[HN Gopher] Experience the Apollo 11 Lunar Landing
___________________________________________________________________
Experience the Apollo 11 Lunar Landing
Author : marvinborner
Score : 238 points
Date : 2024-08-30 13:52 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.firstmenonthemoon.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.firstmenonthemoon.com)
| pangratz wrote:
| I love the calm communications. The feeling of everything
| possible thought out.
|
| Regarding moon landing videos, I also enjoyed the "story" of the
| computer on board which is told in this great presentation [1]:
| Light Years Ahead | The 1969 Apollo Guidance Computer by Robert
| Wills. Definitely worth a watch if you fancy the moon landing.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1J2RMorJXM
| oldgregg wrote:
| So thought out, feels like watching a kubrick film
| idatum wrote:
| Buzz did have a bit of urgency in his voice regarding the 1202
| alarm :)
| dylan604 wrote:
| That was a very good presentation. Thanks for posting. I
| probably would never come across otherwise
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| See also Apollo in Real Time.
|
| https://apolloinrealtime.org/
|
| They have the entire Apollo 11, 13, and 17 mission recordings
| from each of the stations in Mission Control, and the comm loops
| for the service and landing modules, from hours before liftoff to
| splashdown, interspersed with videos from parts of the mission.
| rzzzt wrote:
| Spacelog renders the mission transcripts like a social network
| feed: https://apollo11.spacelog.org/04:04:18:04/#log-
| line-361084
| cameldrv wrote:
| See also the 2019 documentary "Apollo 11." I saw it in the
| theater and was blown away. The story of the mission is told
| almost entirely with archival footage, much of which the
| filmmakers had to digitize as it was sitting in a NASA vault.
| The filmmakers created Apollo in real time somewhat as a
| byproduct of this digitization process.
| iggldiggl wrote:
| > from each of the stations in Mission Control
|
| It was nice poking around the various mission control loops of
| Apollo 11 pre-launch and randomly stumbling across a voice with
| a German accent and realising I'd stumbled across Guenter Wendt
| ("I wonder where Guenter Wendt").
| jihadjihad wrote:
| It's a great multimedia experience, there have been other
| discussions [0] on it in the past as well.
|
| I'd nominate 9/11 in Realtime [1] as another exemplary project.
|
| 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5503225
|
| 1: https://911realtime.org/
| faizshah wrote:
| Do yourself a favor and look up moon landing 4k on youtube.
| There's some amazing immersive stuff now:
| https://youtu.be/boFZ3cAws20
|
| There's also a few amazing first person videos from space walks
| on the ISS: https://youtu.be/AmrrSfiMxGA
|
| The footage from Artemis is gonna be incredible.
|
| Also highly recommend this "are we going?" Talk on engineering
| issues in Artemis: https://youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU Which is where I
| learned about this report from NASA called "What Made Apollo a
| Success":
| https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19720005243/downloads/19...
| albert_e wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| I liked reading this extensive accunt of all apollo missions
| and what each accomplished --
|
| A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts Andrew
| Chaikin https://www.amazon.in/Man-Moon-Voyages-Apollo-
| Astronauts/dp/...
|
| I wish there was an "annotated verison" or enthusiast
| discussion forum that corss-linked footage like this to the
| corresponding passages in the book so we can live it more fully
| embedded_hiker wrote:
| The Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, and the accompanying Apollo
| Flight Journal, are transcripts of the audio recordings, with
| accompanying audio/video, and annotations from post mission
| briefings, and interviews with the astronauts in the 1990s.
| There is an overwhelming amount of detail. Dave Scott of
| Apollo 15 was a particularly enthusiastic participant in
| this, but not the only one. It really is a tremendous
| resource for Apollo. https://www.nasa.gov/history/alsj/
| https://www.nasa.gov/history/afj/
| mncharity wrote:
| > amazing [...] space walks
|
| The upcoming Polaris Dawn spacewalk will be live streamed. Its
| cameras were said to be a priority. It's on day 3. Launch is
| currently waiting on reentry weather.
| gpm wrote:
| Huh, Falcon 9 was ungrounded earlier today... so they might
| actually be waiting on weather again though they haven't said
| that since last night while they were still grounded by the
| FAA due to the loss of a first stage during landing.
|
| Meanwhile SpaceX just tweeted "Targeting back-to-back Falcon
| 9 launches tonight from California and Florida -
| http://spacex.com/launches/" while that URL says "Upcoming:
| August 28, 2024 Polaris Dawn, August 31, 2024 Starlink" and
| following links shows that _both_ of those missions are
| supposed to launch from Florida. So I 'm incredibly unclear
| on what (if anything) they are launching tonight.
