Apollo - I am still amazed

That's if they really did land on the moon

yawn

You had to be brave to sit on a million piece almost atom bomb, made by the lowest bidder.
I'll second the yawn.

Im sure that if it was a hoax then it would have come out by now.....its hard to keep every mouth that was involved closed for 40yrs.

Scottyhammer - I think there were approx 6 million mechanical components in the system . With a 99.99% non failure rate it still meant they could expect to travel with 6000 faulty parts during the mission!!

One of the apollo wives felt reassured when told that the crew had a 2 in 3 chance of returning, she was working to a 50:50 assumption. The right stuff indeed.

Certainly not a hoax.

However I think the down side of the Apollo project is largely overlooked.
In the race to get to the moon no thought was given to the longevity of space exploration.
The technology of Apollo was a dead end, rather than a beginning.

Still totally amazes me.

Don't know if anybody has listened to the track Monochrome by The Sundays? ...it's a beautiful personal song about the moon landing - marvelous.

I don't agree. The constellation / aeries program which hopefully will take us back to the moon/ mars and beyond is very much derived from apollo.

Go to the nasa web site and look at the intended construction and the various functional divisions of the ship. Much closer to apollo than the earth orbit only shuttle solution.

And that's not even taking into account the huge amount of knowledge gained through the mercury, Gemini and apollo programs.

Before we landed on the moon many significant scientists predicted that man would be killed by the Van Allen belts when travelling in deep space and that the lunar lander would sink into the moons surface.



To say we never learned anything is an insult to

half finished last line not intended - apologies

Funnily enough I met a guy in a local bar recently who was an engineer involved with the Apollo missions. He was visiting Folkestone because being an Engineer he was interested in the Channel Tunnel.

I said to him, 'I have to ask you this did we really land on the moon?'.

His answer was, 'I have to tell you we did an awful lot of testing in the Arizona dessert, but, yes, we really did land on the moon.

This statement intrigued me as the conspiracy theorists claim that it was all staged in the Arizona dessert, and you can read between the lines of what he said.

On the same subject, I read a story on Yahoo,
that they were going to point one of the large South American telescopes at the moon to try and take pictures of the flag and the lander.

Conspiracy theorists will no doubt claim that any photographs are faked.

Regards,

Schizo

Any chance of keeping the conspiracy theories to another thread? I wanted to keep this thread as a tribute to reality.

quote:

Originally posted by Simon Matthews:
yawn

Apologies if my winky didn't express my sarcasm enough. I was merely making sure the stereotypical response was taken care of. Its a compulsion im afraid. My statement made in jest does not represent my true thoughts on the matter.

Apologies. It's just the conspiracy thing really wears me down!! It is a not so wonderful bi product of the internet where like minded individuals (knob heads) get to convince each other total tripe.

quote:

To say we never learned anything is an insult to ...

So don't say it Simon!

I described Apollo technology as dead-end in terms of exploring space beyond Mars.
Apollo was designed solely to get America to the moon before the Russians.
Not a good idea in principle, & a very poor use of resources.

quote:

The technology of Apollo was a dead end, rather than a beginning

I was just pointing out that I disagree with your statement as I guess all the people involved in the new NASA programs would. You specifically referenced 'technology' above.

The political intentions behind the apollo program is a separate subject to the scientific and engineering legacy of the program. The scientific and engineering legacy is huge.

quote:

Originally posted by 555:
Not a good idea in principle, & a very poor use of resources.

C'mon 555, we had the spinoff technologies! Where would I be without a non-stick frying pan I ask myself?

I've visited the Kennedy Space Centre a few times and marveled at the Apollo rocket (now thankfully under cover).

It almost defies imagination that such a huge device could even stand upright, let alone blast off the planet. Truly awesome stuff.

The photo of “Earthrise” over the lunar horizon taken by the Apollo 8 crew on Christmas eve 1968, showed Earth for the first time as it appears from deep space. It forever changed how humans look at – and feel about – their home planet and has done much to reinforce our understanding of the fragility of our tiny planet. In going to the moon we learned a lot about Earth and our fantastic luck to be able to call it home.

Didn't NASA spend 'millions' on a pen that wrote in zero gravity? (actually orbit isn't zero gravity, but never mind)

The Russians took pencils...

