Chris Kraft just died - 7/22/2019

No way!! What timing. He was a pillar of the program. Just as important as any of the astronauts.

Godspeed Chris

https://apple.news/AZebLeEEaRuqGjBaDxqYT2w

RIP Chris.

Imagine being part of the team that had the job of putting men on the moon!
I can't think of a harder or more rewarding task especially considering it was the 60s.

IMO it would have to be the most complex thing ever done by humans...

Considering margins of safety could (would?) we even do it today?

The LEM had one engine to get the men off the surface.
If one thing had gone wrong, they'd be stranded forever!

Hats off to the US. Extraordinary effort ladies and gentlemen. :)

Lots of engine firings at critical positions were necessary. All had to be at just the right moment and angle to get Luna’s trajectory, lunar orbit, land, takeoff, and then a bigger burn to get towards earth, and one to land.

After the Apollo 12 mission a few months later, my dad was presented with this memento. A couple hundred of these flags were rolled up in a tube and carried on the voyage to be mounted and given to various support crew upon return. My brother keeps it on his "trophy" wall. I am jealous.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1563885485.jpg

TLI five minutes, 48 secs
SPS midcourse correction 3 secs
Lunar orbit retrograde burn 357.5 seconds

Trans Earth Burn wasn't the biggest burn it was 2 and half minutes (remmeber they lost a lot of mass since the lander was no longer with them
Then a mid course correction bout 11.2 secs

No burn to land, they just disconnected and maneuvered the command module away from the service module, and changed their angle for re-entry.
There was no real burn for that


They weren't burning with absolute and total accuracy, hence the mid course corrections
And at al time they were in Earth's Gravity. So they only needed to escape the moon, and would pretty much be in a free return to earth..

Not knocking the effort and complexity of it all, and a malfunction on that rocket while in lunar orbit would have been disastrous
But it's not like they could take a wrong burn and end up in Mars.

IF you wanna have a go, there is an android/apple phone game called Spaceflight Simulator by Stefo Mai Morojna.
It's in 2D and even in free edition you can play around with things like building a 3 stage rocket, TLI , ELI orbits, landing on the moon.
for 4$ you can upgrade and get more modules ,docking.. it has quite a following from people who go above and beyond what is supposed to be possible.. building star ships, lunar bases or even replica saturn IV

This one is ace :

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wh1Mn9BCWkk" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Not as cool as a Flag that has been to the moon but . . .
 

Buzz also was kind enough to autograph my flight helmet after I was done helping him. The only problem is that after he signed it, for obvious reasons, I wouldn’t use it anymore and had to get one to replace it. (Yea I know that’s a good problem)

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1564015223.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1564015250.jpg

Updating an old thread.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1598389670.jpg

I found this old newspaper clipping of me and the Apollo 12 module. My mom snipped this from the paper. For Apollo 11 we rode alongside and I have home movies of that.


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1598389773.jpg

And this is at the Stafford Air & Space Museum in Weatherford, OK. Right off of I-40

It is an actual piece of the first powered airplane in the world. Actually two pieces, a pies of wing fabric, and a piece of the prop that was broken in a test flight.

Niel Armstrong himself carried those pieces to the moon and back. I stood looking at for a long time and drooled. Talk about a one of a kind memento.