James Burke takes us Inside the Apollo Command Module

[morganfitzp]

Wow! Where'd this come from? This is James Burke in 1969—you can tell by the future tense used to describe the three astronauts who will land on the moon. And almost a decade before Connections, Burke's deadpan snark is just starting to shine at the 3:30 mark with his reference to the blob of urine mistaken for a star.

[alijanlondon]

@morganfitzp in 2009 one of the BBC channels had a 'Moon Season' to commemorate 40th anniversary of the 1st Lunar Landing. This clip was an 'insert' made for a programme called 'Tomorrow's World' probably in early 1969. James Burke was a brilliant presenter of all the BBC's apollo coverage, he explained complex subjects very well.

[morganfitzp]

@alijanlondon Burke refers to his coverage of the moon launch and landing in Connections and it's so great to see the roots of his hands-on approach to journalism—really fun!

[blindescape01]

I just wish NASA would go back to the moon since there is a whole new generation that would enjoy the experience.

[Isuckatpaintball2]

dosent the military get like somewhere around 500x the funding of nasa?

[alijanlondon]

@Isuckatpaintball2 probably. Much, much more was spent on the vietnam war than the apollo programme not to mention the human cost, but people started saying the programme was a waste of money after apollo 11. I think it's the same for most western countries - willing to spend billions on war (not least the UK)

[Isuckatpaintball2]

@alijanlondon i know dictator sounds bad but i wish i were the dictator of the U.S for a couple years....

[Director84]

@alijanlondon Hence you could say the Vietnam war was the reason for the Apollo program being cancelled early after Apollo 17. The money had been needed there.

[alijanlondon]

@Director84 don't talk bollocks. The programme was curtailed soon after Apollo 11. Lack of public support was the reason.

[redhat11]

@Isuckatpaintball2 USSR had their program part of the military for that very reason during the space race

[blindescape01]

@Isuckatpaintball2 Especially now it is. The military spending is mostly for jobs.

[Ironoff]

Neil Armstrong..."and parrots don't fly very well"

[Rob260259]

@Ironoff

The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments.

(Friedrich Nietzsche)

You are a simple hoaxhead.

[Rickyrab]

Looks to me to be about as big as a camper van or a small to medium trailer.

[tippman2k01]

is there a place where a CM is on display where u can actually go inside it?

[alijanlondon]

@tippman2k01 Plenty of CMs on display, Apollo 10 is at London's Science Museum. They have a once a year chance where selected people can look inside it but not go inside it. If you went inside there wouldn't be much to see as I'm sure most of the instruments and equipment have been stripped out by NASA

[gnark1ll1us]

@alijanlondon It woudl also be extremely fragile on Earth.

Like put yur foot through the floor fragile : D

[morganfitzp]

@alijanlondon As a kid I went inside one at Boston's Museum of Science. Much comfier quarters for kids than the 5'11" astronauts who got stuffed in these things.

[dunavbalkan]

@tippman2k01 I admit to reaching over and touching the Apollo 10 capsule in the science museum in the 80s,when the attendants were not looking- you are kept well away now- I figured it survived fiery re entry so a few people, even a few thousand touching it can't make a difference! But of course I guess we want to keep it for as long as possible From my memory you wouldn't really easily get inside it in a museum.

[dunavuk]

He was such a prominent figure and good communicator in those days, I hope James Burke received some sort of recognition in honours lists or TV awards.

[CrowServo3000]

considering the relations the US and russia had at the time, i'm sure if russia saw on its radar that apollo 11 never left earth orbit, they would be telling the world it was a fake, just accept we landed on the moon ,i know you brain may be to small to understand how we got there, but that doesnt disprove anything

[Perranporth]

Astonishingly fascinating, I don't think I've seen the inside of an Apollo CM apart from space flight footage. Bigger than I thought, but it still can't have been much fun for three people to be cooped up in that tiny room for several days.

[Blue387]

I thought the commander sat in the middle and the command module pilot sat in the left.

Do you have a video for the lunar module?

[david181993]

As alijanlondon said the naysayers are not anti-american at all, most of the time they are american themselves.

