We choose to go to the moon

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 The Lemming 17 Jul 2019

I'm all caught up in the 50th anniversary of the Moon Landings, because it was such an awesome achievement.

Anybody seen any interesting Youtubes on the subject that they'd care to share?

youtube.com/watch?v=olRF5Ckaga0&

1
 john arran 17 Jul 2019
In reply to The Lemming:

There's a fascinating BBC podcast series called '13 minutes to the moon' that I really enjoyed. Goes into some depth about all sorts of aspects of the preparation and process I'd never have even thought of let alone known about already.

OP The Lemming 17 Jul 2019
In reply to john arran:

I really enjoyed that podcast as well. I especially liked episode 5, which focused on the hardware and software.

pasbury 17 Jul 2019
In reply to The Lemming:

I watched the BBC thing last night and it was riveting. But it didn't cover the return journey, which I think is the most amazing , and difficult part of the mission.

 plyometrics 17 Jul 2019
In reply to pasbury:

At the end of PM today on R4, Evan Davis introduced a narration of the speech Nixon was to deliver if Armstrong and Aldrin didn’t make it back. Thought provoking listening. 

Made me wonder how prepared the astronauts really were to deal with the awful situation of potentially being stranded on the moon, both emotionally and practically...

pasbury 17 Jul 2019
In reply to plyometrics:

The level of existential risk they accepted would surely never be acceptable today?

Pan Ron 17 Jul 2019
In reply to Offwidth:

What blows me away is the immense power and size of the Saturn V.  There must be few things that explosive, that massive, that heavy, that loud, and that powerful in existence, except for maybe nuclear weapons.  And three tiny people sat at the top of it, they lit the other end, and were launched off into space.  All with minimal testing, minimal technology and a sizeable chance much could go wrong.  I have no idea how high the chances were of the lunar lander's engine failing to reignite after they landed on the moon, but it can't have been zero.  Then what?  The number of things that could go catastrophically wrong were likely greater than thousands of people experience in a lifetime. 

As far as human endeavour goes, its well and truly up there.  In terms of madness its not far off the guys who strapped makeshift wings to their arms and jumped off bridges or the Eiffel Tower.

 profitofdoom 17 Jul 2019
In reply to pasbury:

> The level of existential risk they accepted would surely never be acceptable today?

Not true, I think. Being an astronaut continues to be dangerous today, as shown by the Shuttle disasters. Also all the NASA astronauts up to the Apollo program were test pilots - a dangerous job then, and now

 profitofdoom 17 Jul 2019
In reply to plyometrics:

> Made me wonder how prepared the astronauts really were to deal with the awful situation of potentially being stranded on the moon, both emotionally and practically...

Michael Collins wrote (in his excellent autobiography Carrying The Fire, which I highly recommend) that only those within the space program knew how dangerous it was: and that the public took a safe return as a given/ for granted. Both Collins and Armstrong also estimated, as they left, their chance of success at only 50%

pasbury 17 Jul 2019
In reply to profitofdoom:

But they had to accept the risk, because there were so many unknowns and a technology that could not offer the level of analysis and mitigation we expect today. I am not in any way being critical. I think the acceptance of risk was truly heroic. 

Post edited at 21:20
In reply to The Lemming:

One area that I think that we have made huge strides in understanding since the Apollo days is 'risk'.
We have developed many sophisticated techniques for analysing potential problems and their impact - FMEA & risk assessment are two keys ones. It makes me wonder if we would even undertake a moon landing nowadays.

 profitofdoom 17 Jul 2019
In reply to pasbury:

> But they had to accept the risk, because there were so many unknowns and a technology that could not offer the level of analysis and mitigation we expect today. I am not in any way being critical. I think the acceptance of risk was truly heroic. 

Right, good points! (And I knew you weren't being critical). I've always thought the earlier astronauts were right heroes as well

pasbury 17 Jul 2019
In reply to The Lemming:

I’d like to drop this here as I was reminded of it when watching the programme:

youtube.com/watch?v=x_TEmrBD6KM&

There was a little musical genre of moon mission sampling that I really enjoyed in the 90’s

 wintertree 17 Jul 2019
In reply to pasbury:

> The level of existential risk they accepted would surely never be acceptable today?

Statistically the shuttle was more dangerous, and they put civilians on that who didn’t have the knowledge to evaluate the risk for themselves.

