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Thread: How to fly to the moon

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    Default How to fly to the moon

    Found these whilst browsing the 'net, thought it interesting. WARNING! A LOT of reading.

    and the




    Enjoy your reading!
    I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message...

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    It's always amazed me, how back in those days of "!st trips to the Moon", that a home 'Commodore-64' computer was more
    powerful than the onboard computers on those lunar missions!!!

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    great find , thanks . Ive done the History tour at Cape Canaveral its great . Takes about a day to see all the exhibits , walk around the early unmanned rockets etc. Another tour takes in the modern day exhibits. Get to drive past the assembly hall in a bus and as usual the day ends with a compulsory walk through the souvenir shop lol.

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    They had a Gemini capsule tour Aust in the 70s I went to see it when it was set up in John Martins store (IIRC). I also build a model back then. Yes I was a space freak like so many kids of that era. I've lost count of the number of times I either watched 2001, a space odyssey or read the book and the sequels.
    I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message...

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ah-Those-Old-Days! View Post
    It's always amazed me, how back in those days of "!st trips to the Moon", that a home 'Commodore-64' computer was more
    powerful than the onboard computers on those lunar missions!!!
    If you can, download these. Its the Science Channel series called Moon Machines...its 6 episodes totalling about 3.5GB. (posted before somewhere)

    1. The Saturn V
    2. The Command Module
    3. The Navigation Computer
    4. The Lunar Lander
    5. The Spacesuit
    6. The Lunar Rover



    Quote Originally Posted by lsemmens View Post
    They had a Gemini capsule tour Aust in the 70s I went to see it when it was set up in John Martins store (IIRC). I also build a model back then. Yes I was a space freak like so many kids of that era. I've lost count of the number of times I either watched 2001, a space odyssey or read the book and the sequels.
    I saw that exhibition in Perth. I think it was John Glenns capsule Friendship 7 but I'm not sure. I'd also stood on the front lawn in Freo with my father and watched him fly over Perth and Rockingham in 1962. Both cities turned all lights on.

    Great times..................

    That whining squib Adam Bandt would have apoplexy these days.
    The fact that there's a highway to hell and a stairway to heaven says a lot about the anticipated traffic flow.

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    To 'enf' ... I couldn't read all that, but what I saw was interesting though. I would like to clarify though, that I was not 'knocking' what they did
    in those days, with what they had at hand. In fact it is/was commendable for what they achieved!! I recently saw a video about 'Don Eyles' who
    wrote the 'code' for the Moon Lander etc. Evidently, when he started work there, he had never even written a line of Code before, but became one
    of the No-1 guys. (See Youtube, "The Real Story Behind the Apollo 11 Computer Error"...

    The 'story' isn't so much about that 'error', which was basically insignificant after all, but what they had to work with, hardware wise, in a totally new
    (then) environment of hardware/software development, with no other precedence's to fall back on!! It's actually amazing that they DID make it!


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    Quote Originally Posted by Ah-Those-Old-Days! View Post
    To 'enf' ... I couldn't read all that, but what I saw was interesting though. I would like to clarify though, that I was not 'knocking' what they did
    in those days, with what they had at hand. In fact it is/was commendable for what they achieved!! I recently saw a video about 'Don Eyles' who
    wrote the 'code' for the Moon Lander etc. Evidently, when he started work there, he had never even written a line of Code before, but became one
    of the No-1 guys. (See Youtube, "The Real Story Behind the Apollo 11 Computer Error"...

    The 'story' isn't so much about that 'error', which was basically insignificant after all, but what they had to work with, hardware wise, in a totally new
    (then) environment of hardware/software development, with no other precedence's to fall back on!! It's actually amazing that they DID make it!

    Ummm...I'm not quite sure why you think I was critical of you. I didn't think you were 'knocking' anything. I posted what I did for interest sake, nothing more...

    Yeah, the computer error was interesting. Its covered in one of those programs.

    Also things like Aldrin having to use a pen after one of them had broken the engine arm circuitbreaker for the ascent engine in the lander....it certainly was a near run thing at times.
    The fact that there's a highway to hell and a stairway to heaven says a lot about the anticipated traffic flow.

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    Quote Originally Posted by enf View Post
    Ummm...I'm not quite sure why you think I was critical of you. I didn't think you were 'knocking' anything. I posted what I did for interest sake, nothing more...

    Yeah, the computer error was interesting. Its covered in one of those programs.

    Also things like Aldrin having to use a pen after one of them had broken the engine arm circuitbreaker for the ascent engine in the lander....it certainly was a near run thing at times.
    I'm sorry 'enf'... I often fail regarding my actual 'text' these days... I should have clarified that i understand that you were not saying anything against 'me',
    but simply that I was simply adding to my 'thoughts' about how certain things could/would have transpired back then, out of interest, and considering their
    incredible limitations technology/computer wise in those days. I was definitely NOT having a dig at 'you' mate. Again though, it's amazing that did what they did!

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    Just stumbled upon this...


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    Quote Originally Posted by enf View Post
    If you can, download these. Its the Science Channel series called Moon Machines...its 6 episodes totalling about 3.5GB. (posted before somewhere)

    1. The Saturn V
    2. The Command Module
    3. The Navigation Computer
    4. The Lunar Lander
    5. The Spacesuit
    6. The Lunar Rover

    Thanks for those ~ seen them in the past but it's good to revisit (had to find the time to rewatch them) ... I've still got a thing for the saturn V engines, especially the specs on the turbo-pumps and amount of fuel being burnt...vertical topfuel rails =) I think seeing the nozzle bells distort and wobble on the space shuttle when it's engines lit was the same 'wow' factor for me...like 787 wing tip flex of 7.5metres...this sort of engineering gets me in.

