Featured SkyMan says: Fifty years ago today Apollo 11; 7/15/69

Discussion in 'US Coins Forum' started by Skyman, Jul 15, 2019.

  1. Islander80-83

    Islander80-83 Well-Known Member

    I wrote him a very nice letter several years ago and sent an official NASA photo of him and asked if he won't mine signing it for me. I even sent a self addressed return stamped envelope. His "people" returned my letter, the photo and a short handwritten note wanting $120.00 for the autograph. .....................NO THANKS!!!
     
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  3. flyers10

    flyers10 Collector of US Coinage

    Got to see Buzz Aldrin a few times. Book signings at the American Airlines C.R. Smith museum. A picture attached from one of the signings in 2015. 12072753_10207486064206926_7534565274145498889_n.jpg
     
  4. Skyman

    Skyman Well-Known Member

    Fifty years ago today, July 19, 1969, Apollo 11 completed one of it's critical maneuvers, lunar orbital insertion (LOI). After leaving the Earth at roughly 25,000 MPH the spacecraft slowed down to somewhere in the 3,000 MPH range as it fought Earth's gravity going "uphill". At roughly 4/5 of the distance from the Earth to the Moon Apollo 11 transitioned into the lunar gravity well and started to speed up. Just before going behind the Moon the spacecraft was traveling at just under 5,000 MPH.

    If the spacecraft did not slow down, it was on what is called a free return trajectory, it will go behind the Moon, loop around and return to Earth, basically like a big figure 8. To slow down the astronauts must fire the Command and Service Module's (CSM) rocket engine. The burn must be just the right amount, too short, and they will not go into lunar orbit, going off on some cockeyed trajectory away from the Earth; too long a burn and they will crash into the Moon. The burn must drop the speed of the spacecraft to roughly 3,000 miles an hour. Needless to say, the burn was successful, and the spacecraft settled into lunar orbit. FWIW, it takes roughly 2 hours to do one orbit of the Moon. For the rest of the day the crew did assorted checkups on the spacecraft and some visual scouting of the Moon's surface.

    Back in the day, after a mission, the Smithsonian would get first dibs on WHATEVER it wanted from the mission. De facto items that it always took were the capsule itself, as well as the spacesuits and helmets of the astronauts. Obviously there were a lot of other items they took, but they did not by any stretch take everything. NASA management then allowed the mission astronauts to take whatever of the remainder they wished to take. These items were then considered theirs. (I don't want to get into the politics of it at this point in time, but suffice it to say, via an act of Congress, possession of these items was confirmed in 2012. I'm happy to get into a discussion at a latter date about this, but not now).

    These astronauts then "gifted" a large chunk of whatever they had taken to people who had been important to the mission... contractors, mission control, support crew etc. etc. Whatever the astronauts did not gift onwards they kept, and over time many of these pieces have hit the market.

    Before each mission, a Flight Plan (FP) would be produced. It's a 3 ring binder affair that's turned sideways and read landscape fashion. Each page is printed on both sides. On the left had side of a page is the Ground Elapsed Time (GET). GET is the amount of time since launch. There are 3 columns, from left to right CMP, CDR and LMP. An FP basically tells the crew members when to do specific tasks. Over time a crew will also write in comments, data from Houston, assorted data values (burn times, fuel etc.) from their CSM, etc. etc. In many regards a FP ends up functioning like a log. An FP is but one, although the major/primary one, of a group of checklists. The subsidiary checklists each deal with one specific function or area of the mission. At the end of the mission, Aldrin took the FP as well as several other checklists.

    Over time Aldrin sold off the FP and the assorted other checklists page by page (sometimes in some small groupings of pages). I have been lucky enough to hold a good chunk of these pages in my sweaty little hands while reviewing them prior to auction. Needless to say, it was a thrill. Anyhow, one thing that surprised me was how few pages had ANY sort of writing on them aside from strictly numerical data copied down by the crew. The crew has always been known as a laconic crew, and this can readily be seen in the FP and other checklists.

