The Apollo program...

[BUTCH1]

Here's two 44 minute documentary's that describe the design of this monster from those who actually built it, the second one is about the LEM design. To this day I an in awe over what these men accomplished without any computer assistance. Anyway here they are,

Saturn V
The LEM

 

[OutHouse]

if i had 3 wishes, one of them would be to go back in time and see a Saturn 5 launch.

the other two would be the richest man in the world and invisibility at will. yes its all about me.

 

[BUTCH1]

if i had 3 wishes, one of them would be to go back in time and see a Saturn 5 launch.

the other two would be the richest man in the world and invisibility at will. yes its all about me.

I saw the 2nd shuttle launch from inside the base, about 5 miles away, unf-ing believable as the ground shook and the sound was deafening. The Saturn V was bigger yet so yea, I would have loved to see one go up. Eight MILLION pounds of thrust, must have been jaw-dropping if you were close.

 

[SKORPI0]

Looks like those 2 are from the 6 part 2008 documentary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Machines

• 3 Episodes
  • 3.1 Part 1: The Saturn V Rocket
  • 3.2 Part 2: The Command Module
  • 3.3 Part 3: The Navigation Computer
  • 3.4 Part 4: The Lunar Module
  • 3.5 Part 5: The Space Suit
  • 3.6 Part 6: The Lunar Rover

 

[BUTCH1]

Looks like those 2 are from the 6 part 2008 documentary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Machines

Cool, all of them are uploaded to YT, highly recommend as these interview the guys who built all the equipment, solved all the problems, ect.

EDIT:, here they all are in one channel, great stuff.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mucb4Ttt1oY&list=PLTu8nanTJo7GvulBxz9JT9JcXeXimM1Vr

 

[Dr. Zaus]

I am glad Starbuck got his arrow to President Roslin...

 

[FerrelGeek]

if i had 3 wishes, one of them would be to go back in time and see a Saturn 5 launch.

the other two would be the richest man in the world and invisibility at will. yes its all about me.

Never saw it in person, but even on a 19" b&w tv it was seriously impressive.

 

[rudder]

To this day I an in awe over what these men accomplished without any computer assistance.

 

[Linflas]

Never saw it in person, but even on a 19" b&w tv it was seriously impressive.

I remember it all like it was yesterday. Like you I saw it all in black and white, we didn't get our first color set until 1972.

 

[DrPizza]

Excellent documentary!

 

[BUTCH1]

Excellent documentary!

Yea, all of them are. They get into the details of what they had to do to solve certain problems. I think my favorite was when they were having problems keeping the fiberglass honey-comb insulation in place on the fuel tank so they contacted the local surfer community (who were experts working with that stuff) and they got the job done. Love how the engineer added, " those kids were fantastic, only problem was when the surf was up we had a huge absenteeism problem" . Another thing I never knew was the LEM's ascent engine was not tested prior to launch, it was a simple design, 2 reactive chemicals were released into a chamber and the result was thrust. No ignition source to worry about, no pumps to worry about but by the time it's burn was done the engine was basically ruined by the chemicals so every LEM that lifted off the moon did so with an untested engine.

 

[Squisher]

Us children of the 60s.

Back in the 60s you could write to any of the places that were involved with NASA and ask for promotional materials and they would send you free booklets, brochures, and posters at least totaling a half inch thick. I was addicted. Free stuff! I didn't go a month without writing some installation somewhere. I had posters, some 6 feet wide, of everything imaginable all over my room.

I had a model of just about every rocket NASA flew including a Saturn V, another of just the Stage IV/LEM/Command Module, and another large LEM.

I remember giving a report on space flight in 6th grade (1969) and going on for over an hour. Teacher was so impressed she sent me to all the other grades to give the same talk.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Never saw it in person, but even on a 19" b&w tv it was seriously impressive.

Was lucky as a kid living in Florida. Watched most of the early Apollo launches in Sarasota. It was a long way off but you could still see it going up. Once we moved to Orlando dad & mom would pack all the kids up in the station wagon and find a parking spot on US 1, right on the Banana River. The launches were amazing, particularly the night launches. Initially you'd see the entire sky light up orange, but there would be total silence. Slowly the launch vehicle would rise into view riding atop a huge flame. After about 20 seconds or so the compression wave would hit along with the roar of the engines. It's something I will never forget.

