The Moon Landing. 50 Years On.

[Top Cats Hat 10]

8 minutes ago, spilldig said:

Why the note to mods at the end ?  I think they went, but I also think everyone  is entitled to express an opinion.

This is a thread to discuss the achievement of 50 years ago.

 

As I said earlier, there are plenty of conspiracy websites on the internet for people to discuss their favourite theories. The note to mods was put there specifically because only a couple of weeks ago another ‘moon related’ thread was completely derailed and was eventually deleted because of conspiracy theorists constant interventions.

[Janus 28]

In consideration of the limited technology.

One thing that  puzzles me was the communication capabilities across about quarter of a million miles.  

 

50 years on we still struggle at times to get a signal on the phone in some areas.

[Top Cats Hat 10]

Just now, Janus said:

One thing that  puzzles me was the communication capabilities across about quarter of a million miles.  

 

50 years on we still struggle at times to get a signal on the phone in some areas.

We have been communicating with radio waves over billions of miles across the universe for decades. That part of it was fairly easy. They were also transmitting a whole load of data (including astronauts’ heart rates) by radio too, as well as uploading navigation data to the various onboard computers.

 

Having said that, they did lose direct radio communication on the way down to the lunar surface and messages had to be relayed via Michael Collins in the command module who could hear both sides of the conversation between NASA and the lunar module.

 

Also the difference between 50 years ago and today was there were literally only a handful of analogue radio messages to and from the moon whereas in a modern city there are literally millions of voice (and data) transmissions occurring simultaneously in a relatively small area over a limited number of transmitters.

 

 

[spilldig 188]

1 hour ago, Top Cats Hat said:

This is a thread to discuss the achievement of 50 years ago.

 

As I said earlier, there are plenty of conspiracy websites on the internet for people to discuss their favourite theories. The note to mods was put there specifically because only a couple of weeks ago another ‘moon related’ thread was completely derailed and was eventually deleted because of conspiracy theorists constant interventions.

Fair enough. I never saw the other thread.

[ANGELFIRE1 10]

20 hours ago, Top Cats Hat said:

In case anyone didn’t know, at 8.17pm tonight 50 years ago, the Eagle lunar lander touched down on the surface of the moon.

 

A remarkable feat with the resources available, particularly with the computing memory and power at the time. The famous 1202 error code, minutes before they landed was because Buzz Aldrin had forgotten to switch off the docking radar and the microprocessor was crapping out due to being task overloaded. The Angry Birds game alone uses more processing than used in the entire Apollo programme.

 

Yes we know that the whole thing wasn’t a great attempt to further mankind’s quest for knowledge, but rather a huge PR exercise in response to the Soviets making all the first major steps in the space race, but we should still pay tribute to the thousands of men and women who played their part in this great adventure.

 

(can mods please delete any attempts to turn this thread into a ‘it was all filmed in the Nevada desert’ conspiraloon fest)

 

Your title makes the post subjective, The Moon Landing. 50 Years On. Why would you try to deny others who have a different opinion the right of reply. Very strange behavior indeed.

 

Angel1.

• Reply to thi

 

[bendix 10]

Why is it always the far right who tend to believe all the usual conspiracy theories?  Flat earth, fake moon landings, anti vaccers, pizzagate, sandy hook.  They are ALL from the nutty far right. 

 

Talking of conspiracies, where did the Tommy Two Percent thread go?

[Janus 28]

19 minutes ago, ANGELFIRE1 said:

Your title makes the post subjective, The Moon Landing. 50 Years On. Why would you try to deny others who have a different opinion the right of reply. Very strange behavior indeed.

 

Angel1.

• Reply to thi

 

What would happen if someone started a thread on the opposite opinion, and   would the mods adhere to the request to delete posts. 

[XXTickerXX 10]

20 hours ago, Mister Gee said:

What's really depressing is that 50 years on we've got a halfwit racist in the Whitehouse and we are going to have a Beano character in number 10.

 

20 hours ago, Top Cats Hat said:

Can you imagine if Trump had been President? He would meet the man who had just walked on the moon and he would still make it all about him.

 

Watching some of the many documentaries on at the moment I am amazed at the amount of material which exists from the time. We think of it as a ‘black & white’ era with those few grainy low res video images from the moon compared to our modern phone camera era where everything is recorded but there is so much colour stuff that I haven't seen before.

 

There is some amazing footage of the astronauts’ families at home watching the whole thing live and listening to an audio feed on a squawk box provided by NASA. If things had gone wrong it would have been recorded in glorious 16mm.

 

19 hours ago, Mister Gee said:

No. It's really depressing to think who is now the President. 

I know you love politicising everything but yet here you are. Celebrating something that the the Nazi's helped with. You must be massive racists.

 

In other news Vice president Pence just announced they are going back to the moon within 5 years. 

 

 

[Top Cats Hat 10]

14 minutes ago, XXTickerXX said:

I know you love politicising everything but yet here you are. Celebrating something that the the Nazi's helped with. You must be massive racists.

von Braun should have spent 20 years in Spandau as did Albert Speer for knowingly using slave labour, but the moon landing would still have happened as of all of the the technical issues associated with the project, propulsion was a fairly easy to fix. (bigger rockets, more propellant).

 

von Braun was OCD about testing, wanting to test every individual part in isolation before advancing to the next step. NASA took a more ‘systemic’ approach where all the bits were bolted together and fired off in one big lump then the parts that failed were redesigned or further developed.

 

Overruling von Braun’s insistence on individually flight testing parts of the system massively speeded up the whole project.

[Halibut 12]

1 hour ago, XXTickerXX said:

 

 

I know you love politicising everything but yet here you are. 

 

 

He's not wrong though is he? If it was today Trump would make it all about him, you know, how self obsessed narcissists do.

[hauxwell 243]

 

 

1 minute ago, hauxwell said:

I can remember my Dad going to Western Park Museum to see some Moon rock samples. There was a large crowd and he had to wait for ages.

 

 

Edited July 21, 2019 by hauxwell

[Top Cats Hat 10]

I saw a tiny sliver of Moon rock in the Science Museum when I was a kid. Even though it didn’t look any different to a bit of random stone on the ground it was mind blowing knowing where it had come from.

 

Apart from finding out that the Moon was originally part of the Earth, the most important thing we discovered from Moon rocks is that they contain water. This means that it can be split into hydrogen and oxygen which can provide electricity and breathing air which means that unsupported life on the Moon is possible.

 

They also discovered that if you grind up moon dust very fine then heat it to a very high temperature, it takes on plastic properties that can in theory be used to 3D print stuff on the Moon!