Apollo 11: Mankind's First Steps on the Moon

[Mech_Engineer]

On July 20, 1969 American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to set foot on the moon, also being the first men to ever land and set foot on another celestial body. To this day 41 years later, the Apollo program stands alone in:

• Sending humans beyond low Earth orbit
• Landing Humans on another celestial body
• The only manned spacecraft to orbit another celestial body
• The last moonwalk and the last manned mission beyond low Earth orbit (Apollo 17)

We had pizza and Tang for lunch at work, and watched clips of the original Apollo 11 footage. Anyone else do anything fun?

 

[Mech_Engineer]

Some good links regarding the Apollo program:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program

http://www.clavius.org/

 

[waht]

That's was amazing isn't it.. NASA at its peak.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

My wife wants to know if they can send a man to the moon, why can't they send all the men to the moon?

 

[Andre]

I remember the day vividly. A few hours before the moon landing, I witnessed a crash with a piper cub, killing the student pilot and the instructor

 

[arunma]

Wow, this was indeed a really cool accomplishment. It's hard to believe that they pulle this off forty years ago!

 

[Borg]

My wife wants to know if they can send a man to the moon, why can't they send all the men to the moon?

Because the women gave us too many chores that we have to finish first?

 

[Mech_Engineer]

Happy Moon Day 2011!

Almost missed it, but a happy day anyway. 42 years ago, and we still haven't surpassed the accomplishment

On the eve of the Space Shuttle being retired for good, here's to a future with more manned space exploration!

Article on the moon landings at MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43826355/ns/technology_and_science/

The most unforgettable space shuttle pictures at NatGeo: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/07/pictures/110720-best-unforgettable-space-shuttle-pictures/?now=2011-07-20-00:01

 

[Mech_Engineer]

Happy Moon Day 2012!

http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/SMALL/GPN-2000-001102.jpg​

On the 43rd anniversary of one of the greatest engineering feats of all time, it seems to me we are in "the quiet before the storm" of a new and fundamentally different space race- this time driven by private industry. Still, manned space exploration beyond low Earth orbit hasn't happened since Apollo 17, almost 40 years ago... With NASA mired in government political jockeying, here's hoping private ventures can start taking up some of the slack in manned space flight and technological advancement!

An amazing picture collection from NASA: GRIN- Great Images from NASA

Some reading on some new space initiatives I found appropriate:

Google Lunar X Prize Google Lunar X Prize on Wikipedia
"The Google Lunar X PRIZE offers a total of US$30 million in prizes to the first privately funded teams to land a robot on the Moon that successfully travels more than 500 meters (1,640 ft) and transmits back high definition images and video."

SpaceX, ULA Win Lucrative NASA Contracts
"The United Launch Alliance (ULA) will dust off its Delta 2 rockets and join SpaceX in planning several orbiting science missions courtesy of new NASA contracts worth nearly $500 million."

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0716/SpaceX-capsule-one-step-closer-to-manned-flight-says-NASA]SpaceX[/PLAIN] capsule one step closer to manned flight, says NASA
"The crewed version of SpaceX's Dragon space capsule has passed a key design review, moving one step closer to carrying astronauts into orbit, NASA officials announced Thursday (July 12)."

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Only a few months until the 40 year anniversary of apolloy 17, the last mission to send anyone to the moon. I'm skeptical of the future of manned space travel. Without huge increases in funding to government bodies for manned missions or technologies to make space profitable I can't see us doing more than increasing robotic probes for science and a few hotels in orbit.

I'm not betting against it but given the last few decades I'm not running with the technoptimists either.

 

[BobG]

Just by coincidence, today is the last day of a two-body orbital mechanics course I teach. Our final group exercise for the course is to recreate and solve the 'problem' from the movie, "The Dish" - where the site lost power and the antenna operators had to find Apollo 11 from its Keplerian elements.

For the exercise, we copy the elements from the blackboard in the movie and the students figure out the look angles for the antenna, then watch the next scene in the movie to compare their answer to the movie.

All of the numbers used in the movie, from the element sets to the antenna look angles to the location of the Moon are actual and were obtained from historical data. And much of the equipment in the movie is the real equipment left behind by NASA at the end of the Apollo program, since they had no use for it and it was expensive to ship it all back to the US.

So that's how we'll be celebrating Moon Day!

 

[leroyjenkens]

I can only imagine how it felt to hear the news that people actually landed a spaceship on the moon and walked out onto it. You could go outside and look at the moon and say "there are people on that thing right now." That must have been amazing.

