honest, over the last almost 25 years, I've watched the whole series so much, the discs are worn out, and I know the script of every episode!! :-[
Alan Bean passed away only just recently. Made a very good living painting Apollo scenes after retiring from NASA.
Pete Conrad was the proverbial action man, and died in a motorcycle accident in the late nineties.
During my recent hospitalisation, my family sent me this, thinking I could build it in hospital!
Nice thought! Anyway....
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/79/255-110719050557-793271900.jpeg)
Finished product!
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/79/255-110719050613-793491598.jpeg)
Nice!
I was one when the landing happened.
:D
I have been to Houston Space Centre though, I've seen the mission control room, and they have a Saturn V, undercover played out in sections. It's awesome.
Yes, it's a shame that this hardware was ready and capable to fly to the moon.
Now it's just sitting there rustin'
if you havnt seen it The dish worth a watch,especially the national anthem scene :D.It tells the story of the parkes radio telescopes role in the moon landing
Yes, Sam Neil, Aussie movie. :beers:
Quote from: emjaybee on July 11, 2019, 11:07:04 AM
Nice!
I was one when the landing happened.
:D
It was 17 years before I was born ;)
That Lego Saturn is awesome! I agree that Mission Control in Houston is fascinating, as is Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, knocks the socks off Disney! I've heard great things about the docu-movie.
Edit: and as if by magic, look what literally just popped up on my Facebook feed:
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48256248942_8dee10c1a9_c.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2gweTA7)Untitled (https://flic.kr/p/2gweTA7) by njee20 (https://www.flickr.com/photos/46244709@N04/), on Flickr
It says on the box of the Lego kit, 1969 pieces.
Coincidence?
I know I had a few left over, but no missing pieces until the very last one!
As that was for one of the stands to lie it on, I'm not gonna be writing to them in a hurry ;)
love the model George, I was 14 when they landed and we got to watch it in school which was a real bonus.
Many years later I got to the Air and Space museum in Washington and stood by a replica of one of the nozzles, it made you realise how big the Saturn rockets actually were. Would have loved to get to Cape Canaveral on my trips to Florida unfortunately work expected me to work whilst I was there.
Enjoyed the Dish immensely.
Cheers
Graham
I am just young enough to remember the hullaballoo about Skylab adding some excitement to the scenery in Western Australia.
I must put Kennedy/Canaveral on the bucket list. Annoyingly I was in the US at the time the last shuttle went up, but was unable to get there.
I did see the Apollo 10 (?) command module in the Science Museum (in the same hall where they have the brain of a distant relative on display).
In other space news, Japan has just collected some asteroid rubble: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48946603 (https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48946603)
Very brave men, all of those Apollo guys. I was 18 at the time Eagle landed at the Sea of Tranquility! Like millions of others, I watched every last minute of the missions.
I remember owning a 386 computer in 1985. It had a 40 megabyte hard drive and 2 megabytes of memory. We ran the office accounts and customer contact list on it (slowly). The astronauts total computing power on Apollo 11 was roughly equal to this apparently. :o
Alec.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
Considerably less!!
I was lucky enough to catch a shuttle launch when holidaying in Orlando years ago. The noise and the rate of ascent is truly amazing and cannot be appreciated unless you are there. The space centre was excellent too. I was four and parked in front of the TV for the moon landing, apparently, but I have no memory of it.
I was but a few months old in 69, but remember the first shuttle launch in 1981. I was on holidays with my Aunt and some of her friends from her church in a caravan in North Wales. I upset them all as I refused to leave the caravan or the TV until I'd watched the whole thing. To this day I can't understand people who don't see these things as momentous
Quote from: Bob G on July 11, 2019, 09:01:07 AM
I understand that all of them on Apollo 11 elected never to go into space again.
I wonder why? Was it the stress, perhaps?
Because they'd all only signed a one movie deal!
Someone had to bring conspiracy theories up ;)
There's some famous footage of Buzz Aldrin slugging a reporter in the face when he suggested that!
Unfortunately Tom Hanks only gave these morons fuel when he produced the lmax movie "Walking on the Moon 3D'
There again these pathetic souls say "Photoshopped" when you show them photos of the landing sites taken from lunar orbiters :veryangry:
QuoteSomeone had to bring conspiracy theories up
conspiracy theory??? All the proof you need to prove landings were infact staged.
http://pigeonsnest.co.uk/stuff/nasa-fakes-moon-landing.html (http://pigeonsnest.co.uk/stuff/nasa-fakes-moon-landing.html)
Soup! Soup! ;D
2stories about Neil Armstrong
1) He said that he was sitting in the apollo 11 module on the top of a Saturn 5 ( the biggest firework in history), and thought that there were 1 million parts on the rocket, all from the cheapest supplier!
2 ) on the moon, the LEM was about to take off. one fail safe switch for the rocket engine broke - no spares within a million miles! launch due in seconds...
he stuck the end of a metal marker in the switch to make contact and pressed the launch button - and it worked!!
That lowest bidder quote has been attributed to a number of astronauts, including Alan Shepard and John Glenn. I'm tempted to go with Alan Shepard, as Gene Kranz, one of NASA's longest serving and distinguished flight directors, claims it was Shepard in his book "Failure is not an option"
Oooh, I have that book too :claphappy:
Quote from: themadhippy on July 11, 2019, 11:33:22 PM
QuoteSomeone had to bring conspiracy theories up
conspiracy theory??? All the proof you need to prove landings were infact staged.
http://pigeonsnest.co.uk/stuff/nasa-fakes-moon-landing.html (http://pigeonsnest.co.uk/stuff/nasa-fakes-moon-landing.html)
Interesting new set of pictures I haven't seen before. This may throw new light on things.
Did you know why the sky in the moon landing photos is always pitch black? It's to cover up the presence of the UN black helicopters.
Anyway the moon landing programme was just part of an elaborate attempt to establish the existence of a so-called "moon" in people's minds:
QuoteIt amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
Quote from: railsquid on July 12, 2019, 01:28:01 AM
Oooh, I have that book too :claphappy:
Quote from: themadhippy on July 11, 2019, 11:33:22 PM
QuoteSomeone had to bring conspiracy theories up
conspiracy theory??? All the proof you need to prove landings were infact staged.
http://pigeonsnest.co.uk/stuff/nasa-fakes-moon-landing.html (http://pigeonsnest.co.uk/stuff/nasa-fakes-moon-landing.html)
Interesting new set of pictures I haven't seen before. This may throw new light on things.
Did you know why the sky in the moon landing photos is always pitch black? It's to cover up the presence of the UN black helicopters.
Anyway the moon landing programme was just part of an elaborate attempt to establish the existence of a so-called "moon" in people's minds:
QuoteIt amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
so what was in the sky before the satellites were put up? a giant candle??
QuoteDespite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950.
Presumably the writer has never heard of goodness knows how many writers and poets who seem to have seen this balloon well before 1950! And try searching for Khonsu, the Ancient Egyptian god of the moon, on Google. But, of course, the pyramids were built by aliens...
And people make money writing this garbage.