Phil

That's quite interesting Phil, but not true.
Both of the space racers used pencils to start with.
They found the tips broke off, getting into eyes & equipment (causing short circuits!), so very dangerous.

quote:

You specifically referenced 'technology' above.

Yes, the Apollo technology & its primary purpose to be first to the moon.
Of course there were many spin-offs from this, & getting to the moon was an amazing.
IMHO when considering the resources spent,
it was a tragedy the politics removed thinking beyond near Earth space exploration.

Agreed that apollo had a ring fenced objective to get to the moon first with no game plan beyond. I guess for most earth people it seemed like a modest and reasonable objective at the time. (seventy years after the Wright brothers)

Look at Aeries/constellation and see how much apollo has offered a technological blueprint. If we as a species ever get to leave this solar system much of the foundation of this journey will thread back through every step and advance taken. To describe the technology of apollo as a 'dead end' is just not true.

quote:

I guess for most earth people it seemed like a modest and reasonable objective at the time.

Most earth people had no say in the mission objective or vision for the future of space travel.
The lack consideration for the future was purely political/military, & missed a massive opportunity IMO.
Only one professional scientist walked on the Moon; Harrison Schmitt.
He was on the last Apollo mission, & the only Apollo astronaut that wasn't a member of the United States Armed Forces.

quote:

If we as a species ever get to leave this solar system much of the foundation of this journey will thread back through every step and advance taken. To describe the technology of Apollo as a 'dead end' is just not true.

I disagree, because the Apollo systems are only suitable for near earth human space exploration.

What exactly is your position? One minute apollo was too expensive, the next it was not ambitious enough.

NASA used the very best individuals they could find in order to complete the missions with minimum likelyhood of human failure. Test pilots were an obvious and natural choice. 11,12 and 14 were undertaken mostly with a goal of landing and returning safely, a massive task in itself.
For apollo 15,16 and 17 nasa made great efforts to understand the geology and this directed the chosen landing sites.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...ture=player_embedded

Look at this and tell me with even your limited understanding that you cannot see the dna of apollo.

quote:

Originally posted by Simon Matthews:
Take off was forty years ago today. The vision, motivation, organisation, dedication, skill, ambition and bravery of the apollo program for me is without question man's greatest adventure and, although driven by cold war forces and expensive, transends that background and shows man at his very best.

I hope this is no prelude to another Man on the Moon.

I am afraid I differ with this.

The cheif rocket scientist - the man who laid the ground work was a Nazi scientiost and I cannot get over the use of such a man, especially so, considering that so many people think that it was mankinds's greatest scientific achievement.

My view is that it amounts to the greatest single waste of resources that mankind has yet managed in the field of science and enginneering.

But no doubt the celebrations will go on, and even I enjoyed the Sam Neill film called the Dish, which shows a good many clips of it all.

But more a tribute to mankind's folly than brilliance I would think.

ATB from George

quote:

The cheif rocket scientist - the man who laid the ground work was a Nazi scientiost and I cannot get over the use of such a man, especially so, considering that so many people think that it was mankind's greatest scientific achievement.

Good that is the same attitude the nazis used, therefore didn't get a nuke or several other go ahead technologies because they were "Jewish".

Did you really expect the allies to not use any rescued resources that may have been able to recoup some of their losses?

So what is a good use of mankind's brilliance eh?
Motor vehicles and nuclear devices that poison the planet?
Mankind got where it is by doing stupid things, walking to the pole, climbing big mountains. Other things were picking up a stick, starting a fire, we developed our wit and imagination, not just to write nice music but to explore and develop.
Next in this line of development will be space exploration, yes it cost a few bob but so did sailing to the new world or even around the world the first time.

quote:

What exactly is your position? One minute apollo was too expensive, the next it was not ambitious enough.

I suggested neither, & you need to remove your blinkers Simon.

My position is that the vast resources of the Apollo programme were mainly spent on expediency, for cynical military & political reasons.
If those resources had been expended to maximise the gain in scientific knowledge,
as well as developing the ability to travel in deep space,
the legacy of Apollo would have been an order of magnitude greater than that we have.

I'm not as extreme in my view of the Apollo programme as George, because on balance I think it was a good thing.
But IMO it's very important we understand the benefits & mistakes of Apollo.

I looked at the youtube link. It appears to be CGI not DNA.