|
| All together, F- communication from SpaceX right now.
|
| [1] https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1829694994703331393
| bbreier wrote:
| I would like to add that everyone should check the incredible
| documentary "For All Mankind" scored by Brian Eno.
| tuetnsuppe wrote:
| http://apolloinrealtime.org also quite good.
|
| "Failure is not an Option" is a fascinating read to get a lot
| of background from a first hand perspective. E.g. Go/No-Go
| became Stay/No-Stay after the landing to avoid confusion (https
| ://www.goodreads.com/book/show/141499.Failure_is_Not_an...)
| igornadj wrote:
| The first video with the Apollo 16 rover traverse got me
| curious about how far they went.
|
| I found this web page which has a great way to visualise it,
| with their tracks overlaid on famous places on Earth:
| https://www.nasa.gov/history/alsj/TraverseMapsEarth.html
|
| The one in the video is the orange line crossing Sydney Harbour
| Bridge with Smoky mountain ahead of them and to their right.
| ape4 wrote:
| Sounded like 2 alarms and low fuel!
| morning-coffee wrote:
| I love it... that's a great way to present it.
|
| Man, those folks were impressive to be juggling all that
| information and have the communications processes in place manage
| it all... and calmly. (Steely-eyed missile men, indeed.)
|
| I was born a month after they landed, and while growing up, the
| Apollo program was _the_ inspiration for becoming an engineer.
| jwr wrote:
| This is such an amazing engineering achievement, especially if
| you consider the technology available at the time (computers!) --
| I'm worried that we are unable to produce such wonderful work
| anymore. And that most of the effort seems to get invested into
| useless crap like adtech.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| If we spent 4% of GDP on a moon landing, we could easily do it
| again. Or if NASA just had a clear goal to pursue and wasn't
| pushed around by Congress all the time.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| Nothing, bar none: No human endeavor has paid itself back,
| including the computer you are reading this on, more than the
| American Space Program.
|
| Let's push around Congress to get the simple problems fixed
| so that we can concentrate on the Problems that are hard.
|
| "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in
| this decade and do the other things, not because they are
| easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve
| to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills,
| because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept,
| one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to
| win, and the others, too."
|
| John F. Kennedy Address at Rice University - Sept. 12, 1962.
| Prbeek wrote:
| That would be more than the annual military budget. Phew!
| Prbeek wrote:
| There's no Soviet Union to light a fire under your feet.
| nickpeterson wrote:
| We're going to be racing the Chinese to mars pretty soon,
| assuming we're all not fighting terminators.
| caseyf7 wrote:
| This is fantastic. I really appreciate how the two audio loops
| take advantage of stereo and are on separate channels. Much more
| immersive this way.
| knorker wrote:
| I still can't listen to these recordings without getting so
| emotional that I produce some actual tears.
|
| I love it.
| butz wrote:
| With Apollo 11 source code publicly available, maybe someone will
| add a "debugger" panel that steps through each line of code
| during landing?
| OldGuyInTheClub wrote:
| There's something incredibly compelling about launch and in-
| flight polls. I never tire of listening to them.
| pomian wrote:
| Another chance to recommend a book that I learnt about from HN: I
| highly recommend the book, Sunburst and Luminary;
| http://www.sunburstandluminary.com/SLhome.html
|
| A technical pleasure and also very good glimpse into the Apollo
| team - working together, to land on the moon. It is a fun easy
| read, written by the fellow in charge of programming the guidance
| computer on the lunar lander. It is also a great snapshot of that
| time in history, the excitement of Apollo, and with the
| frustration of the Vietnam war going on, some protests, etc. Just
| a hint - the main programmer, was an English major, and his use
| of the right words, were a key factor in the success of of
| creating an efficient and effective computer language
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Agree - it's also a superb account of hacking, in the older,
| positive sense of the word
| jackschultz wrote:
| Awesome to see this. One of my favorite songs to listen to that
| can get a pumped up feeling is Go! by Public Service Broadcasting
| where they use the voices from here in the song. I knew the
| source was Apollo landing, and it's cool to listen to the words
| from their origination.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHIo6qwJarI
| emmelaich wrote:
| Gives me the chills, sooo good.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| Scary and stunning. The RIGHT stuff. American heros. Thanks.
