Happy Moon Day!

[rah]

Does anybody actually believe that the Apollo Program was a good idea?

Yes. Man needs to have goals of greatness to bring out the best in us. Besides all the tangible technologies created to support the program, the sense of awe was worth it alone.

[Asher]

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/07/many-small-steps-led-to-apollo-11s-giant-leap-for-mankind.ars

Many small steps led to Apollo 11's giant leap for mankind

Forty years after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the surface of the moon, Ars looks at what led up to this monumental occasion, and congratulates all those involved.

History records that the Chinese were the first to invent the rocket, back in the 1200s under the Song Dynasty. But the Americans were the first to perfect it, with Robert Goddard kicking off the modern era of rocketry in the 1910s and 1920s, and the US military further refining the technology in the crucible of World War II. But the spectacular highlight of the rocket era was the Apollo 11 mission, when three Americans rode the largest intercontinental ballistic missile ever built by the US to the moon. On the morning of July 16, 1969, Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, and Michael Collins laid on their backs in Columbia, the command module that topped the Saturn V rocket SA-506 that was to take them from their terrestrial confines into lunar orbit. On July 20th, 1969—40 years ago today—Armstrong and Aldrin descended from lunar orbit to the moon's surface in the Eagle lunar module and became the first two humans to ever set foot on another celestial body.

The moon has always played a large role in civilization. A rock carving found in Ireland, dating to around 3000BC is believed to be the first known human depiction of the moon. Often playing the mythological counterpart to the Sun, a number of ancient and prehistoric cultures viewed the moon as a deity to be worshiped. The Greeks, specifically Anaxagoras, were the first to correctly hypothesize the nature of the moon as a large spherical rock—although this was also how Anaxagoras described the Sun. The idea of humans making the voyage from the Earth to the Moon is known to exist in ancient Indian myths, and is found in written form first in 120 AD in the manuscript titled True Histories, written by a Syrian named Lucian.

Because the ancients lacked the ability to even fly over the surface of the Earth, any trips to other heavenly bodies were purely in the realm of fantasy. And though powered human flight was not technologically achievable until the Wright brother's historic flight in Kitty Hawk, NC, it did not stop authors and wonderers from dreaming of what may lie beyond the Earthly sphere and await us elsewhere in the heavens. Leaving the Earth was a little closer after Orville and Wilbur's historic flight, but only just a little—the flight traveled for a total of 120 feet and attained an altitude of about 10 feet above sea level.

Modern rocketry
While many focused on advancing the theory and engineering of airplanes and powered flight, others were thinking about the use of rockets for travel through the cosmos. As would be the case for the several decades following the achievement at Kitty Hawk, the major work in the field came out of Russia. In 1903, the same year as the Wright brother's flight, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a Russian mathematics teacher, published The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices, in which he derived the basic theory and principles of rocket science. His work was unknown outside of Russia, and it was the American Robert Goddard who made the fundamental leap to the era of modern rocketry. Goddard changed the core propulsion technique from the solid engine-propelled rockets of antiquity to a liquid propulsion system where the exhaust gases were forced through a De Laval nozzle. The first modern liquid-fueled rocket was launched by Goddard in 1926 in Massachusetts.

In the 1930s, advances in engine designs were made, rocket cars were built and raced, and the first rocket-powered plane was flown. Work in Russia, Austria, Germany, and the United States advanced the hobby to a science. One of the most important amateur groups was the German Verein für Raumschiffahrt—the German Rocket Society. This group launched its first liquid-fuel-based rocket four years after its inception in 1931. As Germany's war machine ramped up in the 1930s, a trio of members from this group were recruited to work for the Wermacht, most notably among them Wernher von Braun.

Over the course of World War II, German rocket scientists built a series of increasingly larger rockets. This work culminated in the design and production of the V-2 rocket—the first man-made object to achieve sub-orbital space flight. During the course of the war, the Germans launched about 3,000 V-2s at Allied military and civilian targets. While not accurate enough for specific strikes against military targets, the V-2 was leaps and bounds beyond the Allies' capabilities in this area.

