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How Duct Tape Saved Apollo 17's Moon Buggy
Ant points out a story
spotted on Boing Boing in which NASA "shares a story that turns back the clock 36 years to reveal the "key roll of duct tape in the Apollo program." The quality of the photographs from the moon always grabs me, and the duct-taped fender here is no exception.
It just proves the old adage that "If you can't fix it with duct tape, then it's broken."
Remember, if the aliens don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.
"Flag on the moon. How did it get there?"
You can't hear duct tape rip in the vacuum of space. That is a sad fact.
This is just more proof of the shoddy fakery that NASA used when creating the moon landing hoax.
Helped the Apollo 13 guys too.
BUT, what's better for actually using on ducts is foil tape. Duct tape sucks for ducts and will fall off eventually. I'm trying to find why it's named "duct tape" to begin with when it appears to be invented for other things....
Looking....
Key Roll of Duct Tape or Key Role?
I guess both are valid...
The quality of the photographs from the moon always grabs me, and the duct-taped fender here is no exception.
Medium-format sized negatives. Shitloads of light (large depth of field and high shutter speeds.) No atmosphere to bend light between subject and camera.
Also, you've got really hard shadows because the light isn't diffused at all by an atmosphere.
Please help metamoderate.
You can tell them little green fellas I'm not gettin' on that thing with out my duct tape. I might need to terraform a planet, er somethin'
Invenio via vel creo
I would say that the roll of tape used on the Apollo 13 was much more important.
It is interesting to think about dust in a vacuum, where if it is kicked up with a large forward velocity, it will fall back down on you or even ahead of you, whereas on Earth it would get pushed behind you by friction...
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
And, it looks like it really should be called "duck" tape then.
One day he found a roll of duct tape lying around somewhere on a sub that was in for repair. It didn't appear as if anyone was using it.
However, one was not permitted to just remove stuff left lying around - someone might still be needing it.
So dad went through the proper channels, which involved filing a form in which he requested the removal of the duct tape. This had to be signed by his manager. I don't remember clearly, but maybe it had to be signed by his manager's manager.
Once the paperwork was all squared away, someone was sent in to the sub to remove the roll of duct tape - only to find that it wasn't there anymore!
Your tax dollars at work!
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Roll or role?
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Didn't NASA have a preference back then for Hasselblad medium-format cameras with really good Zeiss lenses?
Pro-level gear with big film can give some really incredibly detailed photos.
Oh, pleeeeeeaaaase ?!?! Let me!
If you've never used the new Gorilla Glue Duct Tape, go out to Lowes or Home Depot right now and get yourself a roll.
It's more expensive, about $10 a roll, but it really is the best tape out there. I've used it seal stuff outdoors and a year later, it's still holding. If NASA doesn't take a few rolls of this stuff to the moon, they're not paying attention.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
I had him stand on a chair, then applied tape liberally. When I was all done, I removed the chair.
He stayed up there for five minutes, but eventually had to come down as it was getting very uncomfortable.
Another friend who was an art major made a tasteful arrangement of the leftover tape, stuck back on the wall where he had been. He then typed up a little sign that commemorated the event, and said that I was a conceptual artist who is often compared to Cristo.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
light side, dark side, holds the universe together, blah blah blah. Unfortunately, George Lucas ruined this joke, since duct tape isn't made my symbiotic microorganisms living inside everything.
Duct tape saved the day during Apollo 13 too, when they were having CO2 problems. Those guys jury-rigged the Lithium Hydroxide canister of the command-module (which were square), into the LEM(which had round canisters).
Saved the day. Without it, the astronauts would have died of CO2 poisoning. Apparently, the design was so good, it became a standard emergency procedure in future missions.
They also used duct tape to fix the stereo, so they could keep driving their moon buggies through our neighborhoods at all hours of the night playing that theme from "2001" real loud.
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I think we should go back a bit to that kind of space exploration. Boot-strap, Cowboy style. There are so many regs and safety issues with today's space program that with all the bureaucracy it's a wonder we get anything off the ground at all. Lets just start with some quantity, launch anything with a higher than 50% survival rate.
How many people do you know that would jump on an opportunity for a manned mission to mars? Just to be the first to do it. Even if you don't make it, you'd still provide useful information and go down in history as a great pioneer. Hell there is a certain religion or two down here that have people clamoring all over their selves to die for some glorious amorphous cause. Put them to work. Launch those space monkeys up there so they can be closer to their [Deity].
"If I were bound by all laws everywhere I'm sure I would have committed a capital crime somewhere."
removes warts. Or so I hear.
...use more duct tape!
-- Red Green
Slow news day on BoingBoing and/or Slashdot? This is a pretty well known piece of history.
It was originally called "duck" tape because the way it repels water poured on it is similar to a duck's back.
