
Apollo 10 Stopped Just 47k Feet from the Moon - sohkamyung
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/science/apollo-10-moon-nasa.html
======
japhyr
I just finished Moondust, which is a really good read for anyone interested in
the Apollo story. The author was a journalist working on a story about the
Apollo astronauts, and he was interviewing one of the men who walked on the
moon. During the interview the astronaut took a phone call, and came back a
while later saying, "Now there's only nine of us." I believe it was Pete
Conrad that had just died.

Shortly after that, the author (Andrew Smith) decided to go find each of the
men who had walked on the moon, and ask them what they'd done with their lives
since walking on the moon. It's a wonderful mix of his own recollections of
growing up when Apollo was happening, each of the astronaut's personal
backstories and recollections of what it was like to be at the center of the
Apollo program, and what life has been like after walking on the moon.

I can't recommend it highly enough. It's being re-issued this summer for the
50th anniversary of the first landing, but you can also order the original
version from 2005.

[https://www.amazon.com/Moondust-Search-Men-Fell-Earth-
dp-006...](https://www.amazon.com/Moondust-Search-Men-Fell-Earth-
dp-0062906690/dp/0062906690/)

~~~
Animats
It's sad. Most of them did not do well in later life.

~~~
_trampeltier
Not really a wonder .. they where a special kind of men. Adrenalin junkys and
very smart .. they had been Testpilot and Astronaut. What can you do after
that .. what job can compete with that ..

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
They could go back to regular test piloting I guess. But I agree that anything
would be unfulfilling compared to what they achieved.

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carlosdp
> Cernan speculated that the lander’s ascent module had been short-fueled on
> purpose: “A lot of people thought about the kind of people we were: ‘Don’t
> give those guys an opportunity to land, ‘cause they might!’”

I've always loved this anecdote. It really illustrates the adventurous
attitude and boldness these astronauts. If they were fully fueled, there was a
non-zero chance they would have just landed. What's Houston gunna do about it?

~~~
saagarjha
> What's Houston gunna do about it?

Preventing them from flying another mission, ever, presumably.

~~~
ricree
So far as I can tell, none of the Apollo 11 ever flew another mission, so it
may well have been worth it.

(Though the 10 astronauts all did at least one more, with two of the three
eventually getting their turn on the moon)

~~~
dotancohen
> the 10 astronauts

To other readers: OP is talking about the astronauts of Apollo X, not a
quantity of ten astronauts.

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sharkweek
I was staring at a picture today (I think it was a screen capture from the
Apollo 11 documentary).

It was a view out across the Moon’s horizon and then total darkness. At first
I felt this strange sense of dread and emptiness but then reframed the feeling
into awe.

I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have felt like to be actually
standing there. Or to be in that tiny little shuttle orbiting around the moon
at what is essentially the height of an airplane flying across the ocean.

~~~
ozmbie
Apollo 11 is such a great documentary. They restored a lot of 70mm film and
the clarity of the image is surreal.

It didn’t get screened in any cinemas where I live, but the bluray looks
absolutely stunning. I wish they did a 4K release.

~~~
andyv
It was such a great documentary, I saw it twice. A tiny detail I picked up the
second time around-- they gave Collins, Armstrong and Aldrin cinematography
credits.

~~~
techdragon
This movie keeps sounding better and better, I’m so annoyed that it didn’t
show in any theatres in my hemisphere of the planet. It was pretty much a USA
only release. I really want to see it, enough to fly across my country to see
it, that’s a crazy day trip and a story to tell, but not enough to fly to the
other side of the planet, return flights from Australia to the USA is a rather
expensive trip for a movie, probably close to ten times the cost of my worst
case, a cross country flight to Sydney.

~~~
michelb
I have the same thing with many, many filmfestival films. I'm glad that there
are torrents for some of them, including Apollo 11. Would love to pay for
streams of filmfestival films, but there aren't many.

For Apollo 11 thankfully, there are plenty of options here:
[https://www.uphe.com/movies/apollo-11-2019](https://www.uphe.com/movies/apollo-11-2019)
Scroll down a bit to find the 'find out more' heading. I used the iTunes
version.

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umeshunni
That's 14 kilometers for those wondering.