Then there was the time my best friend, an aerospace engineer working for NASA, landed a house-sitting gig for a place in Cocoa Beach located on the Intra-Coastal Waterway. Turned out the house was owned by the guy who made the original land acquisition for Kennedy Space Center and worked for NASA for 35 years. There was NASA stuff everywhere. The game room had, in frames on the wall, every patch from every NASA mission up until that point. In the office was a flag that had been to the moon and was signed by the astronauts on that mission (don't recall which one it was). In the bedroom closet were stacks and stacks of technical manuals ranging from Mercury missions to the Space Shuttle. Next to those manuals was every issue of Playboy ever printed up till November of 1992, even number 1. We had some serious parties at that house.

 

[edfcmc]

Here is an article on ARS that I found to be very fascinating:

http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the-monstrous-f-1-moon-rocket-back-to-life/

 

[skyking]

Us children of the 60s.

Back in the 60s you could write to any of the places that were involved with NASA and ask for promotional materials and they would send you free booklets, brochures, and posters at least totaling a half inch thick. I was addicted. Free stuff! I didn't go a month without writing some installation somewhere. I had posters, some 6 feet wide, of everything imaginable all over my room.

I had a model of just about every rocket NASA flew including a Saturn V, another of just the Stage IV/LEM/Command Module, and another large LEM.

I remember giving a report on space flight in 6th grade (1969) and going on for over an hour. Teacher was so impressed she sent me to all the other grades to give the same talk.

:thumbsup:
I did not know about those posters. Very cool! Those were great times to grow up in.
Now I realize I was born at the wrong time, I should have been flying the first jets in the 60's.

 

[NoTine42]

Here is an article on ARS that I found to be very fascinating:

http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the-monstrous-f-1-moon-rocket-back-to-life/

Nice!

As with everything else about the F-1, even the gas generator boasts impressive specs. It churns out about 31,000 pounds of thrust (138 kilonewtons), more than an F-16 fighter's engine running at full afterburner, and it was used to drive a turbine that produced 55,000 shaft horsepower. (That's 55,000 horsepower just to run the F-1's fuel and oxidizer pumps—the F-1 itself produced the equivalent of something like 32 million horsepower, though accurately measuring a rocket's thrust at that scale is complicated.)

 

[Micrornd]

To this day I an in awe over what these men accomplished without any computer assistance.

Not quite true. :\
They made extensive use of the then state of the art IBM 360 from 1964 on.
I know this because we had a exact duplicate backup of NASA's system at FIT (funded by NASA) in base of the seven story "Science tower".
It took up the entire ground floor.

While those with "special" logins had direct entry privileges, all 1st and most 2nd year students were limited to punch card entry and later paper tape.
And Fortran 3 and 4 were the languages of choice.

It was "donated" for the then new Computer Science majors, but when NASA needed it's use because their system was tied up or when an "in-flight" mission needed added computer power, everyone without a classified NASA login was locked out.

FIT in Melbourne was really a staging ground/recruiting arena for NASA back then and many were offered work with the agency or it's contractors, both off-class and "permanent".

You could always tell when something was really badly amiss over at the Cape, the "pocket protectors" and "black frames" were rampant on campus.

Met a lot of guys that went on to greater things and even some astronauts back then.
Aah youth, if I knew then, what I know now..........

 

[MongGrel]

Saturn V's were awesome.

I remember all of us going over to my uncles house because he had the good TV at the time, and being a 8 year old munchkin running around with a kleenex, thread, and scotch taped parachute on an object I can't even remember what it was, on re entry.

 

[Ruptga]

Yeah I was gonna say, we've had practical computers in one form or another since at least WWII. Back then they could only run for about an hour at a time before overheating, but it was still better than doing aerodynamic calculations by slide rule.

 

[herm0016]

I am reading Gene Kranz's book right now, Its quite good.

http://www.amazon.com/Failure-Is-Not-Option-Mission/dp/1439148813

going to check out those documentaries this weekend.