Given the advanced state of the German rocket program, rounding up rocket scientists and capturing equipment became a key objective for Allied forces shortly after VE day. The United States' Operation Paperclip was one of the most successful of these operations, and the US recruited a number of high-level scientists (including Wernher von Braun) and a number of complete and incomplete V-2 rockets. These weapons of war would be taken back to the US and used as research and test vehicles. The V-2 and related technology brought back from Germany allowed von Braun and other German and US researchers to design and construct the Redstone missile—the booster that took Alan Shepard into a sub-orbital flight in 1961, making him the first American in space.

While Operation Paperclip may have brought a large number of top German rocket specialists to the US, it was Russia who would routinely make headlines by being the first to achieve a number of major space exploration advancements—often catching the US with its pants down. In 1957, as part of the International Geophysical Year, Russia launched the first ever artificial satellite, Sputnik 1. Launched atop an R-7 missile—the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)—Sputnik orbited the planet emitting signals at 20.005 and 40.002 MHz, signals that anyone in the world with an amateur radio could listen in on.

Space race

The launch of Sputnik marked the unofficial start of the space race between the US and Russia. Named as an analogy for the nuclear arms race between the two countries, the space race became a point of pride and indirect competition in the escalating Cold War. The urgency for the US to actually enter the space race increased when, a month after the launch of Sputnik 1, Russia launched Sputnik 2, which carried scientific equipment along with the first living creature to be put into orbit—a dog named Laika. Coupled with the very public failure of Vanguard TV3, the US desperately needed to get out of the starting block in the race. The US finally got off the ground with the launch of Explorer 1 in February of 1958.

After an exchange in various satellite launches between the US and the USSR over the next two years, the USSR once again stunned the world with the launch of Vostok 1, and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becoming the first human to ever visit space on April 12, 1961. The US again found itself playing catch-up—Gagarin had spent 108 minutes in orbit, US astronauts had spent none. Less than one month later, on May 5, 1961, US astronaut Alan Shepard, aboard Freedom 7, became the first American in space. While Freedom 7 was the first manned Mercury mission, it did not get Shepard into orbit. The suborbital flight lasted a total of 16 minutes.

Twenty days later, President Kennedy addressed a joint session of Congress where he laid out his challenge to them and to the people of America. "First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish." At the time of President Kennedy's challenge, the American space program had a sum total of 16 minutes in space, it had never put a man in orbit, had never seen an astronaut get out of a spacecraft, and had no spacecraft capable of even getting close to the moon. To meet this challenge, American scientists, engineers, and workers had just under nine years to invent, test, and deploy technology that had not yet even been given serious thought.

Over the next five and a half years, one of the most rapid paces of technological development in history occurred. Projects Mercury and Gemini cleared a number of technological hurdles—spacewalks, multi-man spacecraft, rendezvous and docking of craft in orbit, and long-duration flights—even though the USSR had accomplished many of these first. To get to the moon would require the power of the massive Saturn rocket boosters—rockets developed at the Marshall Spaceflight Center headed up by Wernher von Braun. America's space program proceeded uninhibited until the tragedy on the launch pad during a routine test for the Apollo 1 mission. A fire in the command module on January 27, 1967 took the lives of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, and threatened to derail the US' goal of reaching the moon by the end of the decade.

After 20 months of investigation and a re-design of the command module, Apollo 7 demonstrated that Apollo technology was ready for the next big leap. Just before Christmas of 1968, Apollo 8 put three American Astronauts into lunar orbit, officially leapfrogging the Russians in space achievements. Apollo 9 proved that the lunar module could indeed fly in space, if only in Earth orbit. Apollo 10 would take and fly the lunar module in actual lunar orbit. During that flight, commander Tom Stafford and lunar module pilot Eugene Cernan would fly their lunar module, Snoopy, to within an altitude of 8.4 nautical miles of the lunar surface.

