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NASA chose the Apollo 11 landing site for engineering simplicity, but it had scientific benefits nevertheless.
An asteroid crashing into the Moon could explain what the monks saw in 1178.
When astronauts go back to the Moon in 2024, they'll be using European hardware to get there.
What if there was a lake on the Moon? What would it be like to swim in it? Presuming that it is sheltered in a regular atmosphere, in some giant dome or something. -- Kim Holder
This would be so cool.
In fact, I honestly think it's cool enough that it gives us a pretty good reason to go to the Moon in the first place. At the very least, it's better than the one Kennedy gave.
Floating would feel about the same on the Moon as on Earth, since how high in the water you float depends only on your body's density compared to the water's, not the strength of gravity.
Swimming underwater would also feel pretty similar. The inertia of the water is the main source of drag when swimming, and inertia is a property of matter[1] independent of gravity. The top speed of a submerged swimmer would be about the same on the Moon as here—about 2 meters/second.
Everything else would be different and way cooler. The waves would be bigger, the splash fights more intense, and swimmers would be able to jump out of the water like dolphins. //
but the bottom line is that a normal swimmer on the Moon could probably launch themselves a full meter out of the water, and Michael Phelps may well be able to manage 2 or 3. //
But it gets even better. A 2012 paper in PLoS ONE, titled Humans Running in Place on Water at Simulated Reduced Gravity, concluded that while humans can't run on the surface of water on Earth,[5] they might just barely be able to do so on the Moon. (I highly recommend reading their paper, if only for the hilarious experimental setup illustration on page 2.)
most prominently it's reflected in the character of Cooper himself. He is exactly representing this pioneering attitude as one of the few people who are not ready to give up humanity's progress and accustom himself to the situation rather than actively trying to advance beyond it, as also reflected in his dialogue to Donald after the meeting with the teachers:
It's like we've forgotten who we are, Donald. Explorers, pioneers, not caretakers...Well, we used to look up in the sky and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.
This is also reinforced by the screenwriters Christopher and Jonathan Nolan themselves in an interview with Jordan Goldberg, as printed in Interstellar: The Complete Screenplay with Selected Storyboards where they even go as far as setting it in relation to our current attitude towards space exploration, putting the movie as a parable to remotivate humanity's drive towards the stars (emphasis mine):
JN ...I wanted to do something that reflected what I thought was the current state of human ambition. Which it is to say we congratulate ourselves every day on living in this spectacular moment of technological advancement and progress [...] but we're not going into space. Measured purely by altitude, the human race peaked fifty years ago. //
JN ...the safe bet was in a million years that alien anthropologists would come to Earth and they would find a stick with a piece of polyester on the moon, and they would say, 'Wow, they almost made it. They got that far.' So, you wash away all the day-to-day stuff that we get caught up in. [...] That drive to get out, to explore the universe, will be the residue that's left behind. Armstrong will be the person that people talk about.
Which brings us back to the "faked" moonlandings. They are a perfect way to highlight this contrast between Cooper and the society he lives in, seeing how the Apollo missions were the pinnacle of human-led space exploration and to this day remain a signpost achievement in this regard. For humanity to ignore and deny that achievement, they ignore and inhibit their own progress.
Private industries have helped drop the cost of launching rockets, satellites and other equipment into space to historic lows. That has boosted interest in developing space—both for mining raw materials such as silicon for solar panels and oxygen for rocket fuel, as well as potentially relocating polluting industries off the Earth. But the rules are not clear about who would profit if, for instance, a U.S. company like SpaceX colonized Mars or established a moon base.
Have you ever wondered what kind of rocks make up those bright and dark splotches on the moon? Well, the USGS has just released a new authoritative map to help explain the 4.5-billion-year-old history of our nearest neighbor in space.
This article considers the utilisation of modern image processing and enhancement to determine the impact of the catastrophic failure of Cryogenic Oxygen Tank 2, and it's subsequent impact on Bay 4 and critical systems on Apollo 13. The analysis also aims to aid visualisation and identify key components of the damaged Service Module.
