
Men Walk On Moon - July 20th 1969 - Cherian_Abraham
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0720.html
======
russell
We need to be reminded that once we did great things.

I worked at MIT Instrumentation Lab on a compiler for the guidance software
for the moon missions. My contribution was insignificant, but I am still proud
to have been part of it. My only regret was that I never made it to Florida to
watch a Saturn V take off.

~~~
kragen
Russell as in _Steve_ Russell? Because, if so, I think you've done things much
more significant than land men on the moon.

~~~
wensing
Looks like it: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3519747> and other
comments verify.

~~~
gruseom
I noticed that too, but Steve Russell wrote the first LISP interpreter on the
IBM 704 in 1959 (<http://www.iwriteiam.nl/HaCAR_CDR.html#Steve>). The IBM 7094
came out in 1962 (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_7090>). So I'm betting
that our russell isn't Steve. He's a perfectly good russell nonetheless :)

------
sethg
Really, if you’re going to commemorate it, cite a more authoritative source.

<http://www.theonion.com/articles/july-21-1969,10515/>

------
saalweachter
I recently picked up a box full of old copies The Magazine of Fantasy &
Science Fiction at a book sale. Whoever had originally purchased them had most
of the 1960s and a good part of the 1950s, so they obviously had a lasting
interest in science fiction.

The last volume he purchased was August 1969.

In my imagination, after the moon landing, he bought one more issue, and it
just didn't work anymore. Science fiction had become science fact, and he had
no need for any more fiction.

I wonder how he felt later, after we left the moon for the last time and never
went back.

------
Kellster
Mr. Armstrong replied:

"Thank you Mr. President. It's a great honor and privilege for us to be here
representing not only the United States but men of peace of all nations, men
with interests and a curiosity and men with a vision for the future."

Fucking awesome.

~~~
tieno
My appreciation circuits were fried at that point. Too few women, too many
men.

So this text both brought me on the verge of tearing up and annoyed me. Bravo!

~~~
Xcelerate
"Men" as in mankind. It's just the way that word is used. I'm pretty sure
Armstrong wasn't trying to be misogynistic there.

~~~
tieno
I know. But since I know that that kind of language is not ok my appreciation
circuits are fried.

~~~
gamache
You just registered an account to complain about a message of unequivocal
world peace from the first human to set foot on an extraplanetary body.

~~~
tieno
No, I did not.

And he did so with misogynist language. Which made me twinge. I don't
complain, I state my feelings.

It just shows in what a weird time this was happening.

~~~
naturalethic
The word "men" also means humanity you idiot.

~~~
tieno
Yes, that is exactly the problem. Is that really so hard to understand?

~~~
rimantas
No, there is no problem. People looking for problems where are none are
problem though.

~~~
ahelwer
All right, I'll pop in here I guess. This has obviously veered incredibly off-
topic and I can absolutely forgive Armstrong for using that language so many
years ago.

Now, that being said language is powerful and inclusive language is important.
I wouldn't dismiss this as a problem so candidly. Just registering my support
for Tieno's issues so you don't dismiss them as a lone super-PC-police-person.

Also, "that's just the way (the word is used)/(it is)" has never been a great
defense of using non-inclusive language. Or anything, really.

~~~
GeorgeTirebiter
At that time, it was commonly understood that "men" in such a context included
"women". This was before womens' lib, etc. English is an evolving language;
basically, 43 years ago, "men" in this use meant something different than it
does today.

------
DanielBMarkham
I remember the last lunar missions. We all thought that man would be going
back to the moon within a few years or so.

Not the way it worked out.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Wellllll...

Pretty much the reason why a lot of progress in manned spaceflight came to a
halt is due to the Shuttle program. It was sold on a laundry list of promises
that somehow a lot of powerful folks utterly bought into. But in the end it
ended up being far less capable and far more expensive than just about every
alternative. Although admittedly it does look pretty cool.

~~~
newbie12
Even the cool look holds a fatal flaw....never again will we design rockets
where the cargo rides adjacent to the fuel, rather than on top.

~~~
InclinedPlane
It wouldn't be so bad if the orbiter didn't have such big wings (due to a
military requirement for a large cross-range flight ability that was never
actually used). Big wings means a more difficult reentry scenario, which means
exotic, and brittle, thermal protection systems on the wing leading edges,
which means a much larger area of highly vulnerable thermal protection
materials on the orbiter. And it wouldn't be so bad if the vehicle didn't use
liquid Hydrogen, which is super-cryogenic, requires excessive thermal
insulation, and is extremely prone to formation of ice. A lot of people think
that we were unlucky with the loss of Challenger and especially with the loss
of Columbia, but in truth it was the opposite, we had gotten extraordinarily
lucky prior to that. In reality the chances were very high that we would have
lost a vehicle to either of those failure modes very much sooner.

But yes, it's a very troublesome design for a lot of reasons.