    Space...not so much ~ I end up considering what the goldfish feels like swimming in it's bowl 8)

    The technology involved however is nothing short of ingenious, and all the parallels we hear comparing the nav computer's computational power wrt mobilephones, modems, teevee IR remotes etc etc (and things like the C64, Nec TK80, etc etc) all miss the point -- it's a disingenuous comparison. For example...could a Commodore 64 made in 1984 be able to do the same task as the Bosch LH-Jetronic EFI computer? I mean, after all...the C64 has heaps more ram (64Kb vs 128 bytes), is running the same speed of 1MHz..could it do it? Short answer - no ...just as the Bosch EFI box will never, ever be a home computer like a C64...it's flatout communicating to the outside world with blinken lights =) However, both are 8bit CPUs running at 1MHz.. but there is no 'real' comparison.

    These are different custom builds of hardware, made for a specific job, and NASA used a lot of the same 'tricks' as things like the Bosch LH-Jetronic EFI computer (same was so in industrial process control computing at the time), when you didn't have enough computing power to calculate all of the variables involved, so you created/made clever sensors that resolved the complex math into a single byte. The 'LH' in Bosch LH-Jetronic stands for 'Luftmasse-Hitzdraht' - a hotwire mass airflow sensor. The first LH-1 output a voltage signal of 1.2 to 4.0 volts to represent the mass of air flowing through it, expressed in grams/second. As we know, the density of air varies with altitude, moisture content and temperature, however the sensor itself is so elegantly designed, it compensates for all these variables with it's output signal level -- the EFI computer itself doesn't need to calculate nor compensate for these variables ; it just does a table lookup, maybe a dozen clock cycles to get fuel injector pulse width. The 'art' as it were is in the tables, not so much the electronics.

    Same thing with these early NASA nav computers ~ the 'juicy' bits are the gyro units... #drool... and that whole rope magnetic memory concept.. creating hardware circuits to alleviate software constraints.. unreal, imagine how well they had to keep things shielded ...actually, I'll see if I can find it again, but if you're more into reading stuff and just not watching vids like the above, there's a forum out there full of NASA engineers/techs from back in those days, who tell of things they had to do with the hardware to make it work..IRL =) I remember reading about them having to justify the need for an additional 60lbs weight allowance...just for the shielding case around the electronics...and folks misconstrue the notion that the Apollo computers were at the pinnacle of computational power and/or/else extremely 'primative' relative to the task at hand... that's not the story really...these machines were built to Colin Chapman standards <grin>...just enough to do the tasks at hand, and weigh next to nothing.

    The Apollo computers were slow ~ they could afford to be...it didn't matter if it took them 10 seconds to do 2*2=4 ; if it took them 5 minutes to read & calculate their position, that's fine ; "but if we put in a more powerful computer, we can calculate that in 1 minute" ... but how much will it weigh? How much power will it need?...blablabla -- they chose and designed a system to get the job done - they even implemented dedicated functions into hardware instead of software ; the fact that they had refined the actual task down to the point they could get away with such a 'primitive' computer, is where the magic happened =)

    There's a good treatise of this --

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    Quote Originally Posted by wotnot View Post

    The Apollo computers were slow ~ they could afford to be...it didn't matter if it took them 10 seconds to do 2*2=4 ; if it took them 5 minutes to read & calculate their position, that's fine ; "but if we put in a more powerful computer, we can calculate that in 1 minute" ... but how much will it weigh? How much power will it need?...blablabla -- they chose and designed a system to get the job done - they even implemented dedicated functions into hardware instead of software ; the fact that they had refined the actual task down to the point they could get away with such a 'primitive' computer, is where the magic happened =)

    There's a good treatise of this --

    Ah the indestructible core memory
    The main difference between a board system computational device(of the time) and a PC is the lack of operating system. That is why no comparisons can be made.
    Even today there is a lot I can achieve with a simple PIC micro where a PC breaks down when it has to interface efficiently with the 'The Machines'.
    I find even a Raspberry Pi often impractical and awkward for my needs.
    Less can be more.

    However as for time constraints of these old computers doing complex calculations, what if something went wrong unexpected and that 5 minute delay to recalculate the course means you miss being captured by the moon orbit by a tiny bit and off you go into space for ever ?!

    A wonderful old German Song from my past when I just finished Uni and I was literally "völlig losgelöst" when it was released, covers precisely that.
    I was reminded today after I watched an episode of the Umbrella Academy where they played the English translated version (not so good) and then I saw your post

    Update: A deletion of features that work well and ain't broke but are deemed outdated in order to add things that are up to date and broken.
    Compatibility: A word soon to be deleted from our dictionaries as it is outdated.
    Humans: Entities that are not only outdated but broken... AI-self-learning-update-error...terminate...terminate...

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    Just finished listening to this Podcast on the Apollo Mission it is very well done and takes it from the point of view of the Command Control Centre and the actual people that where there. as well as the 13 mins it tool to descend to the moon surface and land.. Just started Series 2 which focuses on Apollo 13 accident.



    Having listen to this Pod cast as well as looking at the Ops Manual that Lsemmens Posted made it even more interesting as could look up the systems they where talking about.

    Enjoy

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