I agree that we are generally more risk adverse, but it’s not as bad a thing as people think - space ventures (*) don’t deal with risk aversion by giving up but by upping their game.  This is the best way it can scale successfully.

(*) well, some space ventures.  Russia is loosing its capability due to corruption undermining quality control, and NASA is such a political football with SLS it’s in real difficulties.

pasbury 18 Jul 2019
In reply to wintertree:

> Statistically the shuttle was more dangerous,

really? How is that worked out?

In reply to profitofdoom:

Yes, all the early astronauts were test pilots of the early jet fighters and testing those planes was actually more dangerous than the space program. This is a recurring theme in Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff. The astronauts were amazingly relaxed about their space flights. John Glenn famously fell on asleep during the early stages of the countdown of his Mercury launch.

In reply to profitofdoom:

> Not true, I think. Being an astronaut continues to be dangerous today, as shown by the Shuttle disasters. Also all the NASA astronauts up to the Apollo program were test pilots - a dangerous job then, and now

It's absolutely true; the NASA of today is not the NASA of 50 years ago in regards to acceptable risk - this is especially true following the rifting they got in the Rogers commission into the Challenger disaster. Senior officials are perfectly candid that the major barrier to Trump's plan to return to the Moon in 5 years is organisational risk-aversity (the other is money of course). 

I used to work for NASA for 3 years (as an oceanographer - nothing to do with human space flight); by the time I left in 2012, the culture was such that if I needed to get in situ data for cal/val it had to be farmed out to a private contractor, since going to sea is too dangerous for NASA staff....

 profitofdoom 18 Jul 2019
In reply to Captain Fastrousers:

> It's absolutely true; the NASA of today is not the NASA of 50 years ago.... I used to work for NASA for 3 years...

Thanks a lot for your reply, interesting, and I stand corrected

OP The Lemming 18 Jul 2019
In reply to Captain Fastrousers:

> I used to work for NASA for 3 years

Yea, but what have you done on grit?

2
OP The Lemming 18 Jul 2019
In reply to pasbury:

Sadly people still die pushing the envelope of space exploration as seen in the Virgin Galactic explosion in 2014.

 Jamie Wakeham 18 Jul 2019
In reply to pasbury:

I guess this depends how you count it.  Apollo had one fatal incident in 12 crewed missions; Shuttle had two fatal incidents in 135 crewed missions.  So on that basis Apollo was more dangerous.

But you might argue that the Saturn V launcher had a 100% success rate (Apollo 1 was on a Saturn 1B).

 neilh 18 Jul 2019
In reply to The Lemming:

I also enjoy listening to Walter Cronkite commenting from those days.So measured and thoughtful.

 neilh 18 Jul 2019
In reply to The Lemming:

youtube.com/watch?v=vFwqZ4qAUkE&

For shuttle launches and commentary from NASA technicians.

 wercat 18 Jul 2019
In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

The accident on the original Apollo CM was not during a mission, even though someone at the BBC seems to want to refer to "pre-flight checks" as if they were just about to launch on a live mission.  They just weren't ready at that time.  That they were on pre-flight checks for a launch seems to be passing into a folk myth now.

There were no mission deaths during Apollo

Post edited at 13:40
 john arran 18 Jul 2019
In reply to wercat:

IIRC from the podcast they were indeed on pre-flight checks with full mission launch readiness but the plan was always to shut down the engines prior to the end of the countdown. Given that it had some of the finest astronauts on board at the time and that it was an essential real life test prior to a well planned mission (as opposed to any kind of simulation), to argue that it wasn't technically a mission accident would seem to be splitting hairs somewhat.

 Jamie Wakeham 18 Jul 2019
In reply to wercat:

Apollo 1 was always intended to fly with those three men on board- wikipedia has that "[Apollo 1] was to be the first crewed test flight of the Apollo command and service module (CSM) to Earth orbit, launched on a Saturn IB rocket. AS-204 was to test launch operations, ground tracking and control facilities and the performance of the Apollo-Saturn launch assembly and would have lasted up to two weeks, depending on how the spacecraft performed"

True, it wasn't intended to take off that day.  But I don't think you can say these deaths weren't part of the Apollo program.

 Harry Jarvis 18 Jul 2019
In reply to john arran:

The BBC4 programme last night (Episode 3 of Chasing the Moon) included the audio of the astronauts inside the Apollo 1 CSM as they reported the outbreak of fire and the cries for help. It's possibly the most chilling thing I've ever heard on TV. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0006vr0/chasing-the-moon-series-1-3-...

