Apollo 11 "live" coverage - Page 2 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Hatterasguy · #16 07-16-2009, 04:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MS Fowler

IIRC, they say that the average $10 pocket calculator of today has more power than they had on board for their in-flight calcs. Now, THAT is amazing.

Back than very smart guys used slide rulers and their brains. We didn't need no freaken computers.

MTI · #17 07-16-2009, 05:54 PM

You Think They'd Have Broken Off Those Little Black Tabs . . .

NASA admitted in 2006 that no one could find the original video recordings of the July 20, 1969, landing.

Since then, Richard Nafzger, an engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, who oversaw television processing at the ground-tracking sites during the Apollo 11 mission, has been looking for them.

The good news is he found where they went. The bad news is they were part of a batch of 200,000 tapes that were degaussed -- magnetically erased -- and re-used to save money.

pj67coll · #18 07-16-2009, 06:18 PM

They did however just recently find tapes in Australia from the "Parks" facility did they not? Which feed was not used at the time because of a technical glitch. I'd be interested to see those.

- Peter.

t walgamuth · #19 07-16-2009, 07:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MTI

You Think They'd Have Broken Off Those Little Black Tabs . . .

NASA admitted in 2006 that no one could find the original video recordings of the July 20, 1969, landing.

Since then, Richard Nafzger, an engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, who oversaw television processing at the ground-tracking sites during the Apollo 11 mission, has been looking for them.

The good news is he found where they went. The bad news is they were part of a batch of 200,000 tapes that were degaussed -- magnetically erased -- and re-used to save money.

I heard about this on NPR today.

SirNik84 · #20 07-16-2009, 08:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by G-Benz

I think even NASA concedes that space is far too hostile an environment to set up manned expeditions to the far reaches of the galaxy or set up colonies in other planets.

The space station is probably as far as we care to send humans for now...unless a dramatic technological breakthrough allows long range space travel and associated challenges to become feasible...

Space is to hostile an environment for todays Humans. The men who went to the moon, as well as the men who build the machines that took them there were a different bread of human then we have today. they used their brains more, they had brass balls, and were as lazy as the Human race we see around us today.

tell me how many people can get across town today without a GPS unit? these guys went to the moon with a computer system that was nothing then a combinations of a glorified calculator and a nice map.

how many times did we delay the space shuttle this last launch? why? because of weather? Apollo 12 go stuck by lightning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
you didn't hear Pete Conrad *****ing about the weather. Why should he, hes got brass balls!

These guys didn't know what it meant to concede. To them Space was just the next challenge, another hurtle for man kind to concur, and they felt honored to be the men who got to push the boundary of our existence.

How did those Apollo guys even get to the launch pad in those unsafe cars without three point seat belts and air bags.... man, they could have died... maybe they should have stayed in their houses.

I wouldn't be surprised that if in my lifetime i see the end of all space travel. I mean its just to dangerous.

t walgamuth · #21 07-16-2009, 08:52 PM

As I remember it we have had weather delays as long as we have had space travel.

One of the times they flew when they shouldn't have and it blew up.

So much for big balls.

SirNik84 · #22 07-16-2009, 09:58 PM

Apollo 1 killed 3 people, but NASA didn't call off their quest for the Moon. I'm just saying, no one today would have pushed to keep Kennedy's deadline if it were the same situation today. those guys back then knew the risk accepted it and made the impossible happen. They were (are) true Heroes.

People today seem to be to preoccupied with what bad could happen. People back then seemed to be willing to see past that and do what couldn't be done.

Its about people attitudes. I've swapped stories with older friends of that generation, there wasn't this obsession with things that could go wrong, when they were kids they weren't chaperoned at all times by a parent, they rode their bakes miles to the lake and went swimming.... I know I grew up that way, the friends I have that are my dads age can't believe my dad would let me ride off with my friends unchaperoned. I think this has something to do with why in one generation we went from riding horse back to the moon, and why we haven't been back.

MS Fowler · #23 07-16-2009, 10:07 PM

They were "Test Pilots", as Tom Wolfe pointed out in the Right Stuff, Test Pilots are a different breed. Not that they take reckless chances, but they maintain their equilibrium, and work the problem.

TheDon · #24 07-16-2009, 11:53 PM

I got to hold a heat resistant body tile for the shuttle just 45 minutes ago. Apparently a friend of mine, his father was like the president or CEO of the company that made them years ago.

t walgamuth · #25 07-17-2009, 05:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SirNik84

Apollo 1 killed 3 people, but NASA didn't call off their quest for the Moon. I'm just saying, no one today would have pushed to keep Kennedy's deadline if it were the same situation today. those guys back then knew the risk accepted it and made the impossible happen. They were (are) true Heroes.

People today seem to be to preoccupied with what bad could happen. People back then seemed to be willing to see past that and do what couldn't be done.

Its about people attitudes. I've swapped stories with older friends of that generation, there wasn't this obsession with things that could go wrong, when they were kids they weren't chaperoned at all times by a parent, they rode their bakes miles to the lake and went swimming.... I know I grew up that way, the friends I have that are my dads age can't believe my dad would let me ride off with my friends unchaperoned. I think this has something to do with why in one generation we went from riding horse back to the moon, and why we haven't been back.