By the way, "From the Earth to the Moon" has been remastered in HD and will be available (in the UK at least) on Bluray from Monday.
Quote
Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950.
Errrrr..
A good heart is the sun and the moon; or, rather, the sun and not the moon, for it shines bright and never changes.
William Shakespeare
The moon shines bright. In such a night as this. When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees and they did make no noise, in such a night.
William Shakespeare
It is the very error of the moon; She comes more nearer earth than she was wont, And makes men mad.
William Shakespeare
Thus die I, thus, thus, thus. Now am I dead, Now am I fled; My soul is in the sky: Tongue, lose thy light; Moon take thy flight. Now die, die, die, die, die.
William Shakespeare
O, swear not by the moon, the fickle moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circle orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable
William Shakespeare
The moon's an arrant thief, And her pale fire she snatches from the sun.
William Shakespeare
And many more...
Quote from: rogerdB on July 12, 2019, 11:44:02 AM
QuoteDespite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950.
Presumably the writer has never heard of goodness knows how many writers and poets who seem to have seen this balloon well before 1950! And try searching for Khonsu, the Ancient Egyptian god of the moon, on Google. But, of course, the pyramids were built by aliens...
And people make money writing this garbage.
And the people who pay to read, and believe, that guff are the same people who will believe you if you tell them that the only English language word that is not in the Oxford English dictionary is the word gullible :D
Its simple ,between 1947 and 1950 the cia rewrote not just all of shakespears works but anything they thought might look real with the included the new word" moon".They also orchastrated the suez crisis to act as a distraction whilst they went round hypnotising the egyptians into beliving in a made up god called khonshu,the name is derived from the operations code name,shoosh its a con.
I think some members have been watching too much Stargate !
The Apollo missions were the greatest voyages of discovery made by humans,
( Apart from Capt Kirk and his mates). Amazing that only 100 years earlier the
USA was fighting a civil war with muskets and cannonballs. In about 20 years time
a human will set foot on Mars, then that will be it as far as manned space exploration
will go.
Live long and prosper as Sir Fred Goodwin once said................. :D
Thanks.
I knew when I started this it could degenerate into "It didn't happen" scenarios.
Thanks for pulling the heads in. :beers:
For anyone casting doubt on the assertion that there was no mention of the Moon before 1950 - I urge you to visit the link posted earlier by @themadhippy (https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=profile;u=4863) , which challenges the conventional assumptions They want us to hold about the Moon.
Quote from: themadhippy on July 11, 2019, 11:33:22 PM
QuoteSomeone had to bring conspiracy theories up
conspiracy theory??? All the proof you need to prove landings were infact staged.
http://pigeonsnest.co.uk/stuff/nasa-fakes-moon-landing.html (http://pigeonsnest.co.uk/stuff/nasa-fakes-moon-landing.html)
I then urge you to watch this video: https://youtu.be/bFRzZegVIhY?t=755 which contains new evidence debunking the assertion that the moon consists of rock.
I'll be down in my fortified basement hiding from the chemtrails :beers:
Meanwhile, back on Planet Reality, I always though it was cool the Lunar Module from Apollo 10 was cast off into heliocentric orbit, which means it's still out there somewhere (probably peppered with micrometeorite holes I guess), and may recently have been located: https://www.universetoday.com/142505/apollo-10s-snoopy-lunar-lander-may-have-been-found-in-space/ (https://www.universetoday.com/142505/apollo-10s-snoopy-lunar-lander-may-have-been-found-in-space/)
Yes, indeed! I think the Apollo 11 ascent stage went the same way as well.
With a seismometer on the moon, NASA maximised future missions by crashing the spent module onto the moon to create quakes.
Actually, they even disposed of the SIV-B stages the same way from Apollo13 onwards.
Quote from: railsquid on July 12, 2019, 01:33:20 PM
I then urge you to watch this video: https://youtu.be/bFRzZegVIhY?t=755 which contains new evidence debunking the assertion that the moon consists of rock.
They appear to have dropped it now, but when Google first released Google Moon if you zoomed in far enough the image changed to one of a lump of emmental cheese ;D
Since a child I've been waiting to see what for me must have been one of the most dangerous manoeuvres on route to the moon, namely the connecting of the command module with the LEM, which was stowed behind the service module.
I have yet to see original footage of this. Or on any of the later flights too.
Maybe it was shown when I was asleep in 1969, I don't know.
Does anyone have an answer?
Bob
These any good?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKWS4G9TouM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKWS4G9TouM)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6C6I_Cpcw4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6C6I_Cpcw4)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1W_VYCzics (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1W_VYCzics)
Quote from: railsquid on July 12, 2019, 02:42:07 PM
These any good?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKWS4G9TouM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKWS4G9TouM)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6C6I_Cpcw4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6C6I_Cpcw4)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1W_VYCzics (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1W_VYCzics)
Also, the last but one on this page, the Apollo 11 Apollo Flight Journal;
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVYpEWcPdnotlCz7kriFxg (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVYpEWcPdnotlCz7kriFxg)
Wow - amazing.
This achievement never fails to impress.
Bob
Go to the NASA Apollo Image archive and you can view entire Hasselblad camera magazines of every mission.
Quote from: Bealman on July 13, 2019, 01:07:17 AM
Go to the NASA Apollo Image archive and you can view entire Hasselblad camera magazines of every mission.
I think the camera bodies were left on the moon to save weight and only the magazines
brought back, Hasselblad had an ad in the photo magazines saying free Hasselblad
(go the the moon to collect it.) VW also had an ad showing a beetle on the moon.
Quote from: broadsword on July 13, 2019, 08:36:21 AM
Quote from: Bealman on July 13, 2019, 01:07:17 AM
Go to the NASA Apollo Image archive and you can view entire Hasselblad camera magazines of every mission.
I think the camera bodies were left on the moon to save weight and only the magazines
brought back ...
I always wondered about that. In "Apollo 13", there's a scene where the re-entry angle is off because they were meant to be "towing" 50lbs of moon rocks with them. How does weight affect a spacecraft in zero-gravity? Everything was floating around the cabin when they were unloading everything from the LEM into the Command Module to rectify the issue.
I did pass my Physics "O" Level back in another world and another life, but I'm not sure we studied space travel. I was learning Boyle's law and something to do with the reaction time of a spring, I'm sure the gentleman had a name who described the characteristics, but if I ever knew him, I forgot him the moment I walked out of the exam room.
The ripple tank was cool though, that spinning wotsit with the slits that you looked through to see a frozen effect of the interference patterns? Kids these days, they don't know what they're missing.
Quote from: LASteve on July 14, 2019, 02:40:15 AM
Quote from: broadsword on July 13, 2019, 08:36:21 AM
Quote from: Bealman on July 13, 2019, 01:07:17 AM
Go to the NASA Apollo Image archive and you can view entire Hasselblad camera magazines of every mission.
I think the camera bodies were left on the moon to save weight and only the magazines
brought back ...