~~~
Retric
It's not really a question of wings so much as weight. The real issue with
putting something on top is that what's below needs to carry that weight which
is easier to avoid if the shuttle has it's own engines and sit's on the side.
More importantly if the shuttle was not designed to send a few tones of stuff
to orbit it could use the same basic design without experiencing anywhere near
the same thermal stress and having a lot more safety margin.

~~~
bdunbar
_It's not really a question of wings so much as weight._

The wings - because they were wings - were vulnerable to debris strikes during
launch.

Which wasn't important during _launch_ but was sure a problem during re-entry.

~~~
Retric
Again, the thermal protection system was delicate because of weight issues. If
the shuttles design goal was to get 20 people to LEO safely and they had
anywhere close to the same budget to work with they could have used a few
inches of titanium as part of the thermal protection system vs just glued on
tiles that are less dense than Styrofoam.

PS: The surface area to weight is directly related to reentry heating. A
person can do reentry in little more than one of those old style space suits
and a parachute, the shuttle needed something that was barely possible to
build.

~~~
bdunbar
_Again, the thermal protection system was delicate because of weight issues._

I was not disagreeing with you.

* A person can do reentry in little more than one of those old style space suits and a parachute,*

Are you sure? If one is in orbit, one will re-enter hypersonic. This implies a
whole lotta friction as you careen through the atmosphere.

~~~
kryptiskt
Here is an example of a one man entry system consisting of nothing but a strap
on heatshield and a retro-rocket gun:
<http://www.astronautix.com/craft/moose.htm>

~~~
bdunbar
_Here is an example_

Heh - I've seen that before, or something like it.

But that's more involved than 'space suit, retro-rocket, parachute'.

Be a heckuva ride.

------
ErrantX
For me at least, I hope man goes back to the moon in my lifetime.

Dad has always talked about his memories of 1969 (he would have been a
teenager at the time) and the excitement of it.

I feel like going back after so long will feel almost as momentous for some of
my generation. Although possibly not the the majority, which is a little sad.

~~~
keithpeter
I was 11 then. I have a feeling the actual landing was early morning in the
UK, not sure I actually saw that.

I'm afraid my dominant memory is the bleep they had between the voice from the
moon and the reply from Houston. A fraction of a second long, and a bit higher
than E above middle C. I can still hear that now, with the sort of echo at the
end from the satellite relay I suppose.

Dad (born 1930s, RAF technician and then radio repairs) was really excited by
it all and loved the technology. Grandad (born 1890s, trained as blacksmith,
operated a static steam engine, the kind that powers a mill through drive
belts) found it sort of funny. Mum liked it when they got out of the capsules
on the aircraft carrier.

~~~
trothamel
Those beeps are known as Quindar tones, and were used to mute and unmute the
radio transmissions.

[http://www.ehartwell.com/Apollo17/MissionTranscriptCollectio...](http://www.ehartwell.com/Apollo17/MissionTranscriptCollection.htm)

~~~
keithpeter
"Because replacement parts are no longer available, an "out-of-band signaling"
system was installed in 1998 for the transmitters located in the U.S. This
system uses a continuous tone that is below the normal audio frequency range.
When the tone is present, the transmitters are keyed. When the tone is not
present, the transmitters are unkeyed. It worked fine, but the Astronaut
Office complained about the lack of tones which everyone had become accustomed
to as an alert that a transmission was about to start. So, the Quindar tone
generator, which was still installed in case it was necessary to key the
transmitters at an overseas site, was re-enabled. "

Wonderful link, thanks. The quote above almost rivals Primo Levi's story about
the paint recipe in _The Periodic Table_.

------
01Michael10
Another significant event on that day was me being born. :-)

------
totalforge
Many of the Apollo astronauts still make themselves available to the public,
and they appear at collector events where they will sign autographs for a
small fee. More than fair considering what their government pay must have been
in the 60's... Go and meet them while you still can!

------
barking
43 years ago! I was a small kid on holidays by the seaside and I remember
watching it on the B&W tv of the people who were renting us out their cottage.
Nice to be able to know where you were when something good happened rather
than something terrible.

~~~
simonh
I was 3 years old so don't remember it, but I do remember looking up at the
moon and thinking that there were people walking on it right then. That would
have been a few years later, but I can't have been more than 5 by then.

It was worth doing, but it's been done. I hope we go back in my lifetime,
certainly in my children's lifetimes, but for better reasons than just
'because'.

~~~
StavrosK
Oh wow, I never realized that until now. There was a time when you could look
up at the moon and know that a few guys were there _right at that moment_.

------
ChuckMcM
So I am optimistic we'll be returning to the Moon within the next 20 years.
The reasoning is that technology is advancing to the point where its less and
less of a 'big deal.' The last remaining hurdle is 'on-orbit refueling'.

Today, the last remaining challenge of landing on the moon, is carrying enough
fuel for a trans-lunar injection orbit into orbit, and then for the lander to
land on the moon itself.