Two comments. There is more concern these days about the safety of kids, and that probably is because we are more aware of the fact that there are some serious sickos out there. They were there when we were kids too but the communication was not what it is now and the danger seemed less, probably was less too....

Secondly, as we age we all tend to look back and say that back in our youth (whatever, fill in the topic) was braver, cleaner and so forth.

mgburg · #26 07-17-2009, 02:50 PM

Here's the story about the "moon footage that ain't" that I got from one of my tech-journal e-mailings, TV Technology, 07.16.2009...

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NASA has finally thrown in the towel on its prospects for locating its missing Apollo 11 video recordings.

At a special press conference held in Washington, D.C. on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch, NASA senior video engineer, Richard Nafzger said that the agency has already moved out in another direction─the restoration of the best surviving footage of the historic first footsteps on the moon by astronaut Neil Armstrong.

“The restoration is ongoing and may produce even better video,” Nafzger said. “We’re thrilled with the progress and with the restored video from the best source material obtained.”

NASA has contracted Lowry Digital, a content restoration firm located in Burbank, Calif. to clean up both film and videotape recordings made on the evening of from July 20, 1969.

The tapes that were the object of the massive search were not standard video recordings, but rather 1-inch instrumentation tape on which narrow band video shared space with mission telemetry and other information about the spacecraft and its crew. The 14-inch reels ran at 120 inches per second, with each holding about 15 minutes of data. Slow scan video from the camera on board the lunar lander occupied one of 14 tracks laid down on these tapes.

They were being sought, as even the reduced bandwidth video contained on them is believed to be significantly higher in quality that the surviving network television 2-inch video recordings.

Due to communication channel bandwidth limitations, standard 525-line/60-field NTSC video could not be relayed to earth from the moon. NASA had a special camera constructed that produced video that fit within the 500 KHz channel that was available. It produced 320 lines at 10 frames a second, non-interlaced.

In order to provide video to the estimated 600 million persons watching that evening, NASA also had special standards converters constructed for each of the tracking stations that would be in acquisition with the lunar lander. As electronic components weren’t nearly so sophisticated then, the converters relied on simple optical conversion─a standard NTSC television camera trained on the screen of a special slow-scan monitor being fed with the lowered line number and frame rate video.

While this simple conversion tactic worked, it was far from satisfactory. Contrast was blocked up and a large amount of noise and other distortion was added to the video. The overall effect could be described as rather “ghostly” or “ethereal,” especially when coupled to the unnatural presentation of motion caused by the reduced frame rate.

The NASA recordings captured these slow scan images in their native format and the agency had hopes that conversion to a standard video format with today’s processing technology would yield substantially better images of the historic arrival of man on the moon than previously available.

Nafzger explained that a great amount of effort had been expended in searching for the missing recordings, but it seems likely that don’t exist anymore.

“After an exhaustive search, we believe we know the fate of these messing telemetry tapes,” Nafzger said. “We think the tapes were degaussed, recertified and returned for use in the (NASA) network.”

He said that thousands of tapes from the Apollo missions has been removed from the National Records Center and delivered to NASA’s Goddard facility for evaluation of data contained on them. They were never returned. The search centered on 45 of these tapes, containing a total of three hours of video from the moon.

“Our (search) team was very dedicated,” he said. “Thousands of people around the world were trying to help us. I just wish that someone had said that these tapes have got to be set aside. No one at NASA treated them any differently than any other tapes.”

Nafzger said that NASA decided to abandon the search and move on to restoration of the best surviving images possible. These included archived videotape from CBS, additional videotape recorded in Sydney, Australia, 16mm kinescope recordings made by NASA, and even 8mm home movie footage shot from a monitor screen at an Australian tracking site.

A “sneak peak” at the restored video was offered during the press conference, and revealed that even though the source material was not pristine, some improvement in detail was possible.

Nafzger also revealed evidence of some experimental 2-inch recordings of the 320/10 video were made at the Parkes, Australia tracking station, and that these may still survive. He said that machines were still available to play these tapes if they can be located.

Lowry Digital expects to complete the video restoration project by September.

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And there you have it...from the horse's a...er...mouth...

Enjoy history!

Bill Wood · #27 07-17-2009, 03:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MTI

The instant Mrs. MTI saw the L.E.M. module at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum . . . and despite explanations about no atmosphere and it's mission specific design . . . she instantly became a lunar landing skeptic.

Here's a recent picture of the Apollo-11 Eagle Lunar Lander:

40 years after first moon landing, NASA probe sends proof in pictures.
Take a look HERE.

HuskyMan · #28 07-17-2009, 03:47 PM

Saturn V was the product of german engineering and one of the worlds most reliable rockets. the mercedes W123 of its day. the space shuttle was (and is) an attempt to "save costs" and create a reusable space craft. nice idea, but in the end it has blown up a few times and taken a few people with it. think "doing it right" vs "budget cuts".

a few years back, I met a retired Navy Seal who was on the team who picked up the the Apollo 13 astronauts. he said their heart rates and blood pressure readings were just slightly higher than normal. the result of many hours of training for ANY situation. they kept a cool head and that is one of the many reasons they made it home. quite a team and quite a space craft.