What's white on one side, grey on the other, and holds the world together?
Why are there no tracks before or after that tire?
Was the photo just after assembly, but before movement?
There's an astronaut sitting in it, how could he possibly wait for a photo shoot before hitting the gas?
I would expect more footprints around the thing if it were just after assembly.
"We think people rightly feel that once they buy something, it stays bought," --Suw Charman, Open Rights Grp
rj
That's cool, but does it really matter if rifle ammo gets wet? Cartriges are pretty well sealed, and you can store a round of ammo under water for months, pull it out and fire it immediately.
Maybe for other stuff like electronics or such. But ammo?
The Lunar Surface Journal over here: (more specifically on the Apollo 17 page of course)
:)
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/frame.html
Craploads of imagery from all surface missions, full transcripts, and audio.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Well, sort of...My housekeeper was cleaning and noticed (or perhaps caused) a hole about the size of a silver dollar in the drain pipe underneath my kitchen sink. The area around the hole was a corroded and basically everything that went down the drain ended up going out of the hole. I live in an apartment building where the super takes forever to fix things, so I had to come up with a stop-gap solution. First, I just put a bucket under it when I was just using water, but that was going to start to get really gross when I wanted to wash that night's frying pans, so I did not wash them that evening.
The next morning, it hit me, I could wrap the pipe with duct tape to seal the hole and it worked! I cleaned my dishes, pots, pans and made pasta on Saturday; it even held up when I poured the boiling water down the drain.
Not quite a NASA moon mission, but I did gain a new appreciation for duct tape.
Bah.. inventing zero-g pens when you can use a pencil and all.. always having to make everything so complicated!
That is actually a myth
The "space pen" was developed entirely by a private company in hopes that they could make millions selling it to suckers who would think it was cool.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
"Well, Duct Tape is an Astronauts best friend... old Harold decided to run out of the lander without his pants on. That's somethin' he probably won't try again soon."
...that NASA calls it rocket tape.
The astronauts had to build an air-scrubber canister adapter (the LM used round canisters, while the CSM used square canisters) so that CO2 would not build to toxic levels.
It was improvised from common materials found in the spacecraft, all held together by duct tape.
Without duct tape, the Apollo 13 astronauts probably would not have survived.
I seem to recall the "Huston, we have a PROBLEM" mission (Appolo 13?) that they used duct tape to make the other CO2 filters mechanically compatible when they had to spend more time in orbit than they could manage just on the service module's filters. (one set was round and the other set was square)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Gaffer tape is vastly superior to duct tape.
Easier to tear, less residue, matte surface.
Need I go on?
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Try searching for "Moon buggy" in Wikipedia.
And good luck with that. You'll turn up nothing but "articles" linked to commercial products. You have to use "Lunar Rover". (And it's an article ripped form a single source (albeit NASA))
I wonder if someone could fix Wikipedia's search engine with duct tape? Though I suspect that it's far beyond that kind of repair.
The Hitchhikers guide didn't say ANYTHING about duct tape...guess i better go find a grey waterproof towel with ducks on it
On the Apollo 17 page -> The First EVA -> Flag Deployment and ALSEP Off-Load:
118:51:20 Cernan: Oh, you won't believe it.
118:51:25 Schmitt: You did it again.
[Jack is guessing that Gene hit the wrong gravimeter button.]
118:51:26 Cernan: No!! There goes a fender.
118:51:28 Schmitt: Oh, shoot!
---
118:52:06 Cernan: And I hate to say it, but I'm going to have to take some time to try...I'm going to have to try to get that fender back on.
118:52:13 Parker: Okay. Was it the rear fender, Geno?
118:52:17 Cernan: Yeah. Caught it with my hammer, and it just popped right off. (Pause)
---
118:52:35 Cernan: Jack, is the tape under my seat, do you remember?
[This is a roll of very ordinary, gray duct tape.]
118:52:38 Schmitt: Yes.
118:52:39 Cernan: I may need it. Okay. Lithium hydroxide canister to middle.
---
118:52:49 Cernan: Man, you're wobbling around like a...How are you doing?
118:52:53 Schmitt: Oh, fine. It's just...It's work going out here!
118:52:56 Cernan: Yeah, I'll bet it is. Just take it easy.
118:52:58 Schmitt: I am.
118:52:59 Cernan: I'm going to be a little bit behind you (on the timeline) if I have to work on that fender, anyway.
118:53:01 Parker: Yeah, you can walk a bit more slowly than you're walking, Jack.
118:53:03 Schmitt: Okay, more and more...(Hearing Bob) What's that?
118:53:08 Parker: I said that you can walk more slowly than you started out, anyway.