With modern launch vehicles, it is straight-forward to launch a moon landing
mission as three components (command module, lander, and engine/fuel. And link
them together in orbit. However, there is a significant penalty to not
launching all at once into the correct earth orbit to later elongate into a
trans lunar orbit. So a 'modern' mission actually would need _two_ loads of
fuel in orbit, one to move the whole assembly into a prepatory orbit, and then
one to move from that orbit to the moon.

If we have on-orbit refueling then you manage a depot of fuel for the second
step, and the sequence becomes launch lander, dock it with a tug. Launch
command module, attach that to the tug. Move the tug (with its command and
lander modules) into the same ecliptic as the moon's orbit. Then refuel, and
_then_ use the tug to move you to the moon.

By re-using the tug multiple times the costs drop dramatically. (like $100M
every time you re-use it, that is a tug you didn't launch from earth).

People want on-orbit refueling so that we can have longer lived satellites.
(there are perfectly serviceable communication satellites in 'dead' orbits
because they no longer have the fuel for station keeping.)

Once we get that capability it won't be a question of 'will' to get to the
moon, it will simply be a question of money. And there is enough disposable
income amongst the young billionaires of the world that getting the money
won't be an issue either.

~~~
stcredzero
_> The last remaining hurdle is 'on-orbit refueling'._

Nice. I often like to point out that a 2nd rate country like Iraq was
developing the means to launch bulk cargoes to orbit for only $600/kg back in
the 1980's.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Babylon>

High ISP plasma and ion rockets would also lower reaction mass requirements
significantly.

------
tocomment
Does anyone know how we got such high quality (live?) video of astronauts
walking on the moon, but recent moon missions like LCROSS [1] didn't even have
video AFAIK?

[1]
[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/main/prelim_water_r...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/main/prelim_water_results.html)

~~~
sosuke
Most missions don't value natural light photography over other spectrum
specializations and a video of the moon without anyone jumping on it would be
pretty boring.

------
defen
Audio + video of the landing: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCVySHDCqOA>

Interesting writeup of the various alarms (beeps) that are going off:
[http://klabs.org/history/apollo_11_alarms/eyles_2004/eyles_2...](http://klabs.org/history/apollo_11_alarms/eyles_2004/eyles_2004.htm)

At 3:15 you can hear Charlie Duke say "60 seconds" - that's how much time they
have until they run out of fuel and need to abort the landing.

------
rbanffy
Is anyone retransmitting a "real-time" audio feed of the communications
between the Apollo 11 crew and mission control?

3 years ago, I took my laptop to the terrace atop the building I worked in and
listened as the sun fell behind the buildings. I was one year old at the time
of the actual landing and I'm glad I could join in, even if with a 40 year
delay.

------
cafard
I watched it in Overland Park, Kansas, with awe. Several years later, I
watched another moon landing in a room full of high-school classmates who were
more interested in the sunflower seeds they were chewing.

------
Rastafarian
<http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/Apollo4.html>

------
jballanc
Anyone want to place bets on the nationality of the next human to set foot on
the moon?

~~~
eps
It'd be a Russian TV crew filming an empty spot that was supposed to be that
of an Apollo landing :)

~~~
naturalethic
Why aren't there any pictures of the landing zones from orbit? Interesting.

~~~
eps
There are some, but they are from NASA. A more interesting question is what
happened to India's promise to release all its Lunar low-orbit reconnaissance
mission data to the public. Or why there is virtually no data coming from
Japanese mission of the same nature. Both with hidef ultrazoom cameras mind
you.

~~~
CanSpice
In a couple of minutes of hunting I found the Kaguya data archive
[<http://l2db.selene.darts.isas.jaxa.jp/index.html.en>] and the Chandrayaan-1
data archive [<http://issdc.gov.in/CHBrowse/index.jsp>]. So, uh, yeah, both
countries released the data.

------
mahasvin
Unfortunately they weren't there. Only the Soviet robots had really been on
the Moon.

------
tinyjoe
meh, just a hoax..pbttt

------
naturalethic
One thing I wonder about is why astronauts get angry when it is suggested the
landings were faked rather than just laughing their faces. Aldrin even punched
a guy. What's with that?

~~~
mixmastamyk
Because they worked for a decade+ to fulfill their dreams, _and_ achieved
them. Then they get harassed by kooks for even longer. The idiot who got
punched deserved it, I would have punched him too. There's video online.
Apparently the cops agreed and dropped the case.

------
huhtenberg
So what's the HN consensus - were there landings to begin with or was it all
staged?

:)

~~~
ijager
I like this reasoning: If NASA was willing to fake such a big accomplishment,
why haven't they done another one in the next 40 years?

~~~
huhtenberg
Because the technology for detecting such faking has improved dramatically
since the 60s?

~~~
Danieru
If that was the case then why has the 60s 'faking' not been discovered? If a
1960's faking is undetectable in 2012 then I expect a 2012 faking would be
even more convincing. Thus there must be some other reason for not faking a
mars landing.

PS: The exact name for my line of argument is 'begging the question'. Yes,
_that_ 'begging the question'. The one grammar nazis internet wide have been
referring to since 1994. Bet you thought you'd never see it.

