Pics are back.
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This BBC podcast series (Which take several hours to cover the last 13 minutes of Apollo 11âs landing:) ) is absolutely amazing - The risk in those last minutes and the very real fear they wouldnât be able to come backâŚ
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I love CRTs. They still canât be beat for motion clarity with fast action. LCDs and OLEDs have come a long way here the years but CRTs are still kings when it comes to motion clarity and basically no input delay. Especially with video and game software really designed to be used with them when they were king.
A buddy of mine in college had the holy grail of CRTs. It was a 1080i/720p HD CRT at about 35 inches. Thing weighed a ton but boy was Halo 3 glorious to play on it.
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The idea,
that Buzz aldrin and Neil Armstrong were going to be able to take-off from the moon
â and somehow miraculously link-up with the lunar orbiter.<-
On documentary described it
"Iâll stand on one side of my house and throw a rock over the roof.
You stand on the other side and throw a ping pong ball.
Those two objects have to collide mid-air or, the mission fails and two men are dead!"
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Yeah itâs pretty crazy that most of it worked almost exactly as designed. So many things could have went horribly wrong so fast.
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Donât forget the tubes that glowed when you turned it on. The little dot that appeared in the center of the picture tube, that expanded as it warmed up until you could finally see a picture.
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Yeah. Because you think it would cause a national kumbaya moment.
Wanted if you were going to stay with that nonsense.
Personally. I think itâs a waste of money.
Ainât nothing there. I can understand the moon. Early days of NASA was about national defense. But today. Nah.
There is about a 0% chance weâd ever take those risks today (which isnât bad or good, I think, just isâŚ)
Reading about it now, itâs incredible how uncertain the outcomes were.
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Why did you ignore my bigger point about it being central to who we are as human beings and mankind has always expanded its knowledge by exploring and pushing boundaries.
Its the perfect use of our tax dollars and we need to invest more into space exploration.
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I remember watching one in grade school also.
Iâve always been proud of my Dadâs contribution to the Apollo program and had hoped weâd return to the Moon and then on to Mars.
But since the improvement in robotics such as the Mars Rover I believe we can achieve so much more exploration and science with them at a tiny fraction of the cost of manned missions.
A manned mission to Mars, while it would be terribly exciting, is just vanity IMHO.
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I had just graduated from high school and was working in a Jewish boyâs camp, as kitchen help. It was mealtime and a B/W was on in the cafeteria. Iâll never forget that moment.
planet of the apes crew (original) was.
Allan
Apollo 8 happened less than two years after the Apollo 1 fire.
At the time it was green lit, NASA experts estimated it was a coin flip as to whether the astronauts would make it back.
Part of that was driven by the fact they were the first humans to fly atop a Saturn V and they had no idea how that would work.
But mostly because that since they didnât take a lunar module along (because it wasnât readyâŚindeed it not being ready was the reason for the mission in the first place) they had one engine,âŚthe SPS on the command/service module.
If it failed while trying to go into or out of lunar orbit, the crew would have never made it back to Earth.
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The astronauts were well-trained daredevils, when you get down to it.
Apollo 13 showed us that.
Today we are certainly more risk-averse. On the flip side we also have far more ways to cover our butts in emergencies. We have far more resources and computing power to react to emergencies.
Space station has a 3D printer. They can manufacture whatever gizmo or connection they need that way, and that capability will be invaluable when the get to Mars and realize that they need a left-threaded framulator.
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At this very hour 56 years ago the ascent stage of Eagle successfully returned to lunar orbit.
Should that have failed here is the letter William Safire prepared for President Nixonâ
If you believe in that kind of stuff. PffftâŚ
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