
How the Apollo Fire Propelled NASA to the Moon - NaOH
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/12/apollo-risk
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GlenTheMachine
Space flight is essentially a systems engineering enterprise. You live or die
by your systems engineering expertise.

The fire forced NASA to become a systems engineering center, probably the best
such team ever assembled. The fact that they were able to land on the moon on
schedule, with no schedule margin, given where they were in 1966, is
astounding.

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maxxxxx
It's interesting that today they can't even build a rocket like the SLS from
already tested components in a comparable time.

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jpk
To be fair, the political will today isn't comparable to what it was during
the Apollo program.

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sithadmin
Also, way, way more of the design and production process is farmed out to
aerospace/defense contractors than it was during the early space program. The
extra layers of bureaucracy between teams is a big problem, and the profit
motives of the contractors almost always influences solution design and
delivery in a negative way.

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pixelmonkey
I was also pleasantly surprised by the film, Mission Control, which focused on
the mission control staff during the Apollo missions, rather than focusing on
astronauts and scientists. Fascinating lessons in "ops management" embedded in
the collective experiences of that staff. The film also has amazing production
quality for reliving the struggles and successes of those missions, and
especially how the suspenseful moments felt "on the ground".

[http://missioncontrol.movie](http://missioncontrol.movie)

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js2
You would probably enjoy _Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control From
Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond_ by Gene Kranz.

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moioci
Also worthwhile: [https://www.amazon.com/Flight-My-Life-Mission-
Control/dp/045...](https://www.amazon.com/Flight-My-Life-Mission-
Control/dp/0452283043)

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js2
If you're interested in the Apollo program, you'll find no better telling of
it than _A Man On The Moon_ by Andrew Chaikin.

[http://www.andrewchaikin.com/books/a-man-on-the-
moon/](http://www.andrewchaikin.com/books/a-man-on-the-moon/)

The book was adapted into the excellent miniseries _From the Earth to the
Moon_ by HBO.

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pjmorris
'A Man on the Moon' is a terrific book focused on the astronauts. Consider
also reading 'Apollo: Race to the Moon', Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox
for more of the engineering perspective. They cover everything from building
the F-1 engines used in the Saturn V first stage, to the lunar module, to the
vehicles used to transport the assembled rockets to the launch pad, to the
organization of mission control and the project overall. My favorite book on
the Apollo program.