Post edited at 17:00
 wintertree 18 Jul 2019
In reply to pasbury:

> really? How is that worked out?

To be fair any sort of statistics here on Apollo vs Shuttle is a mugs game.   Actual flight on the shuttle killed infinitely more people than actual flight on Apollo.  On the other hand, if they hypothetical had the sale fatality rate it’s quite likely Apollo shut down before it had its first death.

Comparing the Shuttle to the only other manned space launch to operate at similar scales - the Russian capsule launch stack - and the Shuttle does not come out in a good light at all.

 neilh 18 Jul 2019
In reply to Harry Jarvis:

100% agree. 

It was interesting to learn how they attempted to remove the hatch and failed. 

 planetmarshall 18 Jul 2019
In reply to pasbury:

> The level of existential risk they accepted would surely never be acceptable today?

I don't think any society is ever that tolerant of existential risk.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_catastrophic_risk?wprov=sfla1

pasbury 18 Jul 2019
In reply to planetmarshall:

I only meant personal existential risk. The astronauts took that risk on the chin, I have the greatest admiration for that.

But they wouldn't have done it if they didn't have full trust in their team. That would have been stupid.

OP The Lemming 18 Jul 2019
In reply to The Lemming:

Gravity amazes me.

It's either very weak or we know next to nothing about it. How can something so weak keep our solar system together when everything is so far apart?

youtube.com/watch?v=zR3Igc3Rhfg&

 profitofdoom 18 Jul 2019
In reply to The Lemming:

> Gravity amazes me.

Me too. I could use an antigravity harness though OR, come to think of it, why not climb with a giant helium balloon strapped to my back, just float gently away if I fall off, BLIMEY I think I'll patent it

pasbury 19 Jul 2019
In reply to The Lemming:

The Newtonian equations are beautifully simple. Try doing the sums for yourself.

In reply to pasbury:

Einstein's equations of General Relativity are an even more beautiful explanation of gravity.

Bellie 19 Jul 2019
In reply to The Lemming:

Me too.   I've had these on my list to listen to, and was hoping to wait til I was wild camping, but have had to start listening to them while I've been engrossed in all the coverage of late.

I've been a fan of it all since a kid, and my big Airfix kit of the Apollo Saturn V.

 wercat 19 Jul 2019
In reply to john arran:

As far as I remember Apollo 1 was a later designation rather than a mission number, to honour the astronauts and their families.  I know it was to have flown later.  I noticed that the broadcast "8 Days to the Moon" referred to pre flight checks (rather than tests and training) and also that it added drama to the launch with a sub title mentioning the disaster as if it could happen again but failing to note the complete rework of the CM, let alone a change in policy on pure oxygen atmosphere before any manned missions took place.  I also remember as a youngster hearing horrific things after the accident  like a report that they had at some point uprated the systems to 24v without the contractors checking that switches and components were up to the voltage increase!  Came as quite a shock to public trust in the spacecraft.

OP The Lemming 19 Jul 2019
In reply to Bellie:

> I've been a fan of it all since a kid, and my big Airfix kit of the Apollo Saturn V.

I'm still considering/finding a large scale Airfix model of the Eagle to build.

 wercat 19 Jul 2019
In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Agreed that it would have flown at some later time unless the truth about the spacecraft safety and need for redesign/rework had shown up in a less dramatic way.  Yes they were killed as part of the Apollo program but I was replying to your mission statistics.  There were only 11 manned missions.

Not that I'd argue that the Shuttle wasn't somewhat safer, though there were intrinsically unsafe things in the unhappy concept that would inevitably contribute to accidents in a long series of missions.  HOTOL was a much cleaner safer concept and at least it looks like finally coming true long after the concept was cancelled by UK govt.

OP The Lemming 19 Jul 2019
In reply to wercat:

Quite a bit about the disaster is covered in the podcast 13 minutes to the moon.

 wercat 19 Jul 2019
In reply to The Lemming:

yes, it's a really great bit of programming - well presented by an expert with a lot of depth.  I did rather enjoy 8 days as well but there were one or two misleading "undertruths", good for all that

Bellie 19 Jul 2019
In reply to The Lemming:

Amazing to think I built my kit not long after the missions ended, and into Skylab era.   Then there were the kits of Space Shuttle. initially piggy backed with the Boing 747, then the larger full version with rockets which I got as a Christmas present.