Details of the original photographic analysis which formed a significant part of the 1970 investigation can be found in Apollo 13 document collection with particular reference to the following documents: //
Only around half a second separated the first vibrations detected in the accelerometers (caused by changing pressures in oxygen tank 2) and rapid pressure increase in Bay 4, leading to panel blow out. A calculated 60,000-pound force was effected on the CSM and 1.17g was recorded in the X-axis as the panel blew out and contacted the High Gain Antenna, although the actual total attitude change was small.
The shock loads closed several reaction control propellant isolation valves and the reactant valves in the fuel cell oxygen system leading to the loss of electrical power from fuel cells 1 and 3. The oxygen tank 2 feedline or pressure transducer wiring / plumbing was also severed leading to a zero reading on tank 2.
Damage to the adjacent oxygen tank 1 lead to a leak, and this venting oxygen caused attitude changes necessitating stabilisation from the attitude control system. However, some thrusters were assigned to main bus B which received electrical power from the now dead fuel cell 3 and as such were not functioning.
For the next 1.5 hours there were confusing firings of the attitude control thrusters. Lovell struggled to regain correct attitude manually, only re-assigning the thrusters to main bus A allowed Lovell to eventually regain control.
Image enhancement techniques have been used to reveal life aboard Nasa's stricken Apollo 13 spacecraft in unprecedented detail.
Fifty years ago, the craft suffered an explosion that jeopardised the lives of the three astronauts aboard.
Unsurprisingly, given they were locked in a fight for survival, relatively few onboard images were taken.
But imaging specialist Andy Saunders created sharp stills from low-quality 16mm film shot by the crew.
One of the techniques used by Mr Saunders is known as "stacking", in which many frames are assembled on top of each other to improve the image's detail.
NASA released a series of panoramic images of the Apollo landing sites for the 50th anniversary of the moon mission.
With data from NASA's LRO mission, researchers have recreated what the Apollo 13 astronauts saw on their trip around the moon.
The water ice and other lunar resources that will help the United States establish a long-term human presence on the moon are there for the taking, the White House believes.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order today (April 6) establishing U.S. policy on the exploitation of off-Earth resources. That policy stresses that the current regulatory regime — notably, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty — allows the use of such resources.
This view has long held sway in U.S. government circles. For example, the United States, like the other major spacefaring nations, has not signed the 1979 Moon Treaty, which stipulates that non-scientific use of space resources be governed by an international regulatory framework. And in 2015, Congress passed a law explicitly allowing American companies and citizens to use moon and asteroid resources.
“This is another critical piece of our plan to return to the Moon sustainably." //
Last summer, NASA put out a call for companies who would be willing to deliver cargo to a proposed station in orbit around the Moon, called the Lunar Gateway. On Friday, NASA announced that the first award under this "Gateway Logistics" contract would go to SpaceX.
The company has proposed using its Falcon Heavy rocket to deliver a modified version of its Dragon spacecraft, called Dragon XL, to the Lunar Gateway. After delivering cargo, experiments and other supplies, the spacecraft would be required to remain docked at the Gateway for a year before "autonomous" disposal.
On 11 April 1970, the Lovell family watched their husband and father, Jim Lovell, blast off on Nasa's third mission to land on the Moon.
But this was to be an ill-fated mission, and in the six days that followed, the Lovells found themselves facing intense agony.
As the 50th anniversary of the mission approaches, we hear Jim's wife, now 89, and his daughter and son, now in their 60s, relive their incredible story.
Buzz Aldrin
@TheRealBuzz
·
Aug 2, 2015
Yes the #Apollo11 crew also signed customs forms. We brought back moon rocks & moon dust samples. Moon disease TBD.
NASA has selected two cubesat missions to launch as part of the Artemis project to return humans to the moon.
The moon and Earth may be more different than long thought, challenging existing models for how the moon formed, a new study finds. //
The moon and Earth may be more different than previously thought, challenging existing models for how the moon formed, a new study finds.
