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Apollo 12 at 35
neutron_p writes "Thirty-five years ago this week, the sedentary, fine-grained powder began to rise, billow and race off toward the horizon. Soon after - at 1:54:35 a.m. EST on Nov. 19, 1969 - the lunar module Intrepid landed, bringing two more humans to the surface of another world. Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad and lunar module pilot Alan Bean would be on the Moon for more than 31 hours, with crewmate Dick Gordon orbiting above in the command module Yankee Clipper."
But you can't prove it!
I hate wasting K on redundant slashisms, but there it is.
sigs, as if you care.
Its amazing that those guys had 256k of memory (I think, maybe that was the space shuttle), and they managed to write the flight control programs without any bugs. Programmers today have trouble with 256 megs of memory
"brxref
...to be stuck in the command module, so close to the Moon yet to never set foot on it?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I think that the benefits of actual space exploration are extremely limited. But there are many positive externalities. Tang, goretex, materials advancement, programming advancement (fill me in on more, those are off the top of my head). I personally like F1, but see no great societal value in the actual racing. Many benefits have come however from the tech development required to make the cars go fast.
"brxref
Just think, this Apollo 12 in all its glory had less computing power than a Furby.
... and in the DRM, bind them.
I think the fact that something that has only happened a few times in the history of mankind is not considered "news worthy" IS the news.
This is exactly the attitude that ruined the moon program if you ask me.
I think the editor that posted this news story was trying to make this point.
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
"Thirty-five years ago this week, the sedentary, fine-grained powder began to rise, billow and race off toward the horizon."
I always thought that cocaine had been around for more than 35 years.
I have gas, but my car uses petrol.
Top Five reasons why the space program should be among our top priorities as a nation:
5. The world population doubles every 40 years. Eventually, we will have to either expand across other planets or enforce population control.
4. Every dollar invested in NASA pays off seven dollars in terms of technological development for the US economy.
3. We must expand from Earth to escape the threat of civilization-ending natural disasters, like a supervolcano, which could lower global temperatures below freezing for years. The chance of dying in a civilization-ending event is 1/455. Not to be grim, but that's 10 times more likely than dying in an commercial aircraft.
2. Scientific Exploration: Learning more about the universe around us will teach us more about our own world, ourselves, and our origins.
1. To provide the sense of progress which yields human happiness. No one likes stagnation. I can think of nothing more repulsive than the idea that in 200 years we could still be Earth-bound.
This is depressing. It used to be we had both _technological_ AND _social_ progress. For the last ~30 years, the social progress has flattened out and we are now going backwards, turning into a paranoid fascist consumer/security state with a bunch of robber-barons at the helm. Their slash-and-burn profiteering has now caused the U.S. to lose it's manufacturing and technological lead, so we are also stalled in technological progress also. Their criminal mismanagement is blamed on outsourcing and globalization, instead of bad trade policy and stupidity. Our country is now dumbed-down and medicated on a steady diet of poor public education, glorification of stupidity, media whores, and mind-numbing propaganda. The recent thievery of the national election is a new low point in our descent. RIP American Democracy, we hardly knew ye.
Visit the best Liberal Blog: DU
It's good to see success commemorated. These days, when talking about the past NASA Space Program, we only hear about failures (Challenger) or near failures (Apollo 13). Incredible achievements for the time... let's hope Bush's Trip to Mars is a serious endeavor, because I can't wait to see that!
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
From abc.net.au:
NASA explains it a little better, noting that the 74KB is actually 37KW, using 16-bit words:
Hardware
The guidance computer is a general-purpose digital machine with a basic word length, in parallel operations, of 15 bits with an added bit for parity checks. The instruction code includes subroutines for double and triple operations. Memory cycle time is 11.7 microseconds with a single addition time of 23.4 microseconds. The 'core rope', used for the fixed memory, has a capacity of about 36,864 words with an erasable memory (of ferrite core planes) of 2,048 words. The processor is formed from integrated circuits (ICs). The total computer weight is 29.5 kg. The fixed memory contains programmes, routines, constants, star and landmark co-ordinates and other pertinent data. The erasable memory acts as an intermediate store for results of computations, auxiliary programme information, and variable data supplied by the G&N and other systems of the spacecraft.
sigs, as if you care.
This was the space program with NASA in peak form. Perhaps it wasn't their finest moment (maybe either 11 or 13 was), but the breadth and ambition is utterly above NASA today. This was only the second landing, yet NASA aimed for that 31 hour stay on the surface.
