
Saturn V Flight Manual (1969) [pdf]  - ash
http://history.nasa.gov/ap12fj/pdf/a12_sa507-flightmanual.pdf
======
kqr2
For those interested, there is also a fascinating book _The Apollo Guidance
Computer : Architecture and Operation_

[http://www.apolloguidancecomputer.com/index.html](http://www.apolloguidancecomputer.com/index.html)

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Apollo-Guidance-Computer-
Architect...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Apollo-Guidance-Computer-
Architecture/dp/1441908765)

~~~
nimzo
Incidentally, the publisher of the AGC book, Praxis Publishing, has a whole
collection of well-written, engaging, and technically deep books in their
space exploration category, namely, 'How Apollo Flew to the Moon'.
[http://www.praxis-publishing.co.uk/books.php](http://www.praxis-
publishing.co.uk/books.php)

------
arh68
What boggles the mind isn't that this was possible in the 60s, it's that it
required such diverse and comprehensive achievements. It wasn't _just_ a
rocket. It's a very (!) long document but these stand out:

(regarding the flight computers)

    
    
        The powered flight major loop contains guidance and navigation calculations,
        timekeeping, and all repetitive functions which do not occur on an interrupt
        basis. 
    
        The minor loop contains the platform gimbal angle and accelerometer sampling
        routines and control system computations.  Since the minor loop is involved
        with vehicle control, minor loop computations are executed at the rate of 25
        times per second during the powered phase of flight.  However, in earth
        orbit, a rate of only ten executions per second is required for satisfactory
        vehicle control. 
    
        The execution time for any given major loop, complete with minor loop
        computations and interrupts, is not fixed. 
    

(regarding the Vehicle Assembly Building)

    
    
        The high bay area which is located in the northern section of the building,
        is approximately 525 feet high, 518 feet wide, and 442 feet long.  It
        contains four checkout bays, each capable of accommodating a fully
        assembled, Saturn V space vehicle. 
    

[it's not a _rocket_ , it's a _space vehicle_. Kind of like _boats_ aren't
_vessels_ ]

    
    
        Each pair of opposite checkout bays is served by a 250-ton bridge crane with
        a hook height of 462 feet.

~~~
tonyplee
Aliens and MIB went back in time to help them out on this, I am sure. Just ask
agent K and Agent J. :-)

------
esoteric_wombat
I can't remember why, but I've had the 1968 version of this flight manual on
my hard drive for a while. My version is much higher quality.

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8iAUeIURaT8ZS1PbTlMTjlCams...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8iAUeIURaT8ZS1PbTlMTjlCams/view?usp=sharing)

~~~
jessriedel
This is excellent. I would love to have a bound version of this to sit on my
desk as a conversation piece.

~~~
rdc12
Prehaps this?

[http://www.amazon.com/Saturn-V-Flight-Manual-
NASA/dp/1935700...](http://www.amazon.com/Saturn-V-Flight-Manual-
NASA/dp/1935700707/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=19CC0MZ1TE9EEYFDC2C4)

------
schtinky
It is absolutely crazy to think about how NASA got to the moon in freakin'
1969\. Ten years ago, we didn't have FB, YouTube, widespread WiFi, flatscreen
TVs, smartphones, LTE... That we landed a spaceship on the moon 4.5 times
longer ago (45 years) when the state of the art was a photocopy machine is
truly mindblowing.

~~~
ghaff
Consider in 1969--much less going back to when many of the design decisions
were made. (And by "no" here, I mean no in anything approaching mainstream.)
No electronic calculators, just barely color television, mostly rotary dial
telephones. Moore's Law had only recently been coined. No PCs of course. No
Internet in any meaningful sense.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
All of what you say is true, however it's not as bad as you might think. Once
upon a time were these magical devices called "mainframes" [1], and in the
1960s they were quite powerful (for that era).

Most engineering work was done in FORTRAN, and it ran very efficiently on the
hardware. There were (usually) no CPU cycle sucking GUIs to slow down the
computers.

As a high school student in the early 1970s I was privileged to take a summer
course at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies [2] where they had an IBM
360/95 mainframe [3] for the scientists to take turns using (job entry by
punched cards, job output by paper printout).

It's been so many years, and it was only casually explained to me, but I think
NASA used three other 360/95 mainframes (the IBM top of the line at the time)
located at the Goddard Space Flight Center [4] in Greenbelt MD to track the
Apollo missions. I think these ran the same program more-or-less in triplicate
(but there was no hardware for syncing). I think NASA also had an IBM 7094 [5]
running an independently written program as a backup in case something went
wrong with the S/360 computers.

Trust me, these computers were very very capable for the time. It's not like
the primitive computer onboard the Apollo LEM. Mainframes were quite up to the
task.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainframe_computer#History](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainframe_computer#History)
[2] bonus points for whoever looks up that institution in Wikipedia and checks
the picture to see what's located on the ground floor [3]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/360#Table_of_System....](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/360#Table_of_System.2F360_models)
[4]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddard_Space_Flight_Center](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddard_Space_Flight_Center)
[5]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_7090#Notable_applications](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_7090#Notable_applications)