Those 13mins to the Moon podcasts are very enlightening.  Like the part where it gave the reason they were fast on the descent and therefore long on the landing site.

I did have an ebook somewhere about the Apollo Guidance Computer, and if you go online you can see simulators so you can have a go at the noun verb calls.

On Nasa's website there are all the info on the entire programme including the annotations of the conversations between Houston and the command module/LM.

OP The Lemming 19 Jul 2019
In reply to Bellie:

> Amazing to think I built my kit not long after the missions ended, and into Skylab era.   Then there were the kits of Space Shuttle. initially piggy backed with the Boing 747, then the larger full version with rockets which I got as a Christmas present.

I remember one day at school and being allowed to go outside during lessons to watch the shuttle fly past on a 747. I also remember being at school during playtime and watching the shuttle explode live on TV.

 Postmanpat 19 Jul 2019
In reply to The Lemming:

> I remember one day at school and being allowed to go outside during lessons to watch the shuttle fly past on a 747. 

>

   I remember one day in the playground and seeing a 747 fly over for the first time. Everybody stopped to look!

OP The Lemming 19 Jul 2019
In reply to Postmanpat:

I remember moving to a school near Heathrow and seeing Concord fly past the window. I was transfixed until some kid said "Haven't you seen Concord before?"

No I had not, and not at eye level either. However I have sat in the cockpit of Concord.

 Simon Caldwell 19 Jul 2019
In reply to The Lemming:

> I also remember being at school during playtime and watching the shuttle explode live on TV.

at 16:39?

OP The Lemming 19 Jul 2019
In reply to Simon Caldwell:

> > I also remember being at school during playtime and watching the shuttle explode live on TV.

> at 16:39?


Or the school recorded the event on VHS and showed it to us for educational purposes?

 wercat 19 Jul 2019
In reply to The Lemming:

Our English/History teacher let us watch the lift-off in his study as the school had no TV.  Last day at that school, last day of the summer term 1969, what an ending. (At the next school interest in Apollo was strange and suspect as not being sport-worship related).  All my time up to then that final term had been taken up with exams and playing Father Garnett in his production of "Gunpowder" and being hanged in rehearsals and finally on stage in a real theatre!  They got hold of real-looking theatrical muskets for the final shootout, which unfortunately I did not see, being offstage, like Mike Collins ...

Post edited at 12:29
 Darron 19 Jul 2019
In reply to The Lemming:

For anyone who wants (a lot!) more detail on the technical aspects of Apollo I recommend ' 'How Apollo flew to the Moon' by W. David Woods. Don't let the truely awful book cover put you off!

 wintertree 19 Jul 2019
In reply to pasbury:

> The Newtonian equations are beautifully simple. Try doing the sums for yourself.

It’s not really those that give gravity it’s power.  Electric charges have basically the same equation, and are insanely stronger for any reasonable measure.

What makes gravity so important is that there is apparently no negative mass, so gravity builds with distance, where as positive and electric charges exist in an apparently perfect balance and so they cancel each other’s effects out over all but the smallest scales.

 FactorXXX 19 Jul 2019
In reply to Darron:

> For anyone who wants (a lot!) more detail on the technical aspects of Apollo I recommend ' 'How Apollo flew to the Moon' by W. David Woods. Don't let the truely awful book cover put you off!

Is it one of those Pop-Up Books?

 Darron 19 Jul 2019
In reply to FactorXXX:

it certainly looks like it from the cover but no it's very detailed and brilliant. Page 104 for example contains a picture of a propellant utilisation valve that balanced the different propellants on the S-11 engines. It's full of stuff like that. Everything you might want to know really.

 wercat 19 Jul 2019
In reply to Darron:

This was my  summer holiday reading in 1969

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/title/invasion-of-the-moon-1969-the-...

Read it a couple of times cover to cover and now I think I want to get a copy, 50 years later

Was reading 2001 A Space Odyssey a bit earlier in the year - no wonder we thought we'd be on Mars by the end of the Century

Post edited at 15:29
Bellie 19 Jul 2019
In reply to Darron:

I'll have a look for that.  I have a great coffee table book "Apollo - the epic journey to the moon). by David West Reynolds, that has some great photos and tells each mission story.

pasbury 19 Jul 2019
In reply to Bellie:

> Amazing to think I built my kit not long after the missions ended, and into Skylab era.   Then there were the kits of Space Shuttle. initially piggy backed with the Boing 747, then the larger full version with rockets which I got as a Christmas present.