They were confident that their communications around the world would keep the uplink with the astronauts as Earth rotated, confident that the first landing wasn't a lucky fluke, and willing to commit to keeping the crew there long enough to do a little real science. If the focus on 11 was largely on the medical situation of the crew, by 12 we were increasingly confident that people could survive on the Moon long enough to do something useful, and the focus began to shift to building a permanent presence there and answering some of the more interesting questions of the Planetologists.
The near disasterous shortage of fuel and over-abundance of rocky ground in the final seconds of Apollo 11's landing could have made NASA rely more on cautious approaches and more intensive micro-management, but instead it led to an increased recognition of the role of the astronauts on site in making the final decisions. That in turn gave us six successes and one gloriously redeemed failure.
Who is John Cabal?
>all I have ever cared (heck, even known) to be remotely important was Apollo 11 and Apollo 13.
yap, the first one, and the one which failed. probably the only missions most people can think of, cos they were the more spectacular missions.
but the real missions were the later ones. like 16 & 17 with over 70h time on the lunar surface. they grew much more confident with what they can and cant do on the moon in the later missions.
flight summary of manned apollo missions
apollo lunar surface journals
I really sorry for kids that have had to grow up not knowing the excitement of those days of the Apollo moon missions. I can remember in school, all the students gathering in the gym to watch the TVs. That's why for the survival of NASA, I wish they would set a new goal like a manned mission to Mars.
""Thirty-five years ago this week, the sedentary, fine-grained powder began to rise from a secret soundstage in the Nevada Desert. Soon after - at 1:54:35 a.m. EST on Nov. 19, 1969 - the lunar module Intrepid was lowered by crain onto the manufactured lunar set. Apollo 12 actor Pete Conrad and his fellow actor Alan Bean would be filmed on the set for more than 31 hours, with director Dick Gordon filming the worlds most elaborate hoax from his studio nicknamed 'The Yankee Clipper.'"
And don't even get me started on the NASA Earthquake machine...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Isn't Nov 17 the time of the year when we pass through the Leonid meteor shower? They launched on the 14th and landed on the moon on the 19th, so that means they were out there in time to fly through the debris...
Wasn't that a bit dangerous?
for those who where not around here's some links to the AGC, DSKY and more:
*Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC)
*slash article with source code listing
*Simulation of Apollo Guidance Computer
*DSKY
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
The episode for Apollo 12 with Dave Foley as Al Bean is easily my 2nd favorite after the Lunar Module episode. They really brought the characters to life, and I'll be damned if I didn't want to get to know all 3 of the Astronauts as friends after watching that.
I haven't watched it in years, but I just like Beano, I can remember to switch SCE to AUX.
Space exploration is cool. I support it. Please allow me to be a devil's advocate:
It seems to me that first world countries are having trouble keeping people procreating. The more advanced the society, the more rights the women, the better things the women have to do than sit at home and rear a half dozen to a dozen kids. Countries like Canada only grow because of immigration. Is it Taiwan that is trying to encourage procreation with subsidies?
NASA is, by every account, a grossly large organization with bureaucracy the likes of which no other entity in the world can hope to measure up to. They're too bureaucratic to save the Challenger. Why not invest incredible amounts of money in some targetted industries (A mach 10 aircraft has little real world application today) and in some "emerging" industries with higher financial risks / humanitarian rewards?
Most of the world ending scenarios seem to have other, potentially more beneficial solutions. Sure, leaving the world to go to the moon or someplace else may be a good way to spread the risk. It would be quite some time to set up the infrastructure to support a self sustaining populace that would not suffer from inbreeding. We may get to the point where this is possible, but NASA is not heading down a path to enable this. If there's a scenario that leads to a (nuclear or CO2) winter, why aren't we making subterrainian cities 10+ feet underground? I would expect one could even justify this by pointing out that such a city would be a prototype for an offworld city. Not that it should necessarily be a self contained monstrosity / joke, but something that starts to set up the infrastructure and maybe includes some geothermal carnot generators (what better way to take advantage of the perpetual winter outside than to make self-sustaining power by harnessing the power of the earth?
The inherant scientific value is irrefutable, but there is little real world application to this.