Earth originated about 4.5 billion years ago, and previous research suggested that the moon arose a short time after that. For the past three decades, the prevailing explanation for the moon's origin was that it resulted from the collision of two protoplanets, or embryonic worlds. One of those was the newborn Earth, and the other was a Mars-size rock nicknamed Theia, after the mother of the moon in Greek myth. "Once the dust settled, two bodies were left — Earth and the moon," new study co-author Zachary Sharp, a planetary scientist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, told Space.com.
The successful rescue mission was thanks to superb Nasa organisation //
After a torrid hour of failed troubleshooting, a new shift of flight controllers arrived, as well as a new flight director, waiting to take their turn. They were at this point still in the thick of the fight and the temptation for Kranz to keep going and refuse to relinquish control must have been enormous. Nevertheless he passed the baton to the incoming team, recognising that fresh eyes and minds were what was needed. This is the true spirit of teamwork – the ability to know when your part is done, when someone new can bring something better than you can. //
That ability to relinquish control and delegate authority didn’t stop there. The Apollo missions were complex endeavours. Nobody could be across it all and Nasa knew that in mission control it had a team of people who, as a whole, were far greater than the sum of their individual parts.
In approaching this crisis, their delegation of authority and deference to expertise is almost total. In the face of high-stakes scenarios, it is tempting to wrest control from more junior colleagues. But in 1970 the approach of mission control was quite different. They empowered their most junior team members, giving them total ownership of their specialist stations. They would interrogate their recommendations but not second-guess them. It is a lesson that industry and wider society has largely failed to heed. //
But what surprised me was how little of the response to the accident demanded improvised solutions. Nasa had learned to be wary of creativity and inventiveness in the heat of the moment. That doesn’t mean it refused to improvise, nor that it wasn’t capable of doing it well – only that it knew plans hatched in the heat of battle often harbour hidden flaws. //
Incredibly, Nasa had already rehearsed many of the contingency and fallback plans required to rescue Apollo 13. In earlier missions, it had experimented with using the lunar module’s engines to drive both it and the command module. It had a checklist ready to manage the sudden powering down of the command module that was required to save dwindling battery power. Nasa even had a procedure for flying the spacecraft without their primary navigation and guidance computer. And then, when finally it had no choice but to improvise, it did it with same obsession and attention to detail it brought to everything else.
She mapped Apollo 11’s path to history. Now, her legacy lives on in the trajectories of future spaceflights—including the moon landing planned for 2024. //
SOPHIA CHEN02.28.20 8:00 AM
SCIENCE
Katherine Johnson’s Math Will Steer NASA Back to the Moon
She mapped Apollo 11’s path to history. Now, her legacy lives on in the trajectories of future spaceflights—including the moon landing planned for 2024.
Katherine Johnson looking at paper with data being printed
PHOTOGRAPH: NASA
Katherine Johnson blazed trails, not just as a black female mathematician during the Cold War, but by mapping literal paths through outer space. Her math continues to carve out new paths for spacecraft navigating our solar system, as NASA engineers use evolved versions of her equations that will execute missions to the moon and beyond.
The retired NASA mathematician, who died Monday at the age of 101, calculated the trajectories of the agency’s first space missions, including John Glenn’s 1962 spaceflight in which he became the first American to orbit the planet, and the first moon landing in 1969. But Johnson’s contributions to spaceflight extend beyond such historic moments, several of which are dramatized in the 2016 movie Hidden Figures. Her work forms part of the mathematical foundation of NASA’s missions today. “She had a big contribution to trajectory design in general,” says NASA aerospace engineer Jenny Gruber. //
These missions are not unlike trying to hit a rotating bull’s-eye with a dart while jumping off a carousel, the dart being the astronaut, the Earth the spinning carousel, and the bull’s eye a spot on the moon. As Johnson told a PBS interviewer in 2011, “It was intricate, but it was possible.” //
So just as Johnson's team did in the 1960s, Gruber and her team are trying to calculate and plan for all possible scenarios on the way to the moon. “If you get it wrong, people die,” she says. “And then people see it on TV.” //
SOPHIA CHEN02.28.20 8:00 AM
SCIENCE
Katherine Johnson’s Math Will Steer NASA Back to the Moon
She mapped Apollo 11’s path to history. Now, her legacy lives on in the trajectories of future spaceflights—including the moon landing planned for 2024.