Me too, it was a very cool kit, about 3 ft high if I remember (though I may only have been that high myself at the time) with separable stages and lunar modules. I think there’s still one bit of it on a shelf at my parents house. I must have made it around 1975.

 planetmarshall 19 Jul 2019
In reply to wintertree:

> What makes gravity so important is that there is apparently no negative mass, so gravity builds with distance, where as positive and electric charges exist in an apparently perfect balance and so they cancel each other’s effects out over all but the smallest scales.

I know what you're trying to say but it's most definitely not correct to say that gravity "builds with distance". It's rather that the effects of gravity are, so far as we know, always additive, for the reasons you say.

 wintertree 19 Jul 2019
In reply to planetmarshall:

> I know what you're trying to say but it's most definitely not correct to say that gravity "builds with distance". 

You are entirely correct.

I was thinking of gravity building with radius inside a planet but rather critically didn’t qualify that!    

> It's rather that the effects of gravity are, so far as we know, always additive, for the reasons you say.

A much better way of putting it, thank you.

Bellie 19 Jul 2019
In reply to pasbury:

Thats Christmas for you.  I would buy small scale Matchbox and Airfix kit with my pocket money through the year... then at Christmas I'd get some of the larger models as presents : ).  Over the years - Rommels car, a big Hercules, Space Shuttle, and the Saturn V.  I painted them all too.  The Rocket was great.  Stood on a stand and took pride of place on my desk.  A bit easy to make though!

 wintertree 19 Jul 2019
In reply to wercat:

> HOTOL was a much cleaner safer concept and at least it looks like finally coming true long after the concept was cancelled by UK govt.

My secret hope is that they’ll finally build an Avro-730 along the way... 

Removed User 19 Jul 2019
In reply to The Lemming:

I remember seeing the launch live on the telly as a nine year old-the image that transfixed me was the shot of the engines and the incandesent fuel being expelled at incredible temperatures.

 wercat 20 Jul 2019
In reply to wintertree:

Yes, wonderful concept for the time.

I raise you the space version!

youtube.com/watch?v=6ifS2nP53Zs&

as it lifts off and the music cuts in I still feel the thrill of a child, particularly as the sky darkens and the stars come out.

 wercat 20 Jul 2019
In reply to Bellie:

never the Buffalo amphibian and jeep?

The wheels on that and the Churchill tank almost defy assembly, even for the eyesight I had then!

Post edited at 09:31
 wintertree 20 Jul 2019
In reply to wercat:

I made a poster for Wintertree, Jr’s bedroom wall.  It’s got shots of the 730, Fireball XL-5 and Skylon in similar poses.  Gerry Anderson knew a thing or two.  Although the arrangement of four fins at the front of XL-5 is a bit dubious, aerodynamically speaking...

 wercat 20 Jul 2019
In reply to wintertree:

excellent, ours grew up with original Thunderbirds, Fireball XL5 etc, not to mention Space Patrol.  Not to mention Noggin the Nog!

Pan Ron 20 Jul 2019
In reply to wercat:

> Was reading 2001 A Space Odyssey a bit earlier in the year - no wonder we thought we'd be on Mars by the end of the Century

Just read, the same number of years have elapsed since the moon landing as have elapsed between the moon landing and the first Atlantic crossing by an aircraft.  If the pace of advancement was consistent, we certainly should be on Mars and beyond. 

Bellie 20 Jul 2019
In reply to wercat:

Thats the one - the Half track.  It needed the help of my dad to build!

I always used to come back from Airshows with a kit or two as well.  Or a trip to Beatties in Sheffield was always worth it : )

 spiderz 20 Jul 2019

Seems a good place to leave this..

youtube.com/watch?v=fXZ7AKDfDwk&

OP The Lemming 20 Jul 2019
In reply to The Lemming:

Here's an interesting clip of the Eagle

youtube.com/watch?v=oX8-IXdABuc&

 wercat 23 Jul 2019
In reply to The Lemming:

One of the absolute joys of this anniversary has been seeing James Burke return to TV - he's as good a presenter as he was back then in the 60s, though looking strangely like the embodiment of professor Branestawm!  I think his good humour and interesting delivery qualify him for national treasure status.


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