I always wondered about that. In "Apollo 13", there's a scene where the re-entry angle is off because they were meant to be "towing" 50lbs of moon rocks with them. How does weight affect a spacecraft in zero-gravity? Everything was floating around the cabin when they were unloading everything from the LEM into the Command Module to rectify the issue.
I'm sure @Bealman (https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=profile;u=255) can explain better, but objects still have *mass* regardless of what gravitational influences they're under, more specifically the command module's trajectory was designed for an object with a certain mass to hit the earth's atmosphere at a certain angle, make it the mass different and it will cause the object to hit too hard and burn up, or skip away into an incontrollable orbit, neither of which outcomes is desirable. Something along those lines anyway.
Quote from: railsquid on July 14, 2019, 03:15:55 AM
... but objects still have *mass* regardless of what gravitational influences they're under, more specifically the command module's trajectory was designed for an object with a certain mass to hit the earth's atmosphere at a certain angle ...
Thanks, I should have thought of that. I've seen enough simulations of planets sitting on a net "bending" the gravitational field around them. That's all about mass. I guess I should go back and re-read my Brian Greene books and pay more attention this time.
Wot he said. :thumbsup:
In terms of Physics, weight is a force. In reality, a person's "weight" is really their mass (kg) multiplied by the acceleration due to gravity (ms-2), as in Newton's 2nd law, F=ma. This gives the weight force in kgms-2, also known as Newtons.
Because the moon is one sixth the size of the Earth, the acceleration due to gravity there is only a sixth of what it is on Earth (g, or 9.8ms-2 on Earth). However, an astronaut's mass remains the same.
Quote from: Bealman on July 14, 2019, 04:40:32 AM
However, an astronaut's mass remains the same.
I wish my mass would remain the same. I'm still living on the same planet, after all. There should be some cosmic rule that your mass remains stable once you have achieved adult equilibrium. I think Einstein tried to introduce the "cosmological constant" to explain inconsistencies in his theories. I've tried playing the same card with my Doctor at my annual check-up, he looks at me with great skepticism and still tells me to cut down on the cheese.
Which is what the moon is made of, so we have come full circle.
In other news I let the Squidlet watch the previously linked "A Grand Day Out", and after it finished he immediately set about building a rocket so he could go to the moon to have a picnic.
Quote from: railsquid on July 14, 2019, 05:11:25 AM
In other news I let the Squidlet watch the previously linked "A Grand Day Out", and after it finished he immediately set about building a rocket so he could go to the moon to have a picnic.
Make sure he packs the crackers!
I was still using a ripple tank in Physics classes up until retirement :thumbsup:
Regarding the Hasselblads, I'd say that leaving them on the moon was probably correct - certainly on the Apollo 17 mission. All in-flight photos taken during the trans-Earth coast were taken with a 35mm Nikon.
Quote from: Bealman on July 14, 2019, 04:40:32 AM
In terms of Physics, weight is a force. In reality, a person's "weight" is really their mass (kg) multiplied by the acceleration due to gravity (ms-2), as in Newton's 2nd law, F=ma. This gives the weight force in kgms-2, also known as Newtons.
Because the moon is one sixth the size of the Earth, the acceleration due to gravity there is only a sixth of what it is on Earth (g, or 9.8ms-2 on Earth). However, an astronaut's mass remains the same.
There was a lovely example of this in the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey - where newly arrived people in the moon base hadn't yet grasped the difference between mass and weight so kept banging into walls instead of going around corners as they'd intended.
In relation to earlier posts about the Apollo Guidance Computer, this old video shows just how primitive, but at the same time ingenious, it was:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIBhPsyYCiM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIBhPsyYCiM)
The video also reminds us of the thousands of people who made it possible. Those ladies in the film played a vital part in the assembly of one of the most important elements of the spacecraft!
How cool is that?
Hand sewn ferrite core memory! Amazing. :worried:
We had our first colour TV, just in time to watch the launch of Apollo 11. I remember being very exited and worried that it would not arrive in time.....
Unfortunately the moon camera was B&W.... so I guess it wouldn't have mattered if it hadn't ;)
Re earlier posts (put my science teachers hat on ) mass increases with velocity, that's why
in outer space if you are hit by a small particle of dust travelling at 20, 000 km /hour it's
like being hit by a 15 inch shell. On a smaller scale it's sore being hit by a driven golf ball,
same principle just slower. As everyone knows no man made object can reach the speed of light
as the mass would increase to infinity. (Rules of physics don't apply in scifi movies) or Sigourney
Weaver and the ship's cat would be about 10 million years old by the time they encountered
the alien..............
No mass stays constant (as far as we are concerned, with the sort of speeds that matter to us), it is the momentum and the kinetic energy that increase with velocity - and therefore the force of impact when it has to decelerate suddenly.
Yes, in reality, mass does increase with velocity, but not in any way noticeable at the speeds that we can actually achieve. It only matters at significant fractions of the speed of light - the closer you get, the more massive you become and so need more power to continue to accelerate ... hence the speed of light being an absolute limit.
As for faster than light travel. There was some debate a few years ago when a scientist showed that a warp field (as used in Star-trek) was theoretically possible, but not practically, as it would take more than all the energy in the universe to create one big enough for a space-ship. A week later someone else pointed out that as it is a field warping space, there is nothing to say that it needs to be that big on the outside! Who knows what may be possible!
A few nights ago there was a tv programme with nuts who claimed the moon landings were hoaxes,
their daft arguments were demolished easily by various experts. One aspect was that the Russians
were spying on NASA technology and if the moon landings were hoaxes they would have blown it.
However one of the conspiracy nuts said the Russians knew it but couldn't prove it,( having your
cake and eating it). Reminds me of another nitwit who claimed the Titanic which sank had been
switched with another ship, now just off to go for a drink with Lord Lucan and Glenn Miller.
relive the whole mission
https://apolloinrealtime.org
An earlier post on this thread alluded to the movie called the Dish which was about the machinations surrounding the receipt of the first vision signals from Armstrong landing on the Moon. As the Dish tells the story it was the radio telescope at Parkes, NSW, Australia that received the first images from the Moon. Except this is factually incorrect as it was a dish at Honeysuckle Creek 3/4 of an hour's drive from us in Canberra that received the vision of Armstrong stepping onto the Moon. Today this dish (DSS 46) has been moved to the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex Deep Space Tracking station at Tidbinbilla a few kilometers away where another dish was used at the time for tracking the lunar module. https://www.cdscc.nasa.gov/ (https://www.cdscc.nasa.gov/) . DSS 46 is still at Tidbinbilla, but the installation at Honeysuckle Creek has been completely dismantled except for some information signs. I paid it a visit a couple of days ago.
Webbo
Quote from: themadhippy on July 17, 2019, 03:54:04 PM
relive the whole mission
https://apolloinrealtime.org
Same link in post#1 :thumbsup:
That's a cool link to the Canberra stuff, Ian! :beers:
Quote from: broadsword on July 17, 2019, 03:18:19 PM
A few nights ago there was a tv programme with nuts who claimed the moon landings were hoaxes,
their daft arguments were demolished easily by various experts.