Apollo 11

On the morning of July 16, 1969, Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins sat in the command module, Columbia, atop the Saturn V SA-506. The launch occurred at 9:32AM, and the trio entered orbit a scant 12 minutes later thanks to the power of the five F-1 engines of the first stage and five J-2 engines powering the second stage. After one-and-a-half orbits, the crew fired the final powerful J-2 engine to initiate their translunar injection and began traversing the void between the Earth and the Moon.

Three days later, on July 19, the command module flew behind the moon and entered lunar orbit. After 30 trips around the moon, on July 20, 1969 the lunar module Eagle detached from Columbia and began its 50,000 ft descent onto the surface of the moon. The early parts of the descent were marked by communication outages, and Aldrin and Armstrong noticed that they were seeing landmarks on the lunar surface early in their flight; this suggested that they were landing long, overshooting the planned landing site.

As the descent continued, the navigation and guidance computer began reporting program alarms. The program alarms 1202 and 1201 signified that the computer, which had less power than a modern desktop calculator, could not keep up with the requisite computations—a potentially mission-ending error. Computer analysts, led by Jack Garman, in a back room at NASA's Mission Control determined that as long as the alarms were intermittent, there was no need for abort due to computer problems. It was later learned that the error was the result of the computer processing data from both the landing and rendezvous radar, thus overloading the processor with unnecessary calculations.

With Aldrin acknowledging the intermittent alarms, Armstrong was looking out the window at the surface trying to find an acceptable place to land. It was noted that the landing site the computer had picked out was strewn with boulders between one and two meters across, and was on the edge of what would come to be known as "West crater." Landing here could have severely damaged the LM, or made lunar ascent impossible. Armstrong later said that he felt he could land if he could pilot the LM to come up short of the boulder and rock field, but it soon became obvious that this wouldn't be a possibility.

Unable to land short, Armstrong and Aldrin had to fly over the field, further overshooting their landing target. Since they were traveling longer than they anticipated, the fuel level was reaching the point where an abort decision could need to be called. As they neared 60 feet in altitude, Houston informed them that they had 80 seconds of fuel remaining before a abort decision needed to be made. As they passed 20 feet, there was 50 seconds of fuel left. Touchdown on the lunar surface happened 102 hours, 45 minutes, and 45 seconds after the mission began at 4:17pm EDT July 20, 1969. Thirteen seconds later, Neil Armstrong uttered some of the first words ever spoken on another celestial body, "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." They had 25 seconds worth of fuel remaining onboard.

[Asher]

Magnificent desolation

Shortly after landing, while the pair was prepping for the first lunar extravehicular activity, Buzz Aldrin sent the following broadcast, "This is the LM pilot. I'd like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way." Aldrin then privately partook in the sacrament of communion, an event that was not made public until years after the landing. The chalice he used on the moon now resides in Webster Presbyterian Church in Webster, TX where the kit was prepared.

After planning on locations to plant the American flag and Early Apollo Scientific Experiment Package—an instrument kit that had the Laser Ranging Retroreflector and the Passive Seismic Experiment Package—the two began getting ready to take a walk outside. It turned out that getting out of the LM was not as easy as they thought it would be. At some point in the design process, the hatch leading into and out of the LM had been redesigned, but the portable life support systems the astronauts wore had not, resulting in a tighter than ideal fit through the door. After some trouble opening the hatch and some squeezing by Armstrong with Aldrin's help, at 10:56pm EDT on July 20th, 1969 Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the surface of the moon, uttering his now famous line, "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." This event was heard and seen live by over 600 million households around the world.

Fifteen minutes later, Buzz Aldrin joined Neil Armstrong on the surface, becoming the second human in history to take such steps. He described the lunar landscape as a "magnificent desolation." The two spent a total of two hours and thirty six minutes on their lunar EVA and collected over 47 pounds of moon rocks. They traveled only about 400 feet from the LM to what is known as "East crater." As each task took longer to accomplish than expected, the pair was not able to complete all their planned tasks in the short time they spent on the moon. In comparison, Apollo 17 astronauts would spend over 22 hours on the lunar surface over the course of three days and three EVAs. Before leaving the lunar surface, Aldrin and Armstrong left a memorial package dedicated to deceased cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin, Vladimir Komarov (the first man to die on a spaceflight), and Apollo 1 astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee.