Katherine Johnson looking at paper with data being printed
PHOTOGRAPH: NASA
Katherine Johnson blazed trails, not just as a black female mathematician during the Cold War, but by mapping literal paths through outer space. Her math continues to carve out new paths for spacecraft navigating our solar system, as NASA engineers use evolved versions of her equations that will execute missions to the moon and beyond.
The retired NASA mathematician, who died Monday at the age of 101, calculated the trajectories of the agency’s first space missions, including John Glenn’s 1962 spaceflight in which he became the first American to orbit the planet, and the first moon landing in 1969. But Johnson’s contributions to spaceflight extend beyond such historic moments, several of which are dramatized in the 2016 movie Hidden Figures. Her work forms part of the mathematical foundation of NASA’s missions today. “She had a big contribution to trajectory design in general,” says NASA aerospace engineer Jenny Gruber.
At NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Gruber works on the Artemis mission, which plans to send the first woman and the next man to the moon in 2024. Gruber plans trajectories for Artemis, just as Johnson did for the first lunar landing. Gruber’s basic task remains essentially the same as Johnson’s was in 1962: to calculate the speed, acceleration, and direction required to lob a spacecraft of certain size and fuel capacity to hit a moving target, without a lot of room for extra maneuvering.
These missions are not unlike trying to hit a rotating bull’s-eye with a dart while jumping off a carousel, the dart being the astronaut, the Earth the spinning carousel, and the bull’s eye a spot on the moon. As Johnson told a PBS interviewer in 2011, “It was intricate, but it was possible.”
Once launched, astronauts have limited means for adjusting their trajectory, and small errors committed either by trajectory planners or the astronauts themselves can result in dire consequences. For example, Scott Carpenter, who replicated Glenn’s flight and was the sixth human in space, overshot his target landing spot in the Atlantic Ocean by 250 miles because he fell behind preparing for re-entry. (A US Navy team safely recovered him about three hours later.) So just as Johnson's team did in the 1960s, Gruber and her team are trying to calculate and plan for all possible scenarios on the way to the moon. “If you get it wrong, people die,” she says. “And then people see it on TV.”
The job has always had crazy high pressure. One of the most important aspects of Johnson’s mathematical prowess is that her calculations involved real people, real objects interacting at the limits of human engineering. During these missions, human lives were at stake, and so was the outcome of the space race between the US and the former Soviet Union. “The space program was in overdrive, trying to get ahead of the Russians,” says NASA historian Bill Barry. And, of course, the whole world was watching the Apollo 11 moon landing on television.
Although the basics of space missions have remained the same, much has evolved in mission planning since Johnson’s time. In ’60s, NASA employed so-called “human computers”—mostly women like Johnson—to perform the calculations. “The main reason women were hired to be computers was that it was drudge work,” says Barry. “The engineers didn’t want to do it.”
But even if the public didn’t know much about these mathematicians, the astronauts relied on them. While preparing for the 1962 Friendship 7 mission, Glenn famously did not trust NASA’s “new” electronic computer, the multimillion-dollar IBM 7090, to plan his trip. He specifically requested that Johnson, who worked at NASA’s Flight Research Division, double-check the IBM’s computations with pen and paper. “‘Get the girl,’” Glenn said, according to Barry. “Everyone knew which ‘girl’ he meant. Katherine Johnson was the premier mathematician doing this type of work.” //
Today, it’s a cliché that “space is hard.” But in Johnson’s time, it wasn’t just hard—up until then, it had seemed impossible; Johnson helped make it possible. Barry credits her work, in part, for enabling current ventures such as commercial rocket companies like SpaceX. “So much of what she did is buried in the mathematical DNA of how to do spaceflight,” says Barry. Thanks to Johnson's pioneering math, spaceflight is now routine. “It’s well-known rocket science now.”