There's an interview with Armstrong on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJzOIh2eHqQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJzOIh2eHqQ)
About 39 minutes in there's a split screen sequence which shows the familiar footage shot from the descending LEM on one side with footage from Google Moon tracking across the same area. The match is perfect, except at the end of the sequence there's an object in the Google sequence which is not in the LEM's - presumably the descent stage of the LEM itself. It's worth watching the whole interview.
Just took a look at that. Chuffed it was in Australia!
I think you're right about the Google bit, Roger. They appear to have put the lem on the surface. :thumbsup:
science eh ? what an achievement .....
well last night ....
Karina Canellakis made history, as the first woman to conduct the First Night of the BBC Proms. Her opening night kicked off with a complex, layered new work by Canadian composer Zosha Di Castri.
Long Is the Journey - Short Is the Memory was commissioned to mark the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and explored everything from the dark, brooding exploration of space to man's first weightless steps on the lunar surface.
Di Castri managed to convey the eerie loneliness of that first moonwalk in a section where the orchestra rubbed together paper bags, blew compressed air into milk bottles, and scraped tuning keys across harp strings, while a lone oboe represented the awestruck wonder of astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong.
The chorus, meanwhile, sang an evocative text by Chinese-British author Xiaolu Guo: "We stepped out and bounced, skipped, swang wide, set the flag on the silent lunar surface."
Researching the piece left a major impression on the composer, who had never before considered the monumental human effort behind the Moon landings.
sure to look out for the recording if that interested but i just switched on the radio, twiddled knobs and what ? i said ....
sounded interesting !!!!! if a recording is found later will try and put a snippet
so i had to check the www.bbc.co.uk (http://www.bbc.co.uk)
??? :confused2:
Sorry unsure what i should quote just interesting bit of music and i like the proms. And the moon landings are part of history i guess
Quote from: crewearpley40 on July 20, 2019, 01:29:37 AM
sounded interesting !!!!! if a recording is found later will try and put a snippet
The concert is repeated on Radio 3 on Monday 22nd at 1400 and the TV broadcast is on the iPlayer.
As I sit here tonight, I'm looking at my diary from 1969.
Little did I know then, that, 50 years later, to the day, I'd be on crutches and wearing a plastic moonboot! :worried:
Thanks roger for that
Roger. Copy that, Houston.
hope that you get well george if on crutches, worth a listen to that
Quote from: Bealman on July 20, 2019, 11:56:34 AM
As I sit here tonight, I'm looking at my diary from 1969.
Little did I know then, that, 50 years later, to the day, I'd be on crutches and wearing a plastic moonboot! :worried:
But let's be grateful that we were alive to witness the mission and are still alive and able to remember it!
Agreed
Quote from: rogerdB on July 20, 2019, 02:17:27 PM
Quote from: Bealman on July 20, 2019, 11:56:34 AM
As I sit here tonight, I'm looking at my diary from 1969.
Little did I know then, that, 50 years later, to the day, I'd be on crutches and wearing a plastic moonboot! :worried:
But let's be grateful that we were alive to witness the mission and are still alive and able to remember it!
Sometimes I wish I'd been born about a decade earlier as I missed all the exciting space stuff. As it was I would have witnessed Apollo 17 late in the third trimester, for Apollo 16 I may just about technically have existed as a clump of cells.
Quote from: railsquid on July 20, 2019, 03:27:02 PM
Quote from: rogerdB on July 20, 2019, 02:17:27 PM
Quote from: Bealman on July 20, 2019, 11:56:34 AM
As I sit here tonight, I'm looking at my diary from 1969.
Little did I know then, that, 50 years later, to the day, I'd be on crutches and wearing a plastic moonboot! :worried:
But let's be grateful that we were alive to witness the mission and are still alive and able to remember it!
Sometimes I wish I'd been born about a decade earlier as I missed all the exciting space stuff. As it was I would have witnessed Apollo 17 late in the third trimester, for Apollo 16 I may just about technically have existed as a clump of cells.
Me too! I generally like when I was born and would prefer to be a child of the 80's than of the 70's, but I would have loved to been alive and aware during the Moon-era. I also think that would have been a great decade for NFL football and MLB baseball, just knowing my preferences for how the game is played. That said, I missed out on Vietnam entirely and the rest of what I call "the lost decade".
i was not even born but soundede fascinating when i read up on this
here is the beeb c yes the corporation clip and some
commentary
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-48991051 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-48991051)
A couple of pages from my 1969 diary....
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/79/255-210719055839-796992451.jpeg)
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/79/255-210719060530.jpeg)
It would appear the young Bealman was a very active young lad in those days.... climbing over Striding Edge one day, and brewing beer another!
Here's the front page of our local rag from saturday:
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/79/255-210719055837-796972419.jpeg)
Quote from: Bealman on July 21, 2019, 06:14:04 AM
A couple of pages from my 1969 diary....
It would appear the young Bealman was a very active young lad in those days.... climbing over Striding Edge one day, and brewing beer another!
Pity his diary didn't have a spool chucker :P
Was that article well thumbed or sepia toned?
Quote from: crewearpley40 on July 21, 2019, 08:18:05 AM
Was that article well thumbed or sepia toned?
Probably just its age - newspaper paper does tend to go yellow with age quicker than better quality paper which is intended to last better.
Quote from: chrism on July 21, 2019, 08:11:54 AM
Quote from: Bealman on July 21, 2019, 06:14:04 AM
A couple of pages from my 1969 diary....
It would appear the young Bealman was a very active young lad in those days.... climbing over Striding Edge one day, and brewing beer another!
Pity his diary didn't have a spool chucker :P
Yeah, I noticed that - good job I wasn't doing English in me A levels :D
Bit like a few old sports programmes, cuttings and items that were passed down to me. I keejp mine in a plastic folder now
I subscribed to Life magazine in the late '60s and kept hundreds of pages bound into four heavy volumes. They recorded the disasters of the decade as well as the high points, so here's the issue of 20th February 1967 recording the Apollo 1 pad fire.
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/79/6299-210719102148.jpeg)
A better story to report, the flight of Apollo 8 from the 20th January 1969 issue.
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/79/6299-210719102208.jpeg)
And Apollo 11 featured on August 18th.
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/79/6299-210719102235.jpeg)
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/79/6299-210719102313.jpeg)
Is it worth anything? To a collector?
Thanks, Roger.
The Apollo 8 mission was covered in the May 1969 issue of National Geographic, and eleven in the December issue of the same year.
I had both issues (nicked from Houghton-le-Spring grammar school), but we'll not go there.
I don't have them any more, unfortunately, but the December issue had a state of the art (back then) very thin plastic double sided 45 rpm called "Sounds of the Space Age."
Lost that, too :(
Quote from: crewearpley40 on July 21, 2019, 10:47:39 AM
Is it worth anything? To a collector?
I guess if I had kept the complete issue it might have been. But I kept just the articles I wanted and bound them into a 'book'. The whole year is a tome of about 900 pages and I have four year's worth. They are fascinating reading and a snapshot of the time. I spotted an article about a fantastic new idea - home recording on video tape! And this at a time when the BBC couldn't afford to keep recordings of their tv coverage of Apollo 11; instead the tapes were wiped and re-used.