[alijanlondon]

Don't forget that most of the naysayers and conspiracy theories originate from america. As well as the "waste of money" chanters. You should look closer to home before lashing out at the rest of the world

[TheRagBag]

Excellent x3!

Just what I was looking for,thanks for posting!

[tuttt99]

LOL hahahaha... You are very ignorant.

Did you know that we are still reaping benefits from this project forty years later? A good portion of the technology (particularly computers and medical diagnostics) you take for granted would not exist if it weren't for the technology developed specifically for Apollo.

I remember people complaining about the money spent on space back in the 60's-70's. But how much benefit did we reap from the welfare state and entitlement programs they were crying for?

[tuttt99]

We DID put 12 men on the surface of the moon.

Deal with it.

[ammannojacku]

where is your TESTABLE Proves ???

[stuga]

first of all you should learn to speak english, second, all the rocks, experiments still operating. and they werent made in a ceramics lab like that moron next to his kiddy pool thinks. i hope buzz punches you like he did siebrel

[ammannojacku]

where is your TESTABLE evidence / proof ???

:)

[dopje31857]

Over the past decade, moonhoax advocates have brought up many intriguing points regarding the Apollo missions to the moon. None of them, however, are indisputable evidence of fraud, and most are misunderstandings of basic physics or mission specifications. Several lines of solid & scientific evidence point to an actual moonlanding. The 880 pounds of moonrocks brought back to earth are the most obvious evidence. More than 30,000 pictures were brought back and hours of video.

The hoax is a hoax.

[ammannojacku]

dopje {Several lines of solid & scientific evidence point to an actual moonlanding. The 880 pounds of moonrocks brought back to earth are the most obvious evidence. }

NOT REALLY... COZ unmanned soviets spacecraft Luna 16, Luna 20 and Luna 24 , collected samples of lunar soil and return them to Earth, by 1970. The program returned 0.326 kg of lunar samples. The Luna missions were the FIRST space-exploration sample return missions to rely solely on advanced robotics NOT MAN

[dopje31857]

If robots would have to bring back 880 pounds of moonrock how many of these unmanned missions you think would be needed? 40? 130?

[ammannojacku]

The point is by saying {The 880 pounds of moonrocks brought back to earth } are nOt strong evidence that man had landed on the moon

Only jerks belivieved so

[dopje31857]

So you call scientists in 40 countries worldwide jerks?

Are all these men and women payed by NASA to keep out the truth?

You are a silly bastard.

[ammannuTheFIRST]

dopje31857So you call scientists in 40 countries worldwide jerks?

FRIST: do NOT call people by Name...fucking IDIOT

second I do noT know if there are really scientist from 40 countries worldwide support this HOAX or Not.that is only your claim That can nOt be tested and verfied

[ammannuTheFIRST]

dopje31857

Third Point "TRUTH" does not come with group mentality factor or multibe attestaions of CIA pre-paid AstroNUTS and so called scientist...if multibe attestaion is a FACTOR of knowing the TRUTH ,why dont you take the pharaoh -Egyptian or Mesopotamians accounts on creations, the flood (epic of Gilgamesh) , and their gods names they are recorded in multiple attestation accounts and, curved in stones

[dopje31857]

Bye Analmu. Please ask the nurse to check your chains.

[lordjealousisthinker]

dopje31857 {The 880 pounds of moonrocks brought back to earth are the most obvious evidence.}

The Question is:- what make you believe that these rocks are from the moon and not Volcanic Basalt Rocks from Hawaii?

Just because they say so without you testes by yourself??

The solar flair alone would Make it Impossible for amon to be in the moon With this Primitive appollonian technologies }

[dopje31857]

Lordje, why would you need proof?

What do you know about solar flares? Prove to me that they were active (and dangerous) during the Apollo missions.

[DictionRedaction]

Yes, because they say so moron. They don't pass out the moon rocks like library books.

We no "testes" by ourselves padre.