The dark ages were brought about because innovation stagnated. Everyone ran out of ideas and got so concerned with today that they stopped worrying about tomorrow. These days, we're perhaps on the brink of a newly perceived stagnation. We're masters of the air (airplanes), sea (gigantic boats and submarines) and land (earth destroying cranes, cars, trucks, trains, etc.). Microelectronics are banging against the Laws of Physics, with only nanotechnology seemingly a solution. In our daily lives, few people can think of a way to continue to innovate that makes a difference. Heck, most people don't want to upgrade their life centers (TVs) because the upgrades (HDTV) are too expensive despite how much better they are. Life changing innovation, the kinds of which impact "human happiness" are those leaps and bounds we've been hitting in the past century or two. You can't predict them, an
I love the bit where the writer describes the recommendation by the software engineer to ignore the reported errors as "a gutsy call". There's these guys, in a tiny little spacecraft, about to land on the moon, with most of the world watching, and the prestige of the USA and indeed democracy and capitalism at stake. The computer's screaming error messages. If you call for an abort, the moon effort is a flop (at least temporarily). If you call proceed and the thing craters, you're going to be the guy whose screwup killed two American heroes. "Gutsy"...more like balls of titanium!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I'm frustrated with the direction our space program has taken over the past couple decades. I'm grateful to see things like the X Prize happening, but I wish that as a nation we would make space exploration a high priority. I mean perhaps all that's there is a big bunch of rocks, but there are so many benefits that come from the technology built to make space exploration posible.
Whatever happened to exploration for explorations sake? I think that a good measure of the health of a society is it's curiosity about what's around the next corner, and it's willingness to find out. This truly shows the measure of the people.
I know that at this point all of the social bleeding hearts usually chime in "but what about all the problems right here one Earth???". Unfortunately these people are focusing on the problems, not the solution. For these problems to be fixed society has to advance as a whole, not be drug down by social agendas. When a society advances, solutions to the previously mentioned problems will come. It's simply par for the course.
Exploration is fundamental to this advancement. There's an infinite universe of stuff out there that's waiting to be discovered, and we're content to just let it be? How is that healthy? How do we know that there isn't anything there until we look? Just because the few measly areas of the universe we've looked at "don't have anything" doesn't mean there's nothing out there. This would be like flipping open a random book, reading 10 words, and determining that it has no plot.
I for one support space exploration. If the human race is going to grow we need to renew the spirit of exploration. After all, where would we be if nobody questioned the fact that the world is flat and the sun revolves around it?
Indeed. The Army was actually planning to establish a moon base in the 1950s (Project Horizon) but that was killed off when NASA's moon initiatives were given priority.
IIRC, there were two unique things to Apollo 12. First, they landed amazingly close to an unmanned Surveyer probe that landed a couple of years before. They did this in part to test precision-guided landing techniques for later missions and to bring back samples of the old probe to see how it weathered on the moon.
They actually found viable bacteria spores on parts of the returned probe that lasted the entire flight from Earth and survived for two or so years on the Moon. They learned they had to improve the sterilization process for later probes to Mars and beyond to reduce the risk of contamination from the smallest Earthlings.
Another notable is that they accidently ruined the only TV camera they had by pointing it too long at a reflection of the sun off of a peice of equipment. It used new compact color technology and was fragile. Thus, there were no live TV pictures.
They perhaps should have brought along a lighter black-and-white one as a backup. However, weight was a premium, especially in the earlier missions. In fact, Apollo 11 (the first landing) almost skipped having a TV camera altogether because of load constraints. But mission planners were talked into carrying one.
Table-ized A.I.
The photo's in the article link look somewhat fake. What's with the crosshairs... and the scenery that repeats itself. :-D
Sorry, couldn't resist.
and lunar module pilot Alan Bean would be on the Moon for more than 31 hours, with crewmate Dick Gordon orbiting above in the command module Yankee Clipper."
Those were the days. They orbited the moon with Yankee Clipper. Today we Yank with Clippy.
We should be actually living on the moon by now.
I completely disagree. The only reason I would consider going to the moon is if Dr. Helena Russell was there on Moonbase Alpha.
Needless to say she is not. Ergo, there is absolutely no reason to go to the moon, as all the hot chics are here on earth.
BTW the only thing I wish is that I saved all my toy Star Trek/Space1999 sci-fi toy crap because I could have sold it on ebay now and retired.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
You missed a few.
6. The more money invested in space exploration, the less money that goes to war.
7. Space exploration is one of the few things that many countries are working on together. This helps bring peace.
8. If all good scientists worked for NASA, or a privately funded space program, then there'd be no scientists researching weapons.
9. Australia started off as a penal colony. Perhaps this would be a good use for Mars
DarkMantle I been bored, so I started a blog.
Congratulations to the ESA. This landing shows that we're a world leader in the exploration of space, and highlights the prestige and technologic prowess of our space agency. I think every nation on Earth can recognise the bravery of our astronauts and the epic accomplishment they have achieved. Feats such as this prove that with ambition, determination, and the world's most brilliant scientists, we can achieve great things. This is truly a wonderful day for Europe, the ESA and the human race as a whole.