Thank you roger. Over and out
Yes, most definitely a snapshot of the time.
As far as collectors items go, your mags are like models. Take them out of the original box and they ain't worth nowt.
Sorry, lapsed into my grammar school English there ;)
Shortly after the moon landings I bought a set of 35MM slides which had been duplicated from the original 6x6 pix.
I viewed with a projector , just brilliant.
the proms recording i mentioned can be found here ;
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0006w9b/bbc-proms-2019-1-first-night-of-the-proms-part-one (https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0006w9b/bbc-proms-2019-1-first-night-of-the-proms-part-one)
I had a very pleasant Saturday evening spent watching the Smithsonian channel as it tracked through the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions. It culminated with Neil Armstrong putting his boot on the lunar surface at 9.56pm Eastern time, exactly 50 years to the minute after it all happened - nice touch! I have to say I had forgotten that the missions were so close together, but given JFKs deadline of the end of the decade I guess I shouldn't have been surprised.
I was 5 and a quarter years old in July 1969 (at that age every 3 months counts!!!). I remember the moon landings vividly on a grainy black and white TV at home in South London. I also remember Apollo 13, especially being amazed at how long it seemed to drag on (although at that age two weeks would have felt like a lifetime). But what I sadly don't remember is whether my moon landing memories include Apollo 11 or not :( Neither of my parents is still alive to help me remember and my only sibling is a few years younger.
So I have no idea whether I would have remembered what happened when I was 5 and a quarter years old...
Cheer up, mate.... I was making home brew at the time! :beers:
Five years before I arrived at my new home..... and now!!!!
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/79/255-230719061157-798271208.jpeg)
Still in good condition?
A bit more recent but..............
Seeing as I started this thread, just before it goes to a close, I thought I might humbly draw attention to the fact that Bealman has been on a NASA website for twenty years....
https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/ (https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/)
Acknowledgements.... George Green.
Just sayin' :-[
Thread bump.
Fifty years ago today, Apollo 12 left for the moon.
It got hit by lightning twice, nearly caused a mission abort.
Crew: Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, Dick Gordon.
Totally awesome and successful mission.
Quote from: Bealman on November 14, 2019, 10:28:09 AM
Thread bump.
Fifty years ago today, Apollo 12 left for the moon.
Most of us do not need reminding as to just how old we are thank you George! ;)
I'm just finished watching the HBO series From the Earth to the Moon (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiup-in4OnlAhWRblAKHZnmBJQQFjACegQIARAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FFrom_the_Earth_to_the_Moon_(miniseries)&usg=AOvVaw2ELqeMDx-MxN2VEwFR5G1K)
It follows the space program from Mercury through Gemini right up to the end of the Apollo program. As well as covering the major ground breaking missions in detail, it also provides background on the development of the LEM, the politics of the press pool and the lifes of the astronaughts wifes. The series is available on DVD and well worth adding to a Christmas list.
Steven B
Quote from: Bealman on November 14, 2019, 10:28:09 AM
Fifty years ago today, Apollo 12 left for the moon.
It got hit by lightning twice, nearly caused a mission abort.
Steely-eyed missile man (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aaron): "Try SCE to auxiliary".
That's the guy! "SCE to auxiliary"
They'd have been in deep :poop: if he hadn't said that. Pete Conrad didn't know what that meant, but Alan Bean did.
:bump:
Another bump. Tomorrow (April 11th) marks the 50th anniversary of the lift off of the ill-fated Apollo 13 - NASA's "Successful Failure".
Getting those guys back alive was an amazing story of engineering, problem solving and bravery. It was made into a hit movie in 1995, directed by Ron Howard, and starring Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell. Watch for a cameo appearance by the real Jim Lovell at the end! The movie was based on Lovell's book "Lost Moon" and yes, I have an autographed copy!
Interestingly, in the official NASA post-mission report, Apollo Program Director Rocco A. Petrone wrote:
"Apollo 13, launched 11 April 1970, was aborted after 56 hours of flight and terminated on 17 April 1970. The planned lunar landing was not accomplished and this mission is adjudged unsuccessful in accordance with the objectives stated above."
This was a vicious matter-of-fact assessment, which many objected to, including legendary flight director Gene Kranz, who called it "NASA's finest hour."
Anyway, to commemorate this landmark mission, I dug out the T-shirt that Bealette two got me when she visited Cape Canaveral some years ago. "Failure is not an option", Kranz's famous quote from his duty shift at the time.
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/90/255-100420083849-906871202.jpeg)
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/90/255-100420083415-90686904.jpeg)
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/90/255-100420083239-90684936.jpeg)
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/90/255-100420083141-9068377.jpeg)
I believe Lovell and Haise are still alive.
Quote from: Bealman on April 10, 2020, 09:24:22 AM
:bump:
Another bump. Tomorrow (April 11th) marks the 50th anniversary of the lift off of the ill-fated Apollo 13 - NASA's "Successful Failure".
I believe Lovell and Haise are still alive.
Yep, 92 and 86 respectively. As is Gene Kranz, also 86.
Jack Swigert died in 1982, aged 51, after he was elected to Congress but before being sworn in.
I saw the movie before I knew the full story, and I have enjoyed learning more about this mission and the Apollo program ever since.
I picked up a mission patch for XIII when I was in Kennedy in 09. Yes the place was awash with 40th anniversary merchandise for Apollo XI, but for the reasons outlined above XIII always impressed me more.
Humans can be brilliant.
Skyline2uk
I have been fortunate to visit Kennedy in Florida a couple of times - it is awe inspiring. You simply cannot get a sense of scale from photos. The Saturn V rocket is enormous and you can walk around it in the "new" visitor centre. They actually had a shuttle launch when we went the first time.
As for the conspiracy theories about "did they/didn't they" then a visit to Kennedy should convince most people. One look at the Lunar lander convinced me that it was all true. If you were going to fake it then you would not produce something that looks like a spider covered in tin foil. :o
Total respect to the brave astronauts and the thousands of people who made the Apollo programme a reality.
God speed.
Paddy
All anyone has to do is look at the NASA pics from 1960 onwards showing the development of the Saturn booster, all the test flights, some successful, some not, the construction of the VAB between 1964 - 67, the Grumman engineering data showing the evolution of the lunar module, etc, etc to realise that this was no hoax!
I've always thought that because the Americans landed on the moon at the height of the Cold War then if they had not, the Russians would have been first to tell us so..... They had the technology to get there themselves so surely must have known what was going on.
The problem with a lot of conspiracy theories is that they don't think wide enough about other things that might prove something did or did not happen, they stick to a narrow band of information that keeps to their own views.
Anyway, everyone knows the Earth is flat, don't they? (Now there's one group of nutters I cannot fathom out. With all the evidence now available from the space programme, the ISS, etc they still won't accept its round.......)
Dave
We're not saying it's not round, we know it's round and flat...
...what we're saying is it's not spherical.
