Moon landing - 50 years

[Bob G]

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

[railsquid]

These any good?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKWS4G9TouM


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6C6I_Cpcw4


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1W_VYCzics

[chrism]

These any good?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKWS4G9TouM


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6C6I_Cpcw4


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

[Bob G]

Wow - amazing.
This achievement never fails to impress.
Bob

[Bealman]

Go to the NASA Apollo Image archive and you can view entire Hasselblad camera magazines of every mission.

[broadsword]

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.

[LASteve]

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.

[railsquid]

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 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.

[LASteve]

... 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.

[Bealman]

Wot he said. 

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.

[LASteve]

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.

[railsquid]

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.

[LASteve]

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!

[Bealman]

I was still using a ripple tank in Physics classes up until retirement 

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.

[chrism]

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.