Edit: I've just been informed that this is old news, from the USA, back in 1969. This was nothing more than a publicity stunt and highlights the USA's careless expenditure of money at the expense of the rest of the world. I think every nation on Earth can recognise the reckless abandon in which NASA acted, with no regard for their astronaut's lives. Stunts such as this prove that the USA has ambitions to control the Moon, and that its space program employs typical idiotic gung-ho Americans. This was truly a sad day for the USA, NASA, and the human race as a whole.
Heh, yes, well the supposed fight against the spread of communism was the driving factor for most of the explosion of tech. As were the world wars. We fought two 'wars' to stop communism. We fought two wars to fight facism. Hopefully this -ism of terror doesn't make us break that pattern.
;)
We still have innovation. Except that after the wall fell, our newfound enemies were/are far smaller than the USSR. Our innovations were built on the assumption we were one team against another, similarly sized team. It's no longer Team Reds vs. Team USA; it's the Uncle Sam vs. a ton of angry killer bees.
Because we needed things like spy satellites, big navies and fast fighters (all money) to beat team red, we developed our techs like crazy. We spent like hell, we developed like hell. Now, we don't need to so much. We need stealth. We need nimbleness. And we need drugs to soothe our shell shocked loved ones.
Now, what do we have: invisible robot-controlled planes, GPS guided munitions, golf clubs that seemingly defy the first law, and Rogaine.
The current -ism doesn't really make us build wholly new techs. Until we have Minority Report technology (read minds/motives), I don't think terror will be stopped. There's always going to be small countries/groups that have far less people than the US that hate us (or one of the countries we support); they have little choice other than to channel and foment their anger into terror. And because America is getting that feeling that we're not liked everywhere (yeah, it's mainly toward the prez, but it just seems that way,) we'll circle our wagons, and this circle of hate will continue.
In the meantime, I think that we are in a good time for progress of conveinience tech. (as for social progress, well, the US just becoming lazy and a little insular, that's all). Better mpg (SUVs notwithstatnding), faster internet, stronger, um, Viagra products. (Sort of reminds me of that BASF commercial) Yes, we aren't building wonderful Saturn Vs nowadays (The only way we'd ever go to the moon now would be if we heard BL had himself a terror training base buried underneath the Sea of Tranquility,) but I would rather live in an age of relative peace with my Roomba versus flying to the moon with the constant threat of Mutually Assured Destruction.
Just wait till India's or China's (more likely China at this point) GDP matches or surpasses the US. Someone will get pissed off at someone again and then the tech push will happen again. I wonder if the US would win then.
0- Eamonman Proud member of DNRC
Most things in the astronaut corps came through experience. You were backup crew on a mission and 3 missions later you were usally prime crew, for example. Being the command module pilot put you in good stead to be the mission commander on a later flight. Jim Lovell was CM pilot on Apollo 8 and commander on Apollo 13 (Frank Borman was commander of Apollo 8 and probably would have been commander of Apollo 11 if he'd not quit being an astronaut). Dave Scott was CM pilot of Apollo 9 and commander of Apollo 15. John Young was CM pilot of Apollo 10 and commander of Apollo 16.
As for the others, Apollo 7's crew was blacklisted because of their "grumpiness" in flight, Mike Collins quit being an astronaut after Apollo 11, Dick Gordon did the same after Apollo 12 and so did Jack Swigert after Apollo 13 (can't say I blame him). Stu Roosa was Apollo 14's CM pilot but his shot at commanding Apollo 17 was overtaken by Gene Cernan who had been LM pilot on Apollo 10. Apollo 18, 19 and 20 were cancelled and that was that.
Graham
If you're technologically advanced enough to be reading this, it is also likely that you are not having enough children.
(insert jokes here)
"Today about half the world lives in nations with sub-replacement fertility. ... East Asia ... Russia ... Europe ... Iran, Tunisia, Algeria, Turkey, and Lebanon ... Canada, Australia, and New Zealand ... United States is just barely below replacement with about 2.0 births per woman. All four of these nations still have growing populations due to high rates of immigration."
Back in September, NASA selected 11 companies to conduct preliminary concept studies for human lunar exploration and the development of the NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle. Many of these are your typical aerospace dinosaurs, but a notable exception is t/Space, a new company which includes people like Burt Rutan (of Scaled Composites and SpaceShipOne), Elon Musk (of SpaceX), Red Whittaker (of the Red Team, which constructed an autonomous vehicle which competed in DARPA's Grand Challenge), and several of the new companies in the budding private space industry.
According to their page: Our core mission requirement is to enable prompt, affordable, safe and sustainable lunar exploration and development by the largest possible number of Americans, both in person and via telepresence.