Quote from: Southerngooner on April 10, 2020, 01:10:11 PM
I've always thought that because the Americans landed on the moon at the height of the Cold War then if they had not, the Russians would have been first to tell us so..... They had the technology to get there themselves so surely must have known what was going on.
For anyone interested in the "What if the Russians got there first" alternative history, I can thoroughly recommend the "For All Mankind" series on Apple TV+. Worth joining for a month just to watch that alone 8)
In the early 2000's, I was lucky enough to meet someone in the USA via the fledgling internet who became a close friend and was able to supply me with lots of cool space stuff, including signed astronaut autobiographies.
For anyone interested in the early American space programme,a series of publications by Apogee Books, Box 62034,Burlington, Ontario, L7R 4K2, Canada, called The NASA Mission Reports is essential reading.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apogee_Book (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apogee_Book)
These publications are excellent as they contain just about everything - technical details, press releases, astronaut debriefings, etc.
I have these:
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/90/255-110420022550-906981253.jpeg)
AS can be seen, the first moon landing, Apollo 11, has three volumes devoted to it. For the real enthusiasts, one of the volumes is devoted totally to the spacecraft systems, and is very technical indeed. That volume alone should be enough to dispel the hoax crap - if it was a hoax, then it would have to be the most elaborate expensive hoax ever!! >:(
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/90/255-110420022614-907171957.jpeg)
The edition devoted to Apollo 13 cover shows the PR picture that was hurriedly taken a couple of days before the flight, when Swigert (centre) replaced Mattingly as Command Module Pilot (the "measles" incident).
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/90/255-110420022642-90718836.jpeg)
Another great thing is that each of these books come with a CD-ROM (the preferred storage medium of the early 2000s), with all sorts of cool stuff on them. The Apollo 13 one has videos of the launch, inflight video from just before the explosion, interviews and more.
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/90/255-110420022706-90719296.jpeg)
Included are colour photos of various aspects of the mission, including of course the ones that were all over the media in 1970 when they got home safely:
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/90/255-110420022829-907221099.jpeg)
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/90/255-110420022857-907232315.jpeg)
But there is also heaps of technical information - the post mission operation report, debriefing and accident hearings being stuff that was not released to the public at the time. This is fascinating reading if you are into the technicalities.
Graphs and stuff:
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/90/255-110420022919-90724958.jpeg)
And this picture taken of the jettisoned service module showing the damage, but also telling you what was damaged (yeah, I know, I got my foot in the pic):
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/90/255-110420022756-907212415.jpeg)
One of my favourite parts of the book is on the first page - Thomas Paine, a NASA heavyweight at the time, reminding people just how difficult flying to the moon is/was.....
.....something which, only 8 months after the first lunar landing, people had already forgotten, and the "American public were showing signs of apathy towards the spectacular events transpiring a quarter of a million miles away."
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/90/255-110420022941-90725387.jpeg)
Hi @Bealman (https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=profile;u=255)
If you look at what would have been involved in faking the moon landings then I personally believe it was easier (and probably cheaper) to do it for real! Also, one has to remember that this was a very different time where risk was accepted, if not embraced by people having lived through WWII and Korea. Despite our objections to the contrary, today's society has become VERY risk averse.
What saddens me most is that to date, the Apollo programme (program? ;) ) stands as mankind's high water mark of achievement. We do have visionaries like Elon Musk but in the main our dreams have become rather mundane. It seems to me that what passes for achievement these days is the release of a new iPhone... :(
I must be getting old. ;)
Kind regards
Paddy
Good on ya, Paddy - I agree with every point in your post. The reference to WWII and Korea is particularly relevant - John Glenn was a fighter pilot who took out some Russian MiGs over Korea. Most of the Apollo astronauts were fighter jocks or test pilots before they joined NASA.
Elon Musk is indeed a visionary, but he has some bad days. As recently as 7 March, he tweeted, "The caronavirus is dumb," and as to his idea of sending in a submarine to gets those kids out of that cave..... well, :worried:
We need a return to the moon and a mission to Mars!! :thumbsup:
Hi @Bealman (https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=profile;u=255)
Like most if not all visionaries / great people, Elon has his flaws (serious in some cases). By the way, I do not use the term "great" to mean "good". One could argue that Hitler was a great man but certainly not good.
Putting a man and/or women on Mars would be amazing although I suspect the time where governments are able to allocate the resources required has past. We have blown all the dosh on wars, the banks and excess consumption...
Now when are Apple going to release the iPhone XXX? :D
Kind regards
Paddy
:laughabovepost: :laughabovepost:
I'll stick with me Android phone ;) ;D
And they managed to get Matt Damon back from Mars in Ridley Scott's "The Martian" :thumbsup:
.... and having watched Tom Hanks in "Captain Phillips" last night, I might just watch him in"Apollo 13" tonight!
Hi @Bealman (https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=profile;u=255)
Yep, planning to watch Apollo 13 today as well.
Kind regards
Paddy
Vue cinemas were Doing a special showing ( big screen) of the film but cancelled due to current problems!,,
An interesting (if lengthy) listen: Apollo 13 Accident - Flight Director Loop Part 1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWfnY9cRXO4) (YouTube).
I must say however that having reviewed much of the Apollo footage available on YouTube that NASA made a very obvious omission when faking the footage, as not once in any of the 6 landings do any astronauts stop to harvest and sample moon cheese.
Quote from: railsquid on April 11, 2020, 03:00:10 PM
as not once in any of the 6 landings do any astronauts stop to harvest and sample moon cheese.
Two reasons - i) they were crackers and ii) they forgot the cheese knife. :)
Quote from: railsquid on April 11, 2020, 03:00:10 PM
I must say however that having reviewed much of the Apollo footage available on YouTube that NASA made a very obvious omission when faking the footage, as not once in any of the 6 landings do any astronauts stop to harvest and sample moon cheese.
Well, they had to leave something for Wallace and Gromit to do :laugh:
Apollo 13 watched and very much enjoyed.
Happy Easter everyone.
Kind regards
Paddy
Copy that, Houston Paddy :beers:
Quote from: Paddy on April 11, 2020, 09:29:46 PM
Apollo 13 watched and very much enjoyed.
Ditto - failure to do so was not an option ;)
Dunno if you'll have seen this elsewhere or not, George, so here it is anyway;
Apollo 13: Enhanced images reveal life on stricken spacecraft
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52264743 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52264743)
No, mate, I must admit I haven't! Cool! Thanks for this link! :thumbsup:
I do hope our photo stacking expert and modeller extraordinaire @rogerdB (https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=profile;u=6299) has a look at this! :beers:
Quote from: Bealman on April 13, 2020, 09:19:20 AM
No, mate, I must admit I haven't! Cool! Thanks for this link! :thumbsup:
I do hope our photo stacking expert and modeller extraordinaire @rogerdB (https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=profile;u=6299) has a look at this! :beers:
Spotted the BBC News page this morning. Clever stuff - glad I'm not starting with moving images!
50 years ago today they splashed down safely in full view of the recovery ship. An astonishing feat of trajectory calculation, considering the circumstances.