After their EVA, the pair climbed back into the lunar module and began prepping for the trip back to Columbia, where they would rejoin Collins. During this time, they discovered that the switch that controlled the main circuit breaker that armed the ascent stage rocket was broken. In Aldrin's own words, "Houston, Tranquility. Do you have a way of showing the configuration of the engine arm circuit breaker? Over. (Pause) The reason I'm asking is because the end of it appears to be broken off. I think we can push it back in again. I'm not sure we could pull it out if we pushed it in, though. Over." The solution to this was simply to force a felt-tipped pen into the slot.
Returning to Earth

After a few hours of rest, the pair launched from the lunar surface and rejoined Michael Collins aboard Columbia. They brought with them the 47 pounds of moon rocks, and left behind the experiments, the memorial bag, and the descent stage of the LM which had a plaque on it that read:

"Here Men From The Planet Earth First Set Foot Upon the Moon, July 1969 A.D., We Came in Peace For All Mankind."

It was signed by all three astronauts and President Nixon and contained images of the Eastern and Western hemisphere of Earth. It was also noted that during the ascent, the force from the engine knocked the American flag over, something fixed in future missions by placing it further from the spacecraft.

The night before the scheduled splash-down back on Earth, the crew made a final TV broadcast where each gave a synopsis of their thoughts on the mission. Command Module Pilot Micheal Collins spoke on the efforts to create the machine they traveled in: "...The Saturn V rocket which put us in orbit is an incredibly complicated piece of machinery, every piece of which worked flawlessly... We have always had confidence that this equipment will work properly. All this is possible only through the blood, sweat, and tears of a number of a people... All you see is the three of us, but beneath the surface are thousands and thousands of others, and to all of those, I would like to say, 'Thank you very much.'"

Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin continued this line and quoted from the book of Psalms, "...This has been far more than three men on a mission to the Moon; more, still, than the efforts of a government and industry team; more, even, than the efforts of one nation. We feel that this stands as a symbol of the insatiable curiosity of all mankind to explore the unknown... Personally, in reflecting on the events of the past several days, a verse from Psalms comes to mind. 'When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the Moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; What is man that Thou art mindful of him?'"

Commander Neil Armstrong closed by saying, "The responsibility for this flight lies first with history and with the giants of science who have preceded this effort; next with the American people, who have, through their will, indicated their desire; next with four administrations and their Congresses, for implementing that will; and then, with the agency and industry teams that built our spacecraft, the Saturn, the Columbia, the Eagle, and the little EMU, the spacesuit and backpack that was our small spacecraft out on the lunar surface. We would like to give special thanks to all those Americans who built the spacecraft; who did the construction, design, the tests, and put their hearts and all their abilities into those craft. To those people tonight, we give a special thank you, and to all the other people that are listening and watching tonight, God bless you. Good night from Apollo 11."

On July 24th, 1969 the mission ended with the command module Columbia splashing down safely in the Pacific ocean. The trio were picked up by rescue teams stationed aboard the USS Hornet, and at that moment, President Kennedy's challenge to the American people earlier in the decade had been fulfilled. After three weeks in quarantine, to ensure they had not brought anything back with them, the three were welcomed back as heroes with awards and accolades heaped on them. As a science fiction fan, I find it interesting (but not especially surprising) that the three were awarded a special Hugo award for "The Best Moon Landing Ever" in 1969.

As Armstrong's team acknowledged before their return to earth, Apollo 11, and project Apollo in general, was not the achievement of three men atop a rocket. It was the work of the employees at NASA; the workers, engineers, and designers at North American, Grumman, Boeing, and Douglas; the people who built the tools that were used to build the spacecraft; the individuals who picked up the astronauts when they returned from Earth; and the imagination of people the world over throughout time. For a moment in time, the world came together to marvel at the achievement not of a few individuals, not of a single country, but of mankind as a whole.