    Given the cost, on the market, of a single page, anywhere from $10,000 (on an essentially blank page) to dramatically upwards on pages dealing with mission critical events, I realized I was only ever likely to own one page, so I wanted to make it a good one. Like I said at the beginning of this thread, I'm interested in the human aspect of this mission. So, here's a flown page from the Apollo 11 FP that is part of my collection. Needless to say, it is one of my favorite pieces in the collection.

    The FP page I got was used 50 years ago today, July 19. It shows a two hour period from 82 - 84 GET. On the front side of page, 82 - 83 GET, you can see a drawing of the configuration of the Columbia and Eagle as they orbit the Moon, as well as the tasks the LMP (Aldrin) was supposed to do. It's also easy enough to see why one of these lists is called a checklist.
    A11_FP_82-83GET.png

    The CSM got it's power via fuel cells. Fuel cells combine oxygen and hydrogen and produce electricity and water. The crew of a mission would use some of this water for consumption, but excess water was called waste water, and was vented to space every now and then as part of basic housekeeping of the CSM. The backside of the page, 83 - 84 GET, is why I bought this page. Aside from all the checkmarks you'll notice HANDWRITTEN in the CDR's column (Armstrong), "@ 84:00 waste water dump 25%". At the same time, handwritten in the LMP's column you'll see, "Sop up water w towels (waste)". So there you have it, the crew is in the most advanced machine of the era. They are orbiting the Moon preparatory to landing on it the next day, and what are they dealing with? Screwed up plumbing. It makes you feel right at home, doesn't it?
    A11_FP_83-84GET.png

    Here's a picture of yours truly discussing the page (actually a xeroxed copy of it as I didn't want to take the risk of traveling with it) with Buzz, and yes, he is giving me the finger. Obviously we talked about various things, one of them was who wrote on the page. Buzz mentioned that it was Collins' handwriting.
    s2-Aldrin1L.jpeg

    At the end of this day, July 19, 1969, the crew of Apollo 11 bedded down, knowing that the next day they were going to attempt Mankind's first Moon landing.
     
    Last edited: Jul 19, 2019
  5. Randy Abercrombie

    Randy Abercrombie Supporter! Supporter

    Watching the NASA station. Lots of interviews and discussions going on. I did not catch who they were speaking to. Discussion was about the new Orion capsule and the NASA interviewee commented that would be the capsule that returns us to the moon in 2024. I did not know that was the agenda. I’m pretty excited about that.
     
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  6. Islander80-83

    Islander80-83 Well-Known Member

    I'm watching VP Pence speaking live at the Kennedy Space Center, celebrating this historic moment 50 years ago today! It's only being broadcast live on two channels. Can you guess which news media channels aren't covering it?
     
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  7. Randy Abercrombie

    Randy Abercrombie Supporter! Supporter

    Tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed!
     
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  8. Skyman

    Skyman Well-Known Member

    July 20, 1969, one of the Great days in human history. On that day, 50 years ago today, humans landed on the Moon for the first time. While I realize that for the human race it was the walking on the Moon that made it all seem real, you'll note that I didn't say walk, because for the people involved, landing on the Moon was the tough part. Walking on the Moon was basically a victory lap.

    I've been able to meet and talk with both Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. Of perhaps more interest, and information, than that to me was meeting, working with (in a volunteer capacity) and talking with Charlie Duke multiple times. Charlie was the CapCom in Mission Control when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon (and he became the 10th person to walk on the Moon during Apollo 16).

    Mission Control was, and is, in many regards the heart and soul of manned spaceflight. In it's most basic form, it is the engineers and technicians who work with the astronauts of a mission both in preflight simulations, and during the actual flight. Located in Houston, Mission control during Apollo 11 had three 8 hour shifts to cover the flight. While each of these shifts were considered co-equal, the "top" shift was scheduled for the Moon landing. This shift was headed by Gene Kranz as Flight Director.