They'd all lost weight and Haise had a kidney infection. The frogmen who opened the hatch said it was like opening the door to a freezer. You could see your breath in there.
Kranz admitted some years later that while they were sending up commands to power this down, power that down, including all heating, he says that they were so focused on getting them home that they never really considered how close they came to the limits of what those men could endure, close to the point of non-survival.
Lost Moon by Jim Lovell & Jeffrey Kluger is well worth a read as a first-hand telling of the Apollo 13 Mission. It's years since I last read it but it's remarkable how close the mission came to ending with deadly results.
Steven B.
I have a copy of that, autographed by Lovell himself. :thumbsup:
Anyway, we're coming up on the 50th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 14 (Jan 31), the first mission after the Apollo 13 incident. The mission is interesting for several things:
The commander was Alan Shepard, America's first man in space. He'd been grounded all through the sixties because of inner ear balance problems. He took on the role of head of the astronaut office, and was known as the Ice Commander.
An operation cured his condition, and he was put back on flight status. He then used his position to leapfrog other astronauts to secure a moonflight. He could be quite a nasty piece of work at times, apparently.
He is the astronaut who played golf on the moon.
The mission almost ended before it began, as they had difficulty docking the command module with the lunar module in order to withdraw it from the spent S-IVB stage.
Landing was also problematic - the radar refused to lock on to the lunar surface during descent.
This mission had a trolley to carry picks and tools - a MET (Modular Equipment Transporter in NASA speak). Shepard and Mitchell often had trouble with it, sometimes carrying it rather than pulling it.
The main objective of the mission, walking to the rim of Cone Crater, was not achieved, the astronauts became lost and fatigued. NASA instructed them to turn back, although subsequent analysis showed they were in fact within 100 feet of the crater rim.
Nevertheless, the mission was successful overall, splashing down Feb 9 1971, and restored NASA's confidence in their spacecraft.
50 years ago, Apollo 14 was on it's way to the moon for a Feb 5 landing. Interesting that this was considered the most scientifically unrewarding of all the missions - because the astronauts didn't pay attention to their geology lessons!
They basically were fliers, and Shepard had the sole ambition to walk on the moon. The scientists were furious when he returned a large rock weighing about 1.5 kg. Obviously, this would all be made of the same stuff! He could have brought a variety of different smaller samples adding up to the same weight.
But they did wonders for the field of lunar golf research!
Indeed! Yet another reason the scientists were crapped off :thumbsup:
I'm a bit early with this one!
Fifty years ago next month, on 26th July 1971, Apollo 15 lifted off, carrying CMR Dave Scott, LMP Jim Irwin and CMP Al Worden on the most ambitious moon mission to that date.
Their destination was Hadley-Apennine, landing on a small flat area hemmed in by high mountains on three sides, and a deep canyon (or rille) on the other.
Apollo 15 was the first of three 'J' missions, designed to maximise scientific returns. On board was a rover (LRV), to transport the two astronauts and their equipment long distances over the surface.
Scientific exploration was not limited to surface activities either; the service module had a SIM bay containing a suite of mapping cameras, spectrometers and other scientific sensing instruments which Worden could operate from lunar orbit.
There was even a sub-satellite which was ejected from the SIM bay (it's still in orbit there today).
The LRV carried a colour TV camera which could be remotely controlled from mission control. This meant that geologists in the 'back room' could follow along as if they were actually there with Scott and Irwin, and make changes to the schedule in real time, if they saw something interesting.
This camera was also able to capture the lift off of the LEM from the moon.
An all-up spectacular and successful mission, which I remember very well, as I was on vacation after my first year in college.
There was only one thing that marred the mission - Scott and Irwin stamped a set of stamps which they had carried to the moon in a deal they had made with a German business man. NASA took a very grim view of this, and two very accomplished and high- achieving astronauts were dismissed immediately.
Great stuff, thank you George. :thumbsup:
A couple of days late and a month early, by the look of it :D, but many thanks for the reminder.
I still remember the Apollo 11 landing, at primary school being plunked down in front of a big TV and told "watch this, you'll never see anything like it again". With hindsight, and an unhealthy interest in all things space-y, I realise we were all watching the repeat!
thanks for the update George, makes me feel old, this was the first one after I finished school in the time which would now be called a gap as it was just before I started my apprenticeship.
Quote from: Ossian on June 29, 2021, 07:49:10 AM
A couple of days late and a month early, by the look of it :D, but many thanks for the reminder.
I still remember the Apollo 11 landing, at primary school being plunked down in front of a big TV and told "watch this, you'll never see anything like it again". With hindsight, and an unhealthy interest in all things space-y, I realise we were all watching the repeat!
Quite correct, sir. For some reason I thought it was the end of July and not the end of June! I think this lockdown we are currently under here might be taking it's toll... :worried:
Anyway, I've fixed it. :beers:
I got to touch a slice of 'moon' rock at Houston some years ago.
They obviously still valued it highly as you had to 'snake' your hand through a thick acrylic 'baffle' to touch it. Presumably done to discourage people from trying to lever it off its plinth. The whole display was in room of its own which was a vault with one of the thickest doors I've ever seen.
The door was significantly thicker than the blast doors of the Titan II missile silo and command bunker we visited some years later.
A personal anecdote to this mission: I've actually met Al Worden,the command module pilot of the Apollo 15 mission. He passed away not very long ago, unfortunately, but there are not many Apollo astronauts left alive these days.
Sometime back in the eighties, my local shopping centre (yes, the one beside the bus stop, for the fans of my banal thread) advertised a promotion "Meet the Astronauts". I don't know exactly who they had lined up, but I remember thinking that these guys must have landed on hard times if they were doing tours of Australian shopping centres! Kinda sad, I thought.
Anyway, I turned up on a cold Thursday night, just to see. In the middle of the centre they had a little stage and a mike set up, a space suit hanging on a hook, and about thirty chairs in front of the stage. Probably no more than a dozen people were sitting there.
The astronaut turned out to be Al Worden, which impressed me no end, but not the few people who were sitting there, who were obviously expecting Neil Armstrong and had no idea who the hell this guy was.
Worden explained a little bit about his mission in simple terms, and pointed out features of his space suit. He then fielded questions. The morons sitting there asked stuff like "what's it like to fly in space?" and of course the perennial uber-stupid "How do you go to the toilet in space?"
I was getting a bit frustrated, so put me hand up, and said:
"Colonel Worden, when Apollo 15 splashed down, it did so on only two main chutes instead of three. That must have been a pretty heavy landing! Would you care to share your experience of that?"
The guy seemed genuinely taken aback by that, and I could see he was pleased to have been asked a question about his mission. He went on to explain the probable reason why one of the chutes hadn't reefed, and said they hit the water "like a ton of bricks."
Anyway I hung back when the Thurday night shoppers went on to more important things like going into K-Mart, and had a good chat to the man. I felt honoured to be in the company of a fellow who had been on one of the most scientifically rewarding voyages ever.
