Interesting Space Facts.
Discussion
colin_p said:
Not so much about space itself but getting there. I'm sure someone (who knows much more)on here at one point has already linked this; Apollo 11 launch at 500fps, mankinds mightiest machine which was last used back in the 70's. The shuttle and others may be newer but nothing compares, in my mind, to the Saturn V, which was likely designed and built largely using feet, inches and a slide rule.
Don't assume they didn't use computers too. They did - lots of them, including the most powerful computers available at the time.Just because they would be laughably incapable compared to what we have today does not mean they could be supplanted by chaps with a slide rule and paper. They used whatever resources were available to them.
Eric Mc said:
Don't assume they didn't use computers too. They did - lots of them, including the most powerful computers available at the time.
Just because they would be laughably incapable compared to what we have today does not mean they could be supplanted by chaps with a slide rule and paper. They used whatever resources were available to them.
Absolutely.Just because they would be laughably incapable compared to what we have today does not mean they could be supplanted by chaps with a slide rule and paper. They used whatever resources were available to them.
I seem to recall back in the late 80's or early 90's there was a car advert, maybe a BMW one that boasted about [whatever car it was] having more computer power than the Apollo missions. I may be mistaken as there is lot of internet folklore surrounding this.
The fact is, what they achieved with what they had and the time they did it in was and still is mind boggling annd had never been bettered in almost 50 years. Just like the SR71, the U2 and latterly Concord probably being largely designed and built using slide rules.
In fact I'd go as far as to say that mankind has forgotten a lot of what he once knew.
They had mainframe computers back on earth, in the command module and lander they had computers purely designed for that task in hand. The real number crunching was done on earth, the computers in flight did very selective tasks.
Asking a car computer to do the same would not have worked so I always saw that as a poor comparison without appreciating the whole picture.
Edit. NASA history web site is full of little gems.
https://history.nasa.gov/computers/Part1.html
Asking a car computer to do the same would not have worked so I always saw that as a poor comparison without appreciating the whole picture.
Edit. NASA history web site is full of little gems.
https://history.nasa.gov/computers/Part1.html
Edited by jmorgan on Sunday 29th January 12:16
colin_p said:
Absolutely.
I seem to recall back in the late 80's or early 90's there was a car advert, maybe a BMW one that boasted about [whatever car it was] having more computer power than the Apollo missions. I may be mistaken as there is lot of internet folklore surrounding this.
The fact is, what they achieved with what they had and the time they did it in was and still is mind boggling annd had never been bettered in almost 50 years. Just like the SR71, the U2 and latterly Concord probably being largely designed and built using slide rules.
In fact I'd go as far as to say that mankind has forgotten a lot of what he once knew.
You forget what you don't need. Not many people are that good at flint whittling any more but once it was a skill that was once very useful and necessary.I seem to recall back in the late 80's or early 90's there was a car advert, maybe a BMW one that boasted about [whatever car it was] having more computer power than the Apollo missions. I may be mistaken as there is lot of internet folklore surrounding this.
The fact is, what they achieved with what they had and the time they did it in was and still is mind boggling annd had never been bettered in almost 50 years. Just like the SR71, the U2 and latterly Concord probably being largely designed and built using slide rules.
In fact I'd go as far as to say that mankind has forgotten a lot of what he once knew.
Apollo was an extremely marginal system. They were very lucky not to lose any more missions than they did. If they had kept at it I'm sure they would have lost a crew on the moon or in space.
When we go back the system will be more robust - although it will never be safe.
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