Under our approach, government incentives focus exclusively on top-level goals, with technology and operational choices left to the private sector. The government incentives will be matched to specific top-level needs, but the "invisible hand" of market forces will shape choices as they flow down multiple supplier chains. Incentives will be structured so that several companies in each major area have an opportunity to win this support. With this competitive industrial base, two major processes become possible:
* Market forces will continually launch new products that replace established goods and services (the "creative destruction" that Joseph Schumpeter [Austrian economist 1883-1950] identified as the key element of capitalism). Poorly performing systems will be killed off quickly via competition rather than via burdensome NASA reviews or Congressional intervention.
* Capability gap analyses will be performed by dozens and ultimately hundreds of companies on a continuous basis. As happens now in all competitive industries, the successful companies will be those who listen closely to their customers and accurately predict their future needs - in other words, capability gap analysis by multiple independent profit-seekers.
Commercial firms will create and own infrastructure that offers services that overlap in many cases. The overlaps found in a competitive private space economy will provide the resiliency now lacking in single-string solutions such as the Space Shuttle and Space Station, for which there are no ready alternatives. While functional overlaps are viewed as inefficiencies in centrally-planned systems, in a market-based system they drive costs lower (by reducing monopoly power and spurring innovation) and accelerate schedules (by eliminating single-point bottlenecks among suppliers and spurring competition).
If I understand correctly, tSpace's plan is to design an overall space architecture, and have companies compete for different components, whether they be launch vehicles, space station life support modules, or lunar landers. Many of these components will also be available commercially, keeping the price down and the reliability high. I suspect it's going to be difficult to keep from being eaten alive by the huge aerospace companies (Boeing, Lockheed, etc.), but I have a hope that they'll somehow end up getting the contract and end up completely reforming our approach to space.
I highly recommend reading through their presentation. The things they discuss are quite insightful, and they have some incredible ideas. Here's a few of their points:
Safety results from design choices, not oversight
* Attempting to produce safety by inspection, quality control,
Apollo 12 lunar surface journal.
Actually, they have all of them and some are pretty good reads.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
In 1979 we still worked with those old FCUs (Flight-certified CPUs.) They all had 4k ram, and were 4-bit bit-slice. We looked UP to the Commodore64 and even the TI-99-4(A). We begged to use the 8085-A2 like the mil guys. And that was already obsolete. But the space environment dictated what was usable: if it had not been tested proven, forget using it on board a spacecraft. Ok, we learned/knew this. Apollo used transistor logic because what was already available was not yet proven killable (within accepted parameters) by space radiation. NOTHING else could be used until after LDEF came down, and that was delayed by Challenger by 4 years. It's all about radiation. In space, we need wide circuit paths to make up for cosmic bombardment, until we all go to photons, and prove it unkillable. I'd bet a dime that's what Putin is suggesting his new rocket/orbit-vehicle uses as control circuit, and is much-less-killable. Think nuclear exclusion principle.
Apollo 12 was unforunately sandwiched between two much more famous missions: 11 and 13. I will never remember the names of those on 12, but names like Armstrong, Aldrin, and Hanks I will never forget.
And you ignore that this is the 35th Anniversary when 'Green Acres' and 'The Beverly Hillbillies' (among other landmark shows) were pre-empted because of a boring moon landing?
Where are your priorities?!?
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
>happen to be a NASA flight controller - and when you are in Mission Control, you are "it". Sometimes, you must make a decision that is time critical,
I did some satellite control for space telescopes, and even when it's an unmanned mission, it's tough. We had ops stationed 24/7, with mostly routine work, but they earned their pay whenever trouble hit.
Weird thing is, with it being unmanned, the usual procedure for trouble is 'go into safehold, then we'll diagnose on the ground'. But then you have to decide when you have enough information to make a decision.
You can go with the basic readings, and catch it on the next orbit pass and try a solution. Time lost= 90 minutes.
Or you can wait until the principal investigator gets into the office (maybe 4 hours later), let her do diagnostics, maybe check with the instrument team in California... you'll get a more robust solution, but it'll take 1-2 days.
And if it's really weird, you'll have to run sims before deciding on a solution.
So it's the opposite of joysticking-- it's figuring out when you have enough information to make a good call. No lives to worry about, just dollars. I think that makes it easier than manned ops, by far.
Mind you, since telescope time amortizes out to maybe $250/minute, a skilled person able to do in half a day what a sclub would do in 2 days, can justify their salary in one incident.
You hear about WalMart working to improve efficiencies by, like, 0.01% and reaping billions. Well, at NASA, we do stuff to improve things by 1% here and there to save tens of thousands.
A.
Control: "Flight, try SCE to Aux."
Bean: "I know that one!"
Carthago delenda est!