 

[MongGrel]

Not quite true. :\
They made extensive use of the then state of the art IBM 360 from 1964 on.
I know this because we had a exact duplicate backup of NASA's system at FIT (funded by NASA) in base of the seven story "Science tower".
It took up the entire ground floor.

While those with "special" logins had direct entry privileges, all 1st and most 2nd year students were limited to punch card entry and later paper tape.
And Fortran 3 and 4 were the languages of choice.

It was "donated" for the then new Computer Science majors, but when NASA needed it's use because their system was tied up or when an "in-flight" mission needed added computer power, everyone without a classified NASA login was locked out.

FIT in Melbourne was really a staging ground/recruiting arena for NASA back then and many were offered work with the agency or it's contractors, both off-class and "permanent".

You could always tell when something was really badly amiss over at the Cape, the "pocket protectors" and "black frames" were rampant on campus.

Met a lot of guys that went on to greater things and even some astronauts back then.
Aah youth, if I knew then, what I know now..........

Good lord man, that is really old school.

Kudos.

 

[Brovane]

Nice!

A lot of power in the S-IC stage of the Saturn-V. All the knowledge gained by the Von Braun team at the MSFC from designing the V-2, Jupiter and Redstone went into the S-IC.



Saturn V S1C first stage test stand firing sequences with Dolby 5 1 sound https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YTaG91KD5s

 

[Xstatic1]

Had gone on the Mega Tour at Kennedy Space Center a couple of years ago. A few pics I took there (the video clip linky isn't mine though)...

Part of the Mega Tour was going out to see Launch Pad 39 (can't remember if it was 39-A or 39-B).

After seeing the Vehicle Assembly Building and Launch Pad 39, we were bussed to the Apollo/Saturn V Center. "As you enter the Firing Room Theater, fast forward to Dec. 21, 1968 for the launch of Apollo 8, the first mission to orbit the moon and the first manned flight of the massive Saturn V. As you stand before the actual consoles [see pic] used during the Apollo launches--not far from Kennedy Space Center's real launch control center--your virtual host, former launch controller John Hudson, gives you an insider's perspective on just how dangerous this mission really was. Finally, with the all-clear for launch, you can finally exhale, only to be caught up in the excitement of counting down...3...2...1. You'll not only see the massive moon rocket slowly rise from the launch pad before your eyes but also feel the rumble beneath your feet and hear the louvered windows shake above your head, convincing you for just a moment that this is much, much more than a re-enactment."

This is a good 5.5-minute video of what you watch when you're sitting in the Firing Room/Launch Control Center ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7UF3OqSvrg

"Feel the space race come alive as you stand under the largest rocket ever made--the mighty Saturn V. This monumental 363-foot rocket [its diameter is 33 feet] was America's lunar transportation for 27 brave astronauts who traveled to the moon and back." During the 1st (of 3 stages)... "the five F-1 engines propelled the spacecraft to a speed of 5,000 MPH and consumed fuel at a rate of 15 tons per second. Approximately 2.5 minutes after launch, the engines cut off and the stage was jettisoned into the Atlantic Ocean."

 

[Brian Stirling]

The power of the first stage was simply staggering -- 160M HP or more power than 200,000 F1 cars at redline!

It's an interesting question as to whether our decline began just about the time the Apollo program ended and what role it's end may have played in it.

Sad to think that all the men and women that built and flew on them are very old or dead and that by the time we take the next step, if that ever happens, they will all be gone.

In academia it's publish or perish...

In science, engineering and the economy you either push ahead or fall behind. Sadly, we've not been pushing ahead in more than four decades. The current era in economic matters is driven by been counters and not by visionaries. The goal is to lower cost (outsource) and take a larger percentage of what's left for the wealthy.

Both parties are to blame for this!


Brian

 

[2techornottotec]

if i had 3 wishes, one of them would be to go back in time and see a Saturn 5 launch.

the other two would be the richest man in the world and invisibility at will. yes its all about me.

If you were the richest man or even in the top 1000, you wouldn't need to be invisible