Moon landing - 50 years

Started by Bealman, July 11, 2019, 07:54:18 AM

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Bealman

#105
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/

Acknowledgements.... George Green.

Just sayin'  :-[
Vision over visibility. Bono, U2.

Bealman

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.
Vision over visibility. Bono, U2.

dannyboy

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!  ;)
David.
I used to be indecisive - now I'm not - I don't think.
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Steven B

I'm just finished watching the HBO series From the Earth to the Moon

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

railsquid

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: "Try SCE to auxiliary".

Bealman

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.
Vision over visibility. Bono, U2.

Bealman

#111
 :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.









I believe Lovell and Haise are still alive.
Vision over visibility. Bono, U2.

chrism

#112
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.

Skyline2uk

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

Paddy

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
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Bealman

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!
Vision over visibility. Bono, U2.

Southerngooner

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
Dave

Builder of "Brickmakers Lane" and member of "James Street" operating team.

emjaybee

We're not saying it's not round, we know it's round and flat...

...what we're saying is it's not spherical.
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tutenkhamunsleeping

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)

Bealman

#119
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

These publications are excellent as they contain just about everything - technical details, press releases, astronaut debriefings, etc.

I have these:



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!!  >:(



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).



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.



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:





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:



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):



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."



Vision over visibility. Bono, U2.

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