    Hierarchically, there is a Flight Director with assorted subordinates that are the head of specific technical sections (such as the flight dynamics officer, nicknamed FIDO, or guidance officer, nicknamed GUIDO) dealing with the flight. The Flight director and the assorted section leaders are located in the main room of the building. This is the room you've all seen pictures of. The section leaders are located in front of the flight director, and in the aggregate have nicknamed themselves, "The Trenches", as they are the people who have to do the grunt work to make sure the mission succeeds. Each of these section leaders has an audio link to his section's workers in the backrooms, one room for each section. He/She can access these workers greater specific knowledge if they need it. In turn these workers in the backrooms can contact the contractors who built the actual spacecraft and brainstorm with them if it becomes necessary.

    Basically what happens in a time critical situation is the section leader gives the flight director a go/no go call. The flight director can then either say go/no go depending on what he thinks, and at that point the CapCom communicates this call to the astronauts. CapCom is a contraction of Capsule Communicator. Back in the day (and nowadays too), the spacecraft was shaped like a capsule, hence the name CapCom. The capcom is always an astronaut, as it is thought that an astronaut can talk better to the astronauts in the mission, and better understand what they are asking of Mission Control.

    According to Duke, the Apollo 11 crew took about 6 hours to prepare the LM Eagle for undocking from the CSM Columbia. At undocking something occurred that no one was aware of at that point in time. There was some residual air left in the tunnel between the LM and the CSM, so when they undocked the air rushing out acted as a small rocket for the LM, increasing it's speed. The affect this would have would occur later, when it pushed the LM further downrange from it's expected landing area.

    After undocking and a brief mutual visual checkout of both spacecraft the LM fired it's engine to put it into a lower orbit, with a low point of 47,000 feet. It descended towards the Moon around the backside of the Moon. When it returned to the front side of the Moon, and thus in communication with Mission Control, it was supposed to initiate a roughly 14 minute long burn that would drop it from roughly 3,000 mph at 47,000 feet to a landing.

    At this point things started going wrong. When the Eagle came into Earth view, the communications link was poor, due to the attitude of the spacecraft with regards to the Earth and the Sun. Under mission rules, if mission control could not get at least 50% of the spacecraft's information (speed, engine info etc. etc.) then the landing would be called off. While rotating the LM somewhat improved communications it was a very dicey affair, and communications continued to be iffy during the whole descent.

    Buzz Aldrin was nicknamed Dr. Rendezvous, because he has a Ph.D. dealing with rendezvousing in space. Prior to landing, the computer was configured to take in radar information dealing with height above ground and speed of approach. Unbeknownst to Mission Control, and TO THE BEST OF MY UNDERSTANDING NOT on the checklist, when Aldrin was configuring the radar and the computer for landing he added that the radar and computer should also keep track of the CSM in case an abort was needed.

    One thing you need to remember about the Apollo computers is that by today's standards they were laughably weak. The ENTIRE computer capacity of the Saturn V and Apollo spacecraft was on the order of the KEY FOB in your pocket. On the way down to the Moon, unbeknownst to Armstrong, Aldrin and Mission Control, the addition of keeping track of the CSM was overloading the computer, and a 1202 alarm was called by Aldrin. In Mission Control most people thought that they had lost the landing. With no quick response from Mission Control, Armstrong even asked what the 1202 alarm means, and, to put it mildly, to have Armstrong express concern, you'd just about have to have a complete disaster on your hands.

    One thing you need to remember about Mission Control during Apollo is that all these guys were VERY young. The people in the Trench were generally in their mid-twenties. The guys in the back rooms were even younger. Gene Kranz was an old man of 36. These were the people who had to make the split second decisions affecting men's lives and multimultimillion dollar missions, with, at the back of their minds realizing that the whole world was watching the Apollo 11 mission. Jack Garman, a 24 year old, in the guidance backroom figured out that the 1202 alarm was basically an overflow of the system. The computer was continuing to do it's highest priority tasks, e.g. ranging dealing with speed and height for the landing, and dropping lower priority tasks, e.g. tracking the CSM, off of the list. Garman contacted his boss in the front room, Steve Bales (26), who was the guidance officer (GUIDO), who gave the GO call to Kranz. In conversation with Duke, he says he was so excited by this time that he didn't wait for Kranz to say go, but said it himself to the LM. In actuality it had taken a very short period of time to make the call, it was just the stressed nature of the moment that had made it seem longer.