~~~
jyriand
I’m wondering if Apollo mission was actually using feet or meters for
calculations.

~~~
garaetjjte
[https://github.com/chrislgarry/Apollo-11/blob/master/Luminar...](https://github.com/chrislgarry/Apollo-11/blob/master/Luminary099/CONTROLLED_CONSTANTS.agc)

Code seems to use SI, but imperial in comments.

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2dollars27cents
I recently found this list of spaceflight-related accidents and incidents.
There are some truly harrowing experiences, including an astronaut whose
helmet began to fill with water during an EVA. He was having difficulty
speaking by the time he was removed from the suit.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-
related_ac...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-
related_accidents_and_incidents)

~~~
wereHamster
About the EVA

> By December, 2013, NASA had determined the leak to have been caused by a
> design flaw in the Portable Life Support System liquid coolant. The
> designers failed to take into account the physics of water in zero-g, which
> unintentionally allowed coolant water to mix with the air supply.

They did not take into account that a space suit will primarily be used in…
space. wat?!?

~~~
ColinWright
>> _The designers failed to take into account the physics of water in zero-g,
which unintentionally allowed coolant water to mix with the air supply._

> _They did not take into account that a space suit will primarily be used in…
> space. wat?!?_

That's not entirely fair. It's easy enough to know that something will be used
in particular circumstances, but not to realise _all_ of the consequences.
Water behaves very, very weirdly in microgravity as compared with here on
Earth, and unless you, personally, have experienced it and experimented with
it, it's very, _very_ easy not to notice something, or to expect something
other than what actually happens.

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ec109685
Why didn't the Apollo 10 astronauts fly back up as part of Apollo 11 since
they handled their mission so well and the 11 was pretty much identical?

~~~
chrisseaton
Maybe because it was considered too stressful to do two missions close like
that?

Maybe because that's how the military do things - recce and offensive action
are usually done by different units or subunits within a unit, with the recce
briefing the other group.

~~~
philwelch
Also, the effects of space travel were barely known then. Even today we have
little idea what actually happens to the human body when it's in space; only a
few weeks ago, NASA published the results of the first twin study on space
travel and had a lot of new and interesting findings. In the 1960's we knew
even less, and given an abundance of caution, it's probably safest not to
recover a crew of astronauts from the Moon and then immediately send them back
to the Moon.

~~~
chrisseaton
Right - the recce proved a fresh team could reach the moon. So that's what
they did - sent a fresh team to the moon. Sending a team _back_ to the moon
would have been something untested.

~~~
pvg
Apollo 8 went to the moon and the crew didn't turn into xenomorphs. I don't
think they were quite unsure what to expect out there but there were lots of
other factors in the scheduling.

~~~
chrisseaton
> Apollo 8 went to the moon and the crew didn't turn into xenomorphs.

I obviously wasn't suggesting anything as stupid as that, was I?

~~~
pvg
What I mean is I don't believe either of 'they had no idea what space would do
to them' or 'they were just following some military convention' had much to do
with the way they scheduled crews.

~~~
philwelch
This is sort of what I was getting at with the phrase “abundance of caution”.
At this time we were still quarantining people who returned from the moon.

One thing we do know (and knew at the time) is that the earth->space and
space->earth transitions require a period of adjustment. The added stress of
repeating this adjustment has, so far as I know, still not been tested, let
alone understood.

~~~
pvg
Yes of course. But as a factor it would be far lower in importance than lots
of other much more basic ones. Like, say, the fact that the missions were
quite different, you have to prepare crews for them, you have to prepare
backups, you have a limited set of highly trained, highly ambitious
overachiever volunteers to pick from, all of whom expect to fly (in history-
making missions), etc, etc, etc.

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haakon
FYI, 47k feet is 14325 meters.

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cowwithbeef
Anyone who has played Kerbal can tell you the hardest part of this mission is
getting back to the orbiter.

~~~
HNLurker2
I wish I had a gaming PC for that (hit rock bottom). Guess I'm gonna watch
YouTube instead?

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axilmar
It's obvious, it had to be the 11th mission.

(/joke).

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1over137
"47k feet"? Metric prefixes on American units, interesting. There's hope! :)

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Buttons840
"47 kilofeet"

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thebzax
My preferred term is "47 kilofeeters"

~~~
andrewflnr
Shortened to "kliffs".

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DerekL
Actual title is “Why Apollo 10 Stopped Just 47,000 Feet From the Moon”.

~~~
dang
Yes, but HN's software sometimes takes out leading "Why" because it tends to
be a clickbait device, and many titles work just fine without it.

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paulsutter
Stopped? Yeah right

