If you've never seen these programs, I would HIGHLY recommend them. My Favorite was the space suit episode. SO much cool stuff in these programs.

Moon Machines Space suit Part 1 on Youtube.

Follow the links to the other parts. If you've got the time, this is worth watching. From someone young enough to have not experienced this, it is eye opening. I wish our generation had a fraction of the gumption these folks had.

I remember well the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. Those programs were marked by success, failure, tragedy and near-tragedy.

Daily life is better because then-President Kennedy challenged to put a man on the moon within 10 years. And, the US did it.

That time held more excitement and thrills than the subsequent space shuttle missions. From Alan Shepard, the first American in space and about 10 years later, walking (playing golf) on the moon to John Glenn, first American to orbit the earth and later the oldest man in space on a space shuttle.

And then, Neil Armstrong, the first to walk on the moon...

Yes, exciting times.

That was cool thanks.

I managed to be "sick" enough to stay home for every Mercury and Gemini launch, and most of the Apollo launches. Huntsville, home of Redstone Arsenal and Werner von Braun, was an hour up US72, and parents of my friends commuted there and built rockets. Huntsville went from 22000 to 150000 in about 3 years, and real estate developers made fortunes.

I recommend to you the book "The Right Stuff" for an accurate portrayal of the sentiment of the day.

A sane space program would have developed from the X-15 program, but all was subordinated to Apollo. After Apollo, NASA tried to burn the blueprints for the SaturnV to avoid having a competitor for the Space Shuttle, and was only stopped by a lawsuit by the L5 society. So we got stuck with a space truck of dubious design, unmanned probes, and no way to get to space today except by hitching a ride. Bureaucrats run the space program, which equates to covering their butts and doing nothing productive.

Ponder this. He who controls space rules the earth. Fighting him will be like being at the bottom of a well, armed with rocks. You can't reach him, and he can bury you with little effort.

Incredible times that hit a lot of us personally..

I'll never forget the day I walked into (6 or 7th grade??) school and we were told, what we had be doing was no longer good enough! The bar was raised, the focus on the sciences and mathematics was enormous and oh by the way, you WILL get into physical shape.

My college days were from 1964 to 1968, again incredibly exiting and scary time to be trying to get an engineering degree.. excited because of hearing of the NASA, Bell Labs, IBM and other companies doing really exciting stuff.. and scary because the challenge of making through an engineering school was to say the least, intimidating..be prepared to work your A** off and umm... oh by the way, if you funk out (and 2 out of 3 did in engineering), here boy... take this rifle I got a job for you.. How do you like your jungles?

I had already joined the Navy Reserve (drilled the 4 years while I was in college) and then 3 years active duty, umm because I preferred destroyers at sea as opposed to jungles...

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From the video, new profound admiration of Playtex! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/drunk.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/drunk.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cyclops.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cyclops.gif" alt="" />

I started college in 1966 and was in the Navy in 1968. Got an introduction to computers and networks with the Naval Tactical Data Systems as an operator. From there moved into operating and maintaining a variety of early computer controlled Navy systems.

The aero-space effort spawned the computer generation and I have had the opportunity to be part of it since the 1968.

Great times....

I started working on the Saturn V program in 1965 with Brown Engineering and IBM at the Red Stone Arsenal in Huntsville Al. as a subcontractor. That lasted six months. I then went to work for NASA before leaving for Lockheed in 1967. I retired from Lockheed in 1992. What a ride.

As a side note, when I started my engineering career there was only one kind of printed circuit board. That was single sided board. That meant circuit on one side and components on the other side. My how things have changed.

Also there was no such thing as a hand calculator. That happen in the late 60's early 70's and cost almost a months pay check.

Did you ever stop and think how we could talk to those guy's on the moon so far from home or beam a signal thousands of miles into space to reach a satellite.

OK I'll quit now. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Because the whole thing was faked?

<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/nana.gif" alt="" />

My nephew is VP for http://www.promptprecision.com/ that builds primarily enclosures for mid range products typically like you see 19" rack mounted.. The entire punching, laser cutting, folding process is fully automated..

He told me they are now building enclosures for circuit boards that have 17 signal layers.. An of course with surface mount, any twisting forces put on the board could pop solder joints.. They actually build a suspension system in the enclosure, so that if the case is racked or stressed for any reason, those forces don't get applied to the board.

Imagine trying to rework a 17 layer board?? better get the wiring right the first time... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/scared.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/scared.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/zombie.gif" alt="" />



These babies (the model 91 and also model 75) did the heavy computing at NASA. Machines that could do floating point math, all in hardware logic, it smoked in terms of computation speed...typically done today in embedded pico/micro code due to the complexity.. Given that IBM had just pulled off one of the biggest missions in the development of the 360 Series, the company was tapped to be a primary mission manager for a good part of the program.. I can't remember, but believe that involvement focused on launch and mission control systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:360-91-panel.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/360

Model 75 at JPL
http://tmo.jpl.nasa.gov/progress_report2/VII/VIIV.PDF

This image of the System/360 Model 91 was taken by NASA sometime in the late 60s.


People who think it was faked get no respect and are to be pitied! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/rodent.gif" alt="" />

I recall a seminar with the featured speaker being Grace Hopper. She had a long distinguished career with the Navy in the computer field. One of her stories dealt with the origin of the term "bug" in dealing with computer systems and software.

The early computing devices (circa 1940 time) were a series of relays. Hopper was in charge of a Navy computer facility in Rhoad Island when they experienced a problem with the computer system.

After spending many hours isolating the problem, they finally had the system back on line. The problem was traced to one relay where a moth had been trapped between the contact points. Seems that it was a warm summer evening and they ad the windows open for air .

So, the official problem report indicated that it was caused by a "bug" in the system. That term has been used since....