    There were a couple more 1202 and 1201 alarms (1201 was they same type as a 1202 alarm) on the way down. At this point, Mission Control noticed that something was going wrong with the expected descent profile of the LM. Instead of continuing down in a braking parabolic curve to the Moon's surface it was flattening out and keeping the same speed. Fuel available was running out. Unbeknownst to Mission Control, the LM, due to the undocking issue mentioned above, was landing down range, out of the planned relatively flat and clear area. Specifically it was going to land in a football field sized crater that was surrounded with car size boulders.

    Duke kept giving information to Armstrong. If you look at movies of mission control during the Apollo 11 landing you'll see seated next to Duke a gentlemen in a red shirt, Deke Slayton. Slayton was the head of the astronaut office, and an old pilot himself. According to Duke, Slayton at this point leaned over to Duke and told him to shut up about everything, except for the fuel remaining. First it was 60 seconds of fuel remaining. Then it was 30 seconds of fuel remaining. When Aldrin finally called out, "Contact lights (there were ~ 6 foot long probes at the base of the foot pads), Engine Stop", there were 17 seconds of fuel remaining in the LM.

    After a few comments by Aldrin about "safing" various LM systems, Armstrong called out, "Tranquillity Base here, the Eagle has landed".

    Here are two pieces from my collection. The first is signed by four of the Flight Directors:

    Chris Kraft, Gerry Griffin,
    Glynn Lunney, Gene Kranz.

    ApolloFlightConFoot.jpg


    A postcard of the famous visor shot, signed by Neil Armstrong.

    1ArmVisorL.jpeg


    If you want to relive the powered descent to the lunar surface, here's a good video. It's about 15 minutes long.



    In all films of the landing the camera is located in Aldrin's LM window. We do not see what Armstrong saw. Here's a roughly 4 minute long video that blends what Aldrin saw along with a video simulation of what Armstrong was seeing from his window as he approached the landing site.

     
  9. Randy Abercrombie

    Randy Abercrombie Supporter! Supporter

    So it is Charlie Dukes voice that we hear when the Eagle touched down saying, “You have a bunch of guys about to turn blue here”....... That postcard with Armstrong’s autograph is priceless. Thank you for sharing that with us, Sky.
     
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  10. Skyman

    Skyman Well-Known Member

    Yes that is Charlie's voice. He mentioned to me that he was so excited he couldn't even pronounce Tranquility correctly, ending up pronouncing it more like Twankquility. If you listen to the tapes of the landing in Mission Control you'll see what he means...
     
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  11. Randy Abercrombie

    Randy Abercrombie Supporter! Supporter

    Is this the reason that Eagle was headed for a boulder field that Armstrong had to fly out of?
     
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  12. Skyman

    Skyman Well-Known Member

    50 years ago today, July 21, 1969, the Apollo 11 crew worked on the second part of President Kennedy's goal, "To land a man on the Moon, and return him safely to Earth...". July 21 was a very busy day.

    The LM has two main parts called the descent stage and the ascent stage. The descent stage has one engine that produced roughly 10,000 pounds of thrust. After landing on the Moon, the descent stage also functioned as the "launch pad" for the ascent stage. The ascent stage had one main engine for liftoff, that produced roughly 3,500 pounds of thrust. The ascent stage also had 4 quads (e.g. 16 total engines) that were used for attitude control, e.g. pitch, roll and yaw. Each of these engines produced 100 pounds of thrust. The main engine for the ascent stage had to work or the astronauts would be marooned on the Moon's surface. Because of this it used a simple combustion system, where all that was necessary, in essence, was to open two valves to allow two fuels to mix together. These fuels were hypergolic, which means that when they mix they immediately explode. There is NO need to have the equivalent of a spark plug, or anything of that sort.

    One thing that most people don't realize is how close to the Eagle Armstrong and Aldrin stayed during their walk. If you put the Eagle a little offset from the 50 yard line, all of the walks of the astronauts would fit inside a football field. When Armstrong and Aldrin planted the American flag it was quite close to the LM. When the ascent stage lifted smoothly away from the Moon's surface it blew over the first American flag planted on the Moon's surface.

