I worked at MIT Instrumentation Lab on a compiler for the guidance software for the moon missions. My contribution was insignificant, but I am still proud to have been part of it. My only regret was that I never made it to Florida to watch a Saturn V take off.
Secondly, two great warrior tribes holding enough weaponry to kill every human on the planet many, many times over hold guns to each other's heads... and then divert competition from violence into technological achievement. The message no longer just "I'm best because I'm stronger" but now also smarter, more technologically advanced. Means of competition that does actually give the world a brighter future, rather than just ending it for the other tribe.
Not the way it worked out.
Pretty much the reason why a lot of progress in manned spaceflight came to a halt is due to the Shuttle program. It was sold on a laundry list of promises that somehow a lot of powerful folks utterly bought into. But in the end it ended up being far less capable and far more expensive than just about every alternative. Although admittedly it does look pretty cool.
:)
Dad has always talked about his memories of 1969 (he would have been a teenager at the time) and the excitement of it.
I feel like going back after so long will feel almost as momentous for some of my generation. Although possibly not the the majority, which is a little sad.
I'm afraid my dominant memory is the bleep they had between the voice from the moon and the reply from Houston. A fraction of a second long, and a bit higher than E above middle C. I can still hear that now, with the sort of echo at the end from the satellite relay I suppose.
Dad (born 1930s, RAF technician and then radio repairs) was really excited by it all and loved the technology. Grandad (born 1890s, trained as blacksmith, operated a static steam engine, the kind that powers a mill through drive belts) found it sort of funny. Mum liked it when they got out of the capsules on the aircraft carrier.
http://www.ehartwell.com/Apollo17/MissionTranscriptCollectio...
Note that the 80% and 20% are sheer rhetorical fabrications.
So it should really be "100% of the objectives for 5% of the cost". Which, in a nutshell, is why we stopped sending people to the moon.
"Thank you Mr. President. It's a great honor and privilege for us to be here representing not only the United States but men of peace of all nations, men with interests and a curiosity and men with a vision for the future."
Fucking awesome.
So this text both brought me on the verge of tearing up and annoyed me. Bravo!
It was worth doing, but it's been done. I hope we go back in my lifetime, certainly in my children's lifetimes, but for better reasons than just 'because'.
[1] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/main/prelim_water_r...
It was looking for water on the moon, so my guess would be that video just wasn't important.
Today, the last remaining challenge of landing on the moon, is carrying enough fuel for a trans-lunar injection orbit into orbit, and then for the lander to land on the moon itself.
With modern launch vehicles, it is straight-forward to launch a moon landing mission as three components (command module, lander, and engine/fuel. And link them together in orbit. However, there is a significant penalty to not launching all at once into the correct earth orbit to later elongate into a trans lunar orbit. So a 'modern' mission actually would need two loads of fuel in orbit, one to move the whole assembly into a prepatory orbit, and then one to move from that orbit to the moon.
If we have on-orbit refueling then you manage a depot of fuel for the second step, and the sequence becomes launch lander, dock it with a tug. Launch command module, attach that to the tug. Move the tug (with its command and lander modules) into the same ecliptic as the moon's orbit. Then refuel, and then use the tug to move you to the moon.
By re-using the tug multiple times the costs drop dramatically. (like $100M every time you re-use it, that is a tug you didn't launch from earth).
People want on-orbit refueling so that we can have longer lived satellites. (there are perfectly serviceable communication satellites in 'dead' orbits because they no longer have the fuel for station keeping.)
Once we get that capability it won't be a question of 'will' to get to the moon, it will simply be a question of money. And there is enough disposable income amongst the young billionaires of the world that getting the money won't be an issue either.
Nice. I often like to point out that a 2nd rate country like Iraq was developing the means to launch bulk cargoes to orbit for only $600/kg back in the 1980's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Babylon
High ISP plasma and ion rockets would also lower reaction mass requirements significantly.
The last volume he purchased was August 1969.
In my imagination, after the moon landing, he bought one more issue, and it just didn't work anymore. Science fiction had become science fact, and he had no need for any more fiction.
I wonder how he felt later, after we left the moon for the last time and never went back.
Interesting writeup of the various alarms (beeps) that are going off: http://klabs.org/history/apollo_11_alarms/eyles_2004/eyles_2...
At 3:15 you can hear Charlie Duke say "60 seconds" - that's how much time they have until they run out of fuel and need to abort the landing.
3 years ago, I took my laptop to the terrace atop the building I worked in and listened as the sun fell behind the buildings. I was one year old at the time of the actual landing and I'm glad I could join in, even if with a 40 year delay.