---
118:54:10 Cernan: Well, if it wasn't for that fender, I'd be ready to go. Makes me sort of mad! (Long Pause)
118:54:33 Parker: I say there, Jack, that looks like a big rock there beyond you.
118:54:40 Cernan: That's the one we were talking about. Earlier.
118:54:43 Parker: We believe you now. (Pause)
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I can't see why this is such a big deal.
Considering that without an ink pen, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin probably would have died on the moon.
They broke a critical circuit breaker needed for the ascent engine on their egress for the first space walk.
They had brought no tools, in order to save weight. Aldrin ended up using the ink pen to activate the inside of the circuit breaker.
http://thewritersedge.com/story.main.cfm
To me that's a bigger story than non-essential redneck car repair.
I remember the duct tape well...as a 10 year old kid, those grainy images and sounds fascinated me. About a year after Apollo 11, they brought it up to the state capital. Made my parents drag me up there to see it. Looking inside that tiny capsule was a treat...just to think where it had been.
All space flights should have duct tape and a lowly carbon rod on board.
(with apologies to xkcd)
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Maybe that's why in the Canadian Forces we call it Gun Tape. Tho it would have come from the artillery, I guess, since small arms are rifles.
Anyone else call it Gun Tape? All my civilian friends look at me weird when I say that.
Gene Cernan, in the mission summary:
"You know, it's kind of sad that in addition to all the other problems we'd have in going back to the Moon - like it's going to take twice as long as it did the first time (15 to 20 years versus 8) - I don't know that we have the mentality today to build upon what we did on Apollo. And it's sort of sad. Because if we went back again next week or next year or in another decade - which we probably won't, unfortunately, because it's going to be another generation - I don't know if we would have the mentality - I don't want to say 'guts' - to take the kind of risks we did when we did it the first time. Landing on the Moon was a risk. And I believe our inability to take risk today wouldn't allow us to do what we did when we did it. And that's a sad commentary; and I really feel strongly about that."
I was 7 years old when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. The astronauts were my heroes when I was growing up. Gene Cernan was right and it breaks my heart.
Ahh... the good old Lunar Surface Journal. Does that have any relation to Orbital Debris Quarterly?
I really gotta get a subscription to these things. Just in case I'm worried about things crash-landing on me... on the moon.
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now i've seen everything.
so much for laughing whenever i hear some one say "Don't worry, I'll just fix it with some duck tape".
Of course the last time i heard that had to do with the hood on a 1979 lincoln continental...
i think the actual saying goes:
"if you can't fix it, duck it - if you can't duck it, f@*k it!"
The Hasselblads they had in the old days sure beat the crummy Nikons they use now.
Would be funny to see if duct tape was on the payload manifest or if someone swapped their jelly bean allocation for it.
Can someone explain how can it be that there are no tracks of tires?
OTOH you can see footprints...
Wow this is a slow news day. I remember watching the duct tape thing live on TV back when it happened. This is not newly released information.
The question everyone asked was "how coud you tear off a fender by brushing against it with a hammer?" the answer was the it and everything sent to the moon was very thin and only just strong enough to do it's job. The fender was only designed to deflect dust, not hammer handles. same with the skin of the lunar lander, Not much thicker then aluminum foil. As I remember the LM operated at a very reduced pressure of about 1/5 of an atmosphere so the skin could be very thin as not much pressure was inside. Same with the space suits and every nut bolt and screw -- all as light as possible.
It reminds me of a sign that the guy in charge at Lotus, the sports car company had. His name was Chapman and the sign is reported to read "If it is not just about ready to break, it is to heavy."
...somehow I'm thinking even a big, fat roll isn't going to fix Vista....
There are a lot of footprints around the buggy, but NO roll in or roll out tire prints did it also hover ?
I didn't know McGiver was an astronaut.
If it doesn't move and it should - sling the WD40 & use diesel fuel + blowtorch instead.
At room temperature, diesel won't penetrate like WD40. However, 95% of the time 1 squirt of diesel + heat (hence blowtorch or hair dryer) will free the stubbornest fit, where even a full can of WD40 won't do the job.
And to keep things lubricated, diesel is definitely best, as any motorcyclist who's hit a patch on the road will attest (ouch).
Cheers,
C
The quality of the photographs from the moon always grabs me
why?
photography had already been around for 100+ years at the time. the astronauts had hasselblads and were shooting on the best medium format film available.
http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11-hass.html
in this age of communication i'm just not getting through
How would Duck Tape be applied in this scenario to protect the pursued duck?
..."
"The strange case of the homosexual necrophiliac duck pushed out the boundaries of knowledge in a rather improbable way when it was recorded by Dutch researcher Kees Moeliker.
from:
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/0,9865,1432991,00.html
Regards, Non.
There is another theory that states that this has already happened.