NASA's mega expensive moon rocket will make its public debut Thursday

Scented Meat said:
I could refer you to any number of excellent histories of the Apollo program. Almost no one thought we could actually put a man on the moon and return him safely to earth (to coin a phrase) in the mere 8 year time frame demanded by Kennedy, but this government-run program (in partnership, of course, with multiple private corporations--it could not have been otherwise) was wildly successful. "Slow and bloated" needn't characterize all governmental activities, and isn't absent from the private corporate world. Leadership is what makes the difference.
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The USA has changed a lot since those days. People were more patriotic. There was no social media or internet or CNN. WWII was a recent memory. Yes that whole program was magnificent. My post refers to todays USA. No disrespect meant towards our accomplishments back in the day. There is no way we could pull off something like that now.
 
Toopy14 said:
That is one big broomstick!

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I like it.

I'm pretty sure I also designed something very much like it in Kerbal.

Which, btw, if you're really into it....I HIGHLY recommend giving kerbal space program a try. It looks a little weird and it's a freaking difficult game. But, the physics is incredible. It's as close as you can get to running a space program by yourself. If you're less hardcore, there are still a handful of streamers on YT & Twitch doing really intricate/interesting missions and challenges that are really fun to watch.

JoKeR III said:
Bit of useless trivia for you but something I'm kind of proud of; I had an uncle who was in the Navy and assigned to a carrier for one of the Apollo reentries. He sent me a post-marked stamp and card commemorating the event.
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Bit more useless trivia....my Great Uncle designed the escape system after the Apollo I fire. He was also the first guy to start selling moon rock jewelry in the NASA gift shops (with his allotment of the "spoils" of exploration), which ended up paying more than NASA ever did.
 
Although not a proponent of NASA science and technology, the moon mission might be related to the search for water on or under the moon's surface, which would allow for a renewable source of potable water, oxygen and hydrogen gas, provided that energy is required to convert water into its elemental form.

That may be the reason for this journey...so that a moon base could be built which would serve as a stepping stone out into space. Kennedy did suggest that the USA begin a search out into the planets by the year 2000. It's taking longer than Kennedy had thought, but it's interesting to wonder what will happen on Earth if mankind can't control its environmental use? Not as a gloom and doom thought. What if we find a way to solve our environmental issues?
 
Scented Meat said:
I'm a bit of an Apollo junkie. It had an outsized influence on my life. Highly recommend Andrew Chaikin's and Douglas Brinkley's histories of the program, but I have a shelf full of histories, biographies, and even technical "how they did it" books on the topic. As you say, they never get old (unlike us).
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Me too...the entire saga of the Apollo program resonates deep within me for dozens of different reasons. I can't read, or watch, enough about it.

The 2019 video "Apollo 11" is also outstanding. There was a lot of footage I'd never seen until I saw this video, and the film restoration, look, and clarity was a work of art. After watching dozens of docs on the subject this movie managed to frame, and present, this familiar story in a new, very compelling way that made you appreciate the whole endeavor, the people, the science, the spirit of a nation, and the spirit of the entire world, all over again.

Always good to see progress in space exploration and development....
 
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marsonic said:
I'm pretty sure I also designed something very much like it in Kerbal.

Which, btw, if you're really into it....I HIGHLY recommend giving kerbal space program a try. It looks a little weird and it's a freaking difficult game. But, the physics is incredible. It's as close as you can get to running a space program by yourself. If you're less hardcore, there are still a handful of streamers on YT & Twitch doing really intricate/interesting missions and challenges that are really fun to watch.
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Oh boy, yea, Kerbal Space Program does indeed let you tap into your inner NASA, or Elon Musk. I've got a few hours into that game/sim. It's pretty complex and challenging, no doubt, but one of the most captivating pieces of software I've ever come across.

Playing through the career path I've managed to get a rocket into orbit, do spacewalks, and return the capsule to Earth without frying the little Kerbal pilots, but getting to the moon is.......proving somewhat problematic from there heh.

I watch some of the advanced players on YouTube and agree that there some astonishing missions to watch...it can get pretty deep and there are some real-life "rocket scientists" using Kerbal. I heard Musk comment on the program a few years ago...
 
Stratoblaster said:
Me too...the entire saga of the Apollo program resonates deep within me for dozens of different reasons. I can't read, or watch, enough about it.

The 2019 video "Apollo 11" is also outstanding. There was a lot of footage I'd never seen until I saw this video, and the film restoration, look, and clarity was a work of art. After watching dozens of docs on the subject this movie managed to frame, and present, this familiar story in a new, very compelling way that made you appreciate the whole endeavor, the people, the science, the spirit of a nation, and the spirit of the entire world, all over again.

Always good to see progress in space exploration and development....
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Agreed. I watch that film at least once a year. It’s gripping.
 
Toopy14 said:
I'm closing in on 60. This is my idea of video games!



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Closing in on 51 here. I had that football game as a kid!

I like having experienced the early days of video games. But I am also in awe of how far they've come. We have great tech being ruined by corporate greed (Day 1 DLC, absurd micro transactions, etc). I remember when you bought a game and got the full game. Anything you unlocked was in the game, not bought.
 
I wrote this one back in 1981:



Re Apollo - I'm really proud to have known Professor Martin Lowson, who headed up a team of scientists at Huntsville Alabama to work on part of the project (his area of expertise was aerodynamics). He never mentioned it in all the years I knew him - I only found out because it was in his obituary.
 
Renderman said:
I wrote this one back in 1981:



Re Apollo - I'm really proud to have known Professor Martin Lowson, who headed up a team of scientists at Huntsville Alabama to work on part of the project (his area of expertise was aerodynamics). He never mentioned it in all the years I knew him - I only found out because it was in his obituary.
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That's awesome! What language is it programmed in?
 
Renderman said:
Thanks! That was my very first machine code game - 6502. (I'd previously published some BASIC games). I wrote it all out on paper first and entered it in a hex editor. And then started to debug it :)
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It was such a great time to be in school, learning this stuff. The first shuttle launch, when I was in high-school, is the reason I chose tech. as a career. They were using terms, like software, hardware, redundant computers, operating systems. Had no clue what it meant, but I knew I wanted to find out.

In college, for my final project in 1986, I designed and built this security system, using the 6808. I designed and built the power supply, all the decode logic for the memory addressing and the interface logic, using a PIA chip. I used a text editor in CP/M to write the code in assembly and then used an EPROM burner to write the code to the EPROM. It still works! lol

Ironically and sadly...I was in the lab working on this project when someone ran into the lab frantically telling us Challenger had exploded. We didn't believe him. Of course in those days, you had to wait for the 6 o'clock news to watch the video. :(

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Thirty plus years later, I teach courses in Embedded Systems and IoT and get to do fun stuff like this. It's amazing how the fundamentals haven't changed! Hard to believe though, that all those chips I used in my security system, fit inside that tiny little surface mount microcontoller on the red board in the video....and some!

 
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