    The Eagle rendezvoused with the Columbia in orbit. Armstrong and Aldrin transferred back into Columbia, along with assorted items, most notably the Moon rocks. Roughly 2 hours later Eagle's ascent stage was jettisoned. Roughly 5 hours after that, Columbia fired it's 20,500 pounds of thrust engine (which also used hypergolic fuels), and Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were on their way home.

    Here are two pieces from my collection. The first is a picture of the CSM, Columbia taken from the LM Eagle (by Aldrin I believe). There were 6 successful Moon landing missions, and each of them had one CMP who stayed in lunar orbit while his two companions went down to the Moon's surface. I've had this picture signed by 3 of the CMPs. First off is Michael Collins, Apollo XI. The second is Dick Gordon of Apollo XII. He was the Commander of Apollo 18, but unfortunately for him, while he was training for the mission, Apollo 18 got canceled. Dick wrote, "A view that I have not had the pleasure of viewing". The third astronaut is Al Worden of Apollo 15. He had three days alone in the CSM. He wrote, "This photograph shows the best time I had during my flight".

    One thing I found particularly amusing when getting this signed was Dick could not remember what the white antenna(?) was that extends from the spacecraft at roughly the 10 o'clock position. At the table next to him was Collins. Dick leaned over and asked Mike what it was, and Collins couldn't remember either. It was fun to listen to them try and figure it out (which they didn't).
    Dick_CSM1cr1L.jpg

    Yours truly with Michael Collins.
    MC_CSMsm.jpg

    The second piece is a picture taken by Collins of the ascent stage of the Eagle as it comes in for rendezvous. The Earth is in the background.
    A11_AscentLMcr.jpeg
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2019
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  13. Skyman

    Skyman Well-Known Member

    Yes.
     
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  14. Sculptureman

    Sculptureman Member

     

    Attached Files:

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  15. Sculptureman

    Sculptureman Member

    I will go with ‘ One small step for a man’.
    Vintage 1969 Apollo 11
     
  16. Razz

    Razz Critical Thinker

    He was supposed to say "...a man..." but in reality he did not. I just heard the transmission again after reading part of this thread and there is no pause where the a could have been lost in transmission and it is clear that he does NOT say "a man". He pauses after saying man and before the rest of the quote.
     
  17. Skyman

    Skyman Well-Known Member

    There was no A. See posts #29, #32 and #35.
     
  18. Sculptureman

    Sculptureman Member

    That’s great !
    Does that make my token rare ?
    Lol
     
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  19. Skyman

    Skyman Well-Known Member

    July 24, 1969, the crew of Apollo 11 landed safely back on Earth. Due to concerns about bringing back a potential Moon organism the astronauts had to immediately don biological isolation garments, and were quickly helicoptered to the waiting aircraft carrier, Hornet, where they were installed in the Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF), a glorified RV, to keep them isolated from humanity. The MQF was landed at Pearl Harbor a couple of days later and flown to Houston, arriving on July 28. The astronauts were kept in isolation for a total of 3 weeks, and then released to the world.

    For those of you who have enjoyed this series of posts for Apollo 11, I plan to do a daily series of posts on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 12; November 14 - 24. This is the Apollo mission I got most interested in, and have the most number of pictures, hardware and checklist pages from, as well as a couple of signed $1 bills.

    Here's the last Apollo 11 piece in my collection. It's a US flag that traveled on Apollo 11 to the Moon. I keep it displayed in my home next to the political cartoon picture of the Mercury astronauts that are having so many problems trying to get into space, that was posted on July 16. The combination of the two symbolizes to me what the USA can do when it puts it's mind to it.


    A11FlagFramedL.jpeg

    Closet3 L.jpg
     
  20. Randy Abercrombie

    Randy Abercrombie Supporter! Supporter

    Truer words were never spoken.
     
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  21. UncleScroge

    UncleScroge Well-Known Member

    Is that a real flag on that poster? If so, any idea of how many of those exist? How many flags did the astronauts carry along with them to the moon?
     
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