| aquafox wrote:
| On a related note, Nvidia virtually recreated the Apollo 11 lunar
| landing site [1]. They wanted to show that the illumination of
| Buzz Aldrin in a photo of him exiting the moon lander was indeed
| as expected and not a hoax. The reason Aldrin appeared so
| perfectly illuminated was not a studio light but the space suit
| of Neil Armstrong, who took the photo!
|
| [1] https://www.cnet.com/science/nvidias-new-gpu-sinks-moon-
| land...
| 6d6b73 wrote:
| The Apollo 11 Lunar Landing was really a great movie. It's nice
| to enjoy it in a way that's close how they people of that time
| got to enjoy it. J/k
| stblack wrote:
| Excuse me, but if you're ever called upon to enumerate badass
| solid individuals, remember Gene Kranz.
|
| Do you put him ahead of Neil Armstrong? History does, and always
| will, but I'm not sure that's a clear choice.
|
| Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Kranz
| cameldrv wrote:
| Not to take away from Kranz, who was an incredible man, but
| Armstrong was on another plane.
|
| On Apollo 11, he was 100,000 miles from Earth, with bad
| navigation and the (fly by wire) computer blaring errors into
| his ear, and had to manually fly to a better area and land with
| seconds of fuel left.
|
| He wouldn't have been put in that position though if he hadn't
| come through in a lot of other tricky situations though too. In
| particular Gemini 8 where the thrusters malfunctioned, and he
| had to troubleshoot the problem while being spun at 50 rpm.
| OldGuyInTheClub wrote:
| Was? He's still alive!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Kranz
| slater wrote:
| > Armstrong was on another plane
|
| Different rocket, actually. eyyyyy!
| nirav72 wrote:
| Armstrong was also quite good at handling the Lunar Module
| Research Vehicle. A flying machine that was notoriously
| difficult to fly. Even though he had a close call when he had
| to eject out it during one training flight.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Landing_Research_Vehicle.
| ..
| elteto wrote:
| Kranz, while an important character in the Apollo saga, wasn't
| even an astronaut.
|
| I don't know what history puts him "ahead" of Neil. Or even
| ahead of the other greats like Grissom.
| detourdog wrote:
| I have a 45 (round disc with a hole in the center) the luner
| landing. The event stays the same but the media gets better.
| UberFly wrote:
| This presents the event so incredibly well. I hope this stays
| online for a long time.
| pjsg wrote:
| Along with this, take time and listen to the BBC Series "13
| minutes to the moon" https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p083t547
| which goes into detail behind everything that happened during
| those 13 minutes. I was truly amazed by the backstory and the
| youth of everybody in the control room. As I recall, Gene Kranz
| (in his mid 30s in 1969) was the _oldest_ person in the room.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| Nice.
|
| I was a little kid back when all this happened and like many
| other kids I was totally caught up in the space and moon
| missions. I remember watching a lot of launches and seeing the
| updates on the evening news with my parents.
|
| We tuned to the nightly news regularly back then. Special reports
| following events in the space program were important so we tuned
| in to catch them. Some days this type of news felt like the only
| good news on the TV broadcast since we had the war in Vietnam,
| anti-war protests all over the country, racial issues,
| assassinations of various political leaders, etc. I could feel
| the effects of these events on my parents and other adults. I had
| good parents and so the lessons I took from this period have
| served me well in how I work with other people. Maybe it's like
| Willie Nelson sang when he said to "Remember the good times.
| They're smaller in number and easier to recall. Don't spend so
| much time on the bad times, their staggering numbers will be
| heavy as lead on your mind."
|
| I still remember the excitement and dread of watching this
| unfold, not knowing whether they could stick the landing and the
| immense joy when they confirmed that they were on the moon. My
| parents made sure to gather all of us so we could watch things
| like this as they unfolded. Somewhere in a box I have a recording
| of some events like this - the moon landing and moon walk,
| Nixon's resignation, etc.
|
| I'm glad these guys took the time to sync all of this dialog with
| the video feed. That brings it all back.
|
| I'm a bit older now though I still felt the excitement of
| watching the first men land on the moon and hearing the
| confirmation that they made it.
| greybox wrote:
| This is lovely, thank you :D
| methuselah_in wrote:
| Its so simple how they did it. But the fear and tech behind it
| damn
| valbis wrote:
| this is such a great experience. Thanks for that
| gcanyon wrote:
| A chance to describe the unexpected visceral gut punch that was
| the first ten minutes of For All Mankind (tv series). I wouldn't
| have thought the US being first to the moon was that important to
| me, but when I saw it the other way...man was I affected.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-08-31 23:02 UTC)