~~~
ghaff
I've programmed on an IBM 360 in FORTRAN :-) so I knew they had computers.
NASA has always been one of the big US government buyers of computer
technology. The technology they had to work with on the ground was certainly
relatively more sophisticated than what they could fit into the spacecraft and
expect to run reliably.

------
mikestew
Man, I would have given up some serious allowance money for this back when the
Apollo program was active.

Reading through the descriptions of some of the flight and launch control
systems gives me a high level of respect for the software folk responsible.
Sure, the systems were simple compared to today, but there was no room for any
of the sloppiness we see passed off as "software engineering" in the interim
years. "Mmm, I'm not entirely sure about that launch abort method, but we'll
check it in, see if test finds anything."

~~~
ghaff
I went to a talk by one of the people responsible for the Apollo guidance
software (Dr. Battin from what was in the 1960s the MIT Instrumentation Lab) a
few years ago. One of his stories was about how some astronauts visited
Raytheon where the code was being effectively "woven" into the core memory. As
he explained it, one of the purposes of the visit was to impress upon those
(women) who were making the core memories that it was _really_ important not
to make a mistake because otherwise these nice young boys would die.

~~~
dbarlett
The "LOL" (Little Old Lady) method
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P12r8DKHsak#t=38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P12r8DKHsak#t=38)

------
ash
Apollo documentation:
[http://history.nasa.gov/afj/documents.htm](http://history.nasa.gov/afj/documents.htm)

Apollo Lunar Module documentation: [https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/alsj-
LMdocs.html](https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/alsj-LMdocs.html)

------
analog31
There are a couple kids in my house who won't be told about this until they're
done with their homework. ;-)

------
WalterBright
Just in case you bought a Saturn V off of ebay and it didn't come with the
manual!

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
That's almost exactly what Orbital Sciences did with an equivalent Russian
rocket engine.

I guess someone lost the PDF for it.

------
zobzu
I find it interesting that the manual quality, writing, diagram, etc. is much
higher than most things I read nowadays. Its actually a pleasure to read
through...

------
gshubert17
SA-507 launched Apollo 12, November 14, 1969.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_12](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_12)

------
teamonkey
I'd love to learn more about the Emergency Egress System described on pg192.

It seems to me the chances of reaching the rubber vestibule or the coil-
spring-cushioned blast room are fairly slim.

~~~
moioci
Some photos: [https://scriptunasimages.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/inside-
nas...](https://scriptunasimages.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/inside-nasas-rubber-
room/)

------
facorreia
How inspiring. Reading this manual gives an idea of the magnificent effort
involved, covering so many disciplines.

------
ar7hur
Fascinating. And 45 years later, here we are building photo-sharing apps.

~~~
msabalau
Just imagine how much good that could be accomplished if the time spent simply
on meaningless snark about photo-sharing apps was instead productively
deployed.

~~~
pixie_
Just imagine how much good that could be accomplished if the time spent simply
on meaningless comment on meaningless snark about photo-sharing apps was
instead productively deployed.

~~~
Thesaurus
Sick irony dude, mad original.

------
webwarrior
244 pages? Modern car user manulas are often thicker.

------
swhitt

      You don't have permission to access /ap12fj/pdf/a12_sa507-flightmanual.pdf on this server.

------
joezydeco
Where was the glove compartment where this manual went?