Andy Warhol said that every one will have 15 minutes of fame. That was probably mine ;)
Quote from: Bealman on June 29, 2021, 08:56:52 AM
.......... the perennial uber-stupid "How do you go to the toilet in space?"
I must be a perennial uber-stupid person as I don't know the answer to that but would like to know :hmmm:
Quote from: Trainfish on June 29, 2021, 12:08:14 PM
Quote from: Bealman on June 29, 2021, 08:56:52 AM
.......... the perennial uber-stupid "How do you go to the toilet in space?"
I must be a perennial uber-stupid person as I don't know the answer to that but would like to know :hmmm:
Fill yer boots - no, not literally :smiley-laughing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_toilet
Matt Damon used "astronaut waste" to grow potatoes in the film where he is stranded on Mars :)
So basically it's like a wet & dry vacuum cleaner? Need to be careful not to get your todger too close though unless urine to you're into that sort of thing :goggleeyes:
In the Mars film it was bagged and labelled with the name of the donor.
The smelliest sample came from one of the female members of the crew.
Good film, that Matt Damon Martian.
But, ahem, a couple of more Apollo 15 anecdotes....
That very same Al Worden became the first person to make an EVA (spacewalk) a long, long way from home! During the trans-Earth coast on the homeward journey, he ventured out back along the service module to recover film cartridges from the SIM bay.
Now to Bealman, that must have been one of the most mind-blowing experiences ever. Imagine floating, surrounded by nothing but three dimensional black nothingness all around you, then looking back and seeing the sunlit disc of the moon, and then the other way to see the blue Earth, which you are falling towards at 20,000+ miles per hour!
This brought the number of cabin depressurisations to 5 on this mission. NASA managers were concerned about this. When the lunar module landed at Hadley, Dave Scott had insisted on doing a 'stand-up' EVA, where both men had to suit up, depressurise the cabin, and Scott stood up on the ascent engine cover, poking his head out through the overhead rendevous hatch.
He then proceeded to take a series of photographs in a 360 degree pan. To me, this seemed to be an unnecessary procedure - he could have done the same from the surface, and I can understand why the brass would be annoyed about it. It is interesting that this did not happen on the remaining two flights.
Ok, time marches on....
Fifty years ago today, a controller in firing room one at the Cape pressed a button which began the countdown for Apollo 16, headed to the Descartes region of the moon.
Strangely enough, I was on a geology field trip at the time in alien territory (alien to a Durham lad) in Gloucester!
Quote from: Bealman on April 09, 2022, 02:01:56 AM
Ok, time marches on....
Fifty years ago today, a controller in firing room one at the Cape pressed a button which began the countdown for Apollo 16, headed to the Descartes region of the moon.
Strangely enough, I was on a geology field trip at the time in alien territory (alien to a Durham lad) in Gloucester!
I had dinner a few years ago with Charlie Duke, Lunar Module Pilot on that Apollo 16 mission. He's also the guy who responds to Neil Armstrong after they landed, telling the Apollo 11 crew that the launch controllers are breathing again, that they were about to turn blue! Duke is a genuinely fascinating and friendly guy and it was a real pleasure & honour to talk technicalities with him - he still remembers everything from that mission, as most of those guys do.
I bought his lunar map, the long, folded, ring of paper that he used during ground training, showing the entire lunar surface under their projected flight path. It's an exact copy of the one he had aboard "Orion" (their Lunar Module) on the mission.
I wish I'd been alive for those Lunar missions. With a bit of luck we have some new ones coming later this decade though.
Ross.
My son-in-law met Duke and Mattingnly when they were in Sydney a few years ago. Cool guys, he reckoned.
Young and Duke had the famous conversation on the moon about oranges and farts, when they thought the microphone was off.
Fifty years ago today (18 April) Apollo 16 was halfway to the moon. Good mission synopsis here:
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/apollo-16-pictures-the-most-dazzling-place/
My first recollection of space was John Glenn and Friendship 7. The capsule did a (terrestrial) thank you tour around the world and was in Sydney in July 1962. My mum took me along to see it in Hyde Park, near St James station. It was set up with a mannequin inside and I was amazed at how tiny the space was. During the orbits I had argued with my parents and insisted we turn every light on in the house, which we did. Glenn's orbits didn't pass over Sydney, but the people of Perth turned their lights on and it was a good marker as a finish to the Indian ocean and start of the Australian continent.
Godspeed, John Glenn
Quote from: Bealman on April 09, 2022, 07:25:53 AM
My son-in-law met Duke and Mattingnly when they were in Sydney a few years ago. Cool guys, he reckoned.
Young and Duke had the famous conversation on the moon about oranges and farts, when they thought the microphone was off.
Ah yes, and no doubt a source of great amusement for the archives at NASA.
The recorded transcripts of the Apollo missions (and the Mercury / Gemini before as far as I know) are legendary.
The discussions about porridge eating contests (specifically how good one "Buzz" Aldrin was at eating the stuff) in Corby which were taking place as Apollo 11 made their journey has led to a crater on Mars being named "Corby".
Yeah, Engineers and their "humour"
Skyline2uk
There are loads of exhibits from the Apollo missions in the Smithsonian Aerospace Museum in Washington DC. Well worth a visit.
what a wonderful place, managed to get there in 93 as part of a work trip when I had the weekend free, thought I'll have a couple of hours there and then look around Washington for a bit. walked in as the doors opened and came out at 4pm, managed to touch a piece of moon rock then, wonder if they still allow that.
Yes, I was there in 2005, and touched the moon rock then. It was a cut polished slab from the Apollo 17 mission, if I recall, but could be wrong.
One of my favourite exhibits was Dave Scott's suit from the Apollo 15 mission, still covered in moon dust. Amazing to think that it had walked on the moon.
Another was the Skylab. I thought, this is a good copy, with pipes and everything. It wasn't a copy! NASA built two, but this one never flew.
Like Graham, I was there all day!
I was watching the Orion spacecraft splash down after a brilliantly successful Artemis 1 mission. Great to see the way to the moon is now open again, because it's now 50 years since Gene Cernan left the last human footprints there.
As I type this, 50 years ago the Apollo 17 lunar module Challenger was sitting in the valley of Taurus-Littrow, and Cernan and Jack Schmitt (the only geologist ever to go there) were conducting three highly productive EVAs.
It's great that after 50 years, they're using the upgraded Apollo era technology again. :thumbsup:
My phone has lost the ability to view YouTube videos at the moment, but if you Google Apollo 17 lift off from the moon, you'll see the amazing last liftoff from the moon.
The sound is equally fascinating. Cernan says words like,
Abort stage, engine arm is in.
Ok I'll get the pro.
99 is in.
Ok, 3 2 1, ignition! We're on our way, Houston!
The first comments refer to the computer was told to abort the descent stage, and arm the ascent engine.
Pro refers to program. Program 99 is the liftoff sequence.
The footage is special because the TV camera on the rover was remotely operated by Ed Fendell in Houston, who correctly compensated for the time lag to the moon, and managed to scan the camera up and capture the moment of pitch over, when you can clearly see the LM ascent engine burning.