Apollo 12 pre-launch, Some shots from a VIP tour of KSC, August 1969 |
Apollo 12 pre-launch, Some shots from a VIP tour of KSC, August 1969 |
Jul 28 2008, 01:50 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 753 Joined: 23-October 04 From: Greensboro, NC USA Member No.: 103 |
This thread had me going back through some of my dad's slides from when he toured KSC in August 1969. I thought you'd enjoy these - which have never been seen publicly before!!!!!
The ascent stage of Intrepid, the Apollo 12 lunar module The base of the first stage of the Saturn V. S-IC-7 at the top of the picture identifies this as the Apollo 12 Saturn V. Note that the fairings just above the fins have been removed. These fairings covered retro rockets that were fired when the first stage separated from the second stage. The Apollo 12 Saturn V stack, viewed from above. -------------------- Jonathan Ward
Manning the LCC at http://www.apollolaunchcontrol.com |
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Jul 30 2008, 02:45 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 753 Joined: 23-October 04 From: Greensboro, NC USA Member No.: 103 |
For me, the astounding juxtaposition is seeing that clunker car outside of the building. You have to say it over and over again to make it sink in: we went to the Moon with 1960's technology, and we no longer have the technology to do it!
To give you youngsters a feel for what 1960's technology was like: When Intrepid came around the edge of the Moon, in powered descent and en route to landing, the engineers in Mission Control were frantically trying to compute an adjusted flight path. They were using paper and pencil and slide rules because THERE WERE NO COMPUTERS IN MISSION CONTROL THAT COULD DO MULTIPLICATION AND DIVISION!!!! -------------------- Jonathan Ward
Manning the LCC at http://www.apollolaunchcontrol.com |
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Jul 30 2008, 04:26 AM
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#3
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 |
For me, the astounding juxtaposition is seeing that clunker car outside of the building. You have to say it over and over again to make it sink in: we went to the Moon with 1960's technology, and we no longer have the technology to do it! As for that car -- those weren't clunkers, then. That car in that pic, which is the size of a Cadillac of today, was considered a *sub-compact* car back in '69. And it was stylish for its time, too! And, well -- it's not exactly like we no longer have the technology to go to the Moon. We don't have the infrastructure. There's a difference. To give you youngsters a feel for what 1960's technology was like: When Intrepid came around the edge of the Moon, in powered descent and en route to landing, the engineers in Mission Control were frantically trying to compute an adjusted flight path. They were using paper and pencil and slide rules because THERE WERE NO COMPUTERS IN MISSION CONTROL THAT COULD DO MULTIPLICATION AND DIVISION!!!! Exactly right! The first electronic calculators to come into wide use wouldn't come around for another year or so. And those were *desktop* calculators, with tiny layered neon tubes comprising the numeric displays. A single digit was made up of elements receding down into the display 'cube' up to 6 or 7 cm. The roomsfull of IBM mainframe computers ran very narrowly defined and specific trajectory plots, calculating location and vectors in three-dimensional space. They ran a single program each at any given time, with dozens of computers running to support dozens of consoles. There was no such thing as "click on System Tools and pull up Calculator" on those computers. They actually had a name, back in the '60s and '70s, for computers with the processing and storage capabilities of the computer I'm using right now. Supercomputers. -the other Doug -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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Jul 30 2008, 04:52 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1592 Joined: 14-October 05 From: Vermont Member No.: 530 |
And, well -- it's not exactly like we no longer have the technology to go to the Moon. We don't have the infrastructure. There's a difference. Yeah, I always think about the pyramids in Egypt. If we really wanted to invest in huge stone edifices.... The Concorde is a more modern example. |
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