Humans first developed the ability to fly around the year 1900 and 70 years later humans flew to the moon. A short enough time frame for some people to have witnessed both events. It's really amazing.

 

[MacLaddy]

I wasn't around to see any of the Apollo programs, but it's great that NASA is still doing some impressive things I can witness. Too bad it doesn't get the fanfare it deserves.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2I8AoB1xgU

 

[Mech_Engineer]

One thing I find interesting is the majority of the population grossly overestimates NASA's budget (some people erroneously think it's 10-25% of the federal budget...) NASA's budget for 2011 was about $18.5 billion, 0.5% of the overall federal budget and about 1/70th (1.3%) the size of the total department of defense budget. This means if the the Department of Defense could increase efficiency by a mere 1%, this could DOUBLE NASA's budget! Even at it's height in the late 1960's, NASA's budget was 4.41% of the total federal budget.

Makes you really think about bang for your buck in scientific advancement, who in the entire world has more public demonstrations of scientific achievement and human accomplishment than NASA?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA

 

[Ryan_m_b]

One thing I find interesting is the majority of the population grossly overestimates NASA's budget

What's also interesting is the possibility that people grossly overestimate what NASA is capable of and are actually doing, just check out the survey performed and discussed by a UCLA professor on his students (not very comprehensive of course but worth further investigation IMO).
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/10/why-not-space/

let me share the results of a survey question I have posed to college students in my classes. Let’s see how you fare, imagining yourself to be in the same age bracket of 18–22:

Approximately how far have humans traveled from the surface of the Earth in your lifetime? [e.g., since 1980 or so]

■a) 600 km (low Earth orbit, 0.1 times the Earth radius)
■b) 6,000 km (about the radius of the Earth)
■c) 36,000 km (geosynchronous orbit; about 6 Earth radii)
■d) 385,000 km (about the distance to the Moon; 60 Earth radii)
■e) beyond the Moon

I make the question visual, which you can do as well. Start with a standard Earth globe (12 inch or 30 cm diameter). The first answer is 0.6 inches (1.5 cm) from the surface, followed by 6 inches (15 cm), then a yard (meter), then 30 feet (9 m) for the Moon. Take a minute to picture this.

Out of a total of 109 students responding (one group in 2006, another in 2010), only 11% got the right answer: low Earth orbit. 52% thought humans had been as far as the Moon since the 1980′s, and 20% thought we had been farther than the Moon. Some were indignant on learning the truth: “What do we use the space shuttle for, if not to go to the Moon?!” I can only guess that some students imagined the International Space Station as a remote outpost, certainly beyond the Moon, and likely strategically located next to a wormhole. How disappointing it must be to learn that it merely hugs the globe.

 

[Mech_Engineer]

Happy Moon Day 2013!

Happy Moon Day 2013!​

It's the anniversary of an historic day! True to this annually awoken thread, I'd like to remind everyone that 44 years ago 3 men flew to the moon with less computing power than a graphing calculator to fulfill the mission set forth to congress a mere 8 years before. Man hasn't flown outside near Earth orbit since Apollo 17 (Dec 1972), and still has yet to meet many of the records set by those flights!

Here's to human achievement and hoping we continue on the path of manned spaceflight!

For your enetertainment:

• The Wikipedia article on the Apollo Program has grown leaps and bounds in the past year or two, everyone ought to check it out, it has a lot of interesting historical pictures and design concepts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program
• NASA is preparing for a major milestone test of the Orion Crew Module: http://www.idigitaltimes.co.uk/articles/487252/20130707/nasa-orion-recovery-test-eft-1-pacific-ocean-us-navy-kennedy-space-center.htm

 

[dlgoff]

I found this page I tore out of a magazine during the Apollo missions. I can't remember if it was a Life or a Look magazine.

 

[Mech_Engineer]

Happy Moon Day 2014!

Hello All!

I'm pleased to report that another year has passed, and so today we commemorate the 45th anniversary of the landing of Apollo 11! After flying for 4 days aboard their spacecraft , Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set down aboard their "Eagle" lander July 20th, 1969.

I will be celebrating with Tang, Astronaut Ice Cream, and my family for this occasion! Here's to another happy year to all!

 

[jtbell]

Here's the way we actually saw it on TV at the time:

I put my camera on a tripod in front of the TV in the college dormitory lounge where a group of us were watching.

 

[dlgoff]

Seeing this on TV was one of the best experiences in my life. Thanks NASA