[sardoniclysane]

The lunar rocks brought back from the various missions are available to the public (to an extent) and have been analyzed by thousands of scientists world wide in the past 40 years. Don't you think someone would have found something amiss if they weren't lunar rock?

Also, what solar flare are you referring to? There was no significant solar flares at the time the Astronauts were on the moon.

[stuga]

also, people dont realize that the space program has similar side effects as a war, in which it gave a boost to the economy by employing thousands of people to build all the machines. Except no one was purposly killed.

[dcb1138]

Imagine this. Once the Space shuttle is retired, 20 - 30 years later, people will be amazed that it ever worked. There will also be people that claimed it was a hoax and never flew in orbit at all. I remember Apollo as a child. We took moon flights for granted.

[loperspest]

'Yeah, the idea of WINGED spacecraft, that is REUSABLE? That's crazy talk! If we could do it then, why can't we do it now? And don't get me started on the computers, your head implant has more memory then the entire spacecraft! Must have been a hoax.'

And that is what they will say. Seems silly now, it will be silly then, but I bet some schill will make money off of it.

[oldwhitehouse]

I can't imagine a computer implant being very useful to the person who has unless it's for purely medicinal purposes. In that case you handicapped and the implant restores or replaces some function you would otherwise have in a healthy body. As far as computer implants for the average person are concerned it would be an utterly impractical and very expensive hobby.

[loperspest]

@oldwhitehouse

The whole implantable computer idea was to just give a stock future prediction from cyberpunk science fiction.

You do raise some good points.

But people love portability, can you get more portable then in your head? Also, the PC was once considered "an utterly impractical and very expensive hobby", as it was.

I personally wouldn't want an implanted computer, the idea of spam I can't turn off holds no appeal, but it was to give a 'futuristic' feel to the comment in a few words.

[SuckingBallsYumYum]

@oldwhitehouse

Cool! I'll be at your house around 8PM :)

You can nibble on my sausage then >.<

[oldwhitehouse]

There is also some question as to justification of the cost of operating the shuttle. It seems the duties that the shuttle performs could be accomplished much more cheaply and efficiently by an unmanned rocket, space station, or a dedicated exploratory craft?

[DumbYankies]

@oldwhitehouse more humans have gone into space on the shuttle than every other launch vehicle combinded. Soviet, Russian, Early american, chinese. It has done its job well. And for 1972 technology its great.

Now if someone can just our muppet president to stop outsourcing nasa, grow some nutz and set an real objective we would be fine....

[dcb1138]

Your computer is directly evolved from that cramped piece of junk. Too bad you some how figured out how to use a computer.

[usemyillusion9]

ok , ma , i know what i want for my birthday

[Andybucker]

Hehe:-)

[britoca]

or the vastness of your ignorance...

[cmpilot]

Too bad we didn't get this kind of quality British coverage in the US during Apollo. Yes we got better reporting than we would today, but this video show me why even today there is a very informed British interest in Apollo. And yes, zero-G multiplies the useful volume of a spacecraft. You just can't get a good idea on the ground because you are confined to one apparent plane of existence.

[alijanlondon]

In the UK, the BBC covered all the missions in depth right up to Apollo 17, with all the EVAs broadcast live. There was huge admiration of Apollo

[kdmq]

the CM is cramped enough just guess how cramped the LM is!

[Kurushani]

She may have been small,but it wasn't cramped in Zero-G. As for "Orion" it's a joke, in the most unfunny sense. When you look at the CM, your seeing a real spacecraft, and not some penny pusher's computer-aided "wannabe" spacecraft.

[osallent]

What an awesome video. Sometimes people forget how small and uncomfortable pre-shuttle spacecraft were.

[deimosbg]

And post-shuttle spacecraft too. The CEV Orion doesn't seem too spacious to me.

[alijanlondon]

The astronauts used to mention that during weightlessness, it didn't seem cramped at all

[MightySaturn5]

This craft was considered spacious by all those who flew, the technology in the Apollo command module is far ahead of the shuttle-basically this module had to have an aircraft carrier's worth of electronics crammed into such a small area...going to the moon is far more complex and dangerous then a simple shuttle orbital mission.