On the 40th anniversary of this feat, we at Nobel Intent and Ars Technica would like to add our voices to the worldwide chorus congratulating Micheal Collins, Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and all those who helped make this momentous achievement possible. Since that monumental day 40 years ago, 10 other men have walked on the surface of the moon, but we have not been back since 1972, when Eugene Cernan took the last step off the moon and onto the Challenger lunar lander for ascent and rendezvous with the command module America. I was not alive yet in 1969 and did not get to witness these events as the transpired; however, I do hope that at some point in my own life the world can come together and witness one of their own stepping foot onto another terra firma within the heavens.

[Lorizael]

Does anybody actually believe that the Apollo Program was a good idea?

Of course it was. If humanity doesn't conquer the universe, someone else will.

[KrazyHorse]

Of course it was. If humanity doesn't conquer the universe, someone else will.

In order for humanity to conquer the universe we're going to need a revolution in fundamental physics, not to spend a ****load of money perfecting primitive rocket tech.

One thing that people constantly forget is that by attempting to push technological progress in one direction we incur deadweight losses. For example, the computer tech aboard Apollo was a major expense; one which could have been avoided if it had been held off for a couple of decades. Now, undoubtedly, the gov't spending on Apollo helped increase the rate of development of computer tech, but just as undoubtedly the impact on development of this tech was far lower than if an equivalent amount had been spent directly on development (rather than on procurement) of computers.

Something like 70% of the entire R&D budget of the US federal government went to NASA during the Apollo years. What benefits were foregone due to this myopic spending?

Apollo was an engineering freak. Nothing more.

[Asher]

I think you underestimate NASA's contributions, KH.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pen_%28Seinfeld_episode%29

[Kuciwalker]

I wouldn't write off the value of 'national pride' during the Cold War. Apollo may well have been worth it.

[Lorizael]

Of course it was. If humanity doesn't conquer the universe, someone else will.

In order for humanity to conquer the universe we're going to need a revolution in fundamental physics, not to spend a ****load of money perfecting primitive rocket tech.

One thing that people constantly forget is that by attempting to push technological progress in one direction we incur deadweight losses. For example, the computer tech aboard Apollo was a major expense; one which could have been avoided if it had been held off for a couple of decades. Now, undoubtedly, the gov't spending on Apollo helped increase the rate of development of computer tech, but just as undoubtedly the impact on development of this tech was far lower than if an equivalent amount had been spent directly on development (rather than on procurement) of computers.

Something like 70% of the entire R&D budget of the US federal government went to NASA during the Apollo years. What benefits were foregone due to this myopic spending?

Apollo was an engineering freak. Nothing more.

The science will come. First, however, we must convince humans that we can and must conquer the universe. I'll admit that an equal amount of money spent on mind control research may have served this purpose just as well.

[KrazyHorse]

I wouldn't write off the value of 'national pride' during the Cold War. Apollo may well have been worth it.

It's difficult to quantify that. But I think that when you think about it you should be careful not to get lost in the zeroes. There are a lot of them.

[KrazyHorse]

The science will come. First, however, we must convince humans that we can and must conquer the universe. I'll admit that an equal amount of money spent on mind control research may have served this purpose just as well.

So Apollo's main value was as an advertisement?

Come on, now.

[Kuciwalker]

It's difficult to quantify that. But I think that when you think about it you should be careful not to get lost in the zeroes. There are a lot of them.

It's impossible to quantify, but I think the claim that the value was substantial is reasonable.

[Dauphin]

Does anybody actually believe that the Apollo Program was a good idea?

It wasn't just good, it was a great idea. Would I want to pay for it? No.

[rah]

Come on, we wouldn't have a 50$ pen that can write up-side down. (never mind that it's somthing that could be done with a 5 cent pencil.) Think Teflon

[Asher]

Already made that joke.

For the rest of this post, please continue here: http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showp...9&postcount=42

[Dis]

still not believing it. Why is it we supposedly landed on the moon in 1969, but can't do it today?