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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Skyman, post: 3613643, member: 28299&quot;]Fifty years ago today, July 19, 1969, Apollo 11 completed one of it&#039;s critical maneuvers, lunar orbital insertion (LOI).&nbsp; 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&#039;s gravity going &quot;uphill&quot;.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Just before going behind the Moon the spacecraft was traveling at just under 5,000 MPH.</p><p><br /></p><p>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.&nbsp; To slow down the astronauts must fire the Command and Service Module&#039;s (CSM) rocket engine.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; The burn must drop the speed of the spacecraft to roughly 3,000 miles an hour.&nbsp; Needless to say, the burn was successful, and the spacecraft settled into lunar orbit.&nbsp; FWIW, it takes roughly 2 hours to do one orbit of the Moon.&nbsp; For the rest of the day the crew did assorted checkups on the spacecraft and some visual scouting of the Moon&#039;s surface. </p><p><br /></p><p>Back in the day, after a mission, the Smithsonian would get first dibs on WHATEVER it wanted from the mission.&nbsp; <i>De facto</i> items that it always took were the capsule itself, as well as the spacesuits and helmets of the astronauts.&nbsp; Obviously there were a lot of other items they took, but they did not by any stretch take everything.&nbsp; NASA management then allowed the mission astronauts to take whatever of the remainder they wished to take.&nbsp; These items were then considered theirs. (I don&#039;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.&nbsp; I&#039;m happy to get into a discussion at a latter date about this, but not now). </p><p><br /></p><p>These astronauts then &quot;gifted&quot; a large chunk of whatever they had taken to people who had been important to the mission... contractors, mission control, support crew etc. etc.&nbsp; Whatever the astronauts did not gift onwards they kept, and over time many of these pieces have hit the market.</p><p><br /></p><p>Before each mission, a Flight Plan (FP) would be produced.&nbsp; It&#039;s a 3 ring binder affair that&#039;s turned sideways and read landscape fashion.&nbsp; Each page is printed on both sides.&nbsp; On the left had side of a page is the Ground Elapsed Time (GET).&nbsp; GET is the amount of time since launch.&nbsp; There are 3 columns, from left to right CMP, CDR and LMP.&nbsp; An FP basically tells the crew members when to do specific tasks.&nbsp; Over time a crew will also write in comments, data from Houston, assorted data values (burn times, fuel etc.) from their CSM, etc. etc.&nbsp; In many regards a FP ends up functioning like a log.&nbsp; An FP is but one, although the major/primary one, of a group of checklists.&nbsp; The subsidiary checklists each deal with one specific function or area of the mission.&nbsp; At the end of the mission, Aldrin took the FP as well as several other checklists. </p><p><br /></p><p>Over time Aldrin sold off the FP and the assorted other checklists page by page (sometimes in some small groupings of pages).&nbsp; I have been lucky enough to hold a good chunk of these pages in my sweaty little hands while reviewing them prior to auction.&nbsp; Needless to say, it was a thrill.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; The crew has always been known as a laconic crew, and this can readily be seen in the FP and other checklists. </p><p><br /></p><p>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.&nbsp; Like I said at the beginning of this thread, I&#039;m interested in the human aspect of this mission.&nbsp; So, here&#039;s a flown page from the Apollo 11 FP that is part of my collection.&nbsp; Needless to say, it is one of my favorite pieces in the collection.</p><p><br /></p><p>The FP page I got was used 50 years ago today, July 19.&nbsp; It shows a two hour period from 82 - 84 GET.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; It&#039;s also easy enough to see why one of these lists is called a checklist.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]967899[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>The CSM got it&#039;s power via fuel cells.&nbsp; Fuel cells combine oxygen and hydrogen and produce electricity and water.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; The backside of the page, 83 - 84 GET, is why I bought this page.&nbsp; Aside from all the checkmarks you&#039;ll notice HANDWRITTEN in the CDR&#039;s column (Armstrong), &quot;@ 84:00 waste water dump 25%&quot;.&nbsp; At the same time, handwritten in the LMP&#039;s column you&#039;ll see, &quot;Sop up water w towels (waste)&quot;.&nbsp; So there you have it, the crew is in the most advanced machine of the era.&nbsp; They are orbiting the Moon preparatory to landing on it the next day, and what are they dealing with?&nbsp; Screwed up plumbing.&nbsp; It makes you feel right at home, doesn&#039;t it? </p><p>[ATTACH=full]967900[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Here&#039;s a picture of yours truly discussing the page (actually a xeroxed copy of it as I didn&#039;t want to take the risk of traveling with it) with Buzz, and yes, he is giving me the finger.&nbsp; Obviously we talked about various things, one of them was who wrote on the page.&nbsp; Buzz mentioned that it was Collins&#039; handwriting. </p><p>[ATTACH=full]967901[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>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&#039;s first Moon landing.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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