From the Earth to the Moon, episode 5: Spider ending

Manned testing of the Lunar Module during Apollo 9. Taken from the HBO miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon". The second song ( I believe) is called "Eagle", composed by Mason Daring. If anyone can tell me the name of the first song and who it's by, I would greatly appreciate it.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• from
• the
• earth
• to
• moon
• apollo
• lunar
• excursion
• module
• LEM
• spider
• program
• LM-3

[slithus4]

best episode of them all.

[shanghaiwolf]

"so long, spider."

[nickyp28]

Some fantastic stories came out of the Apollo programme, and this was one of them. There is no doubt that there are countless stories like the ones told in FTETTM from the Shuttle Astronauts. I'd love to see a compilation of some of the human stories that came out of there. And there are countless (literally) stories to be told in the future!

[WizzRacing]

@seg9585 I bet you dollar's to donuts they will never do it. The government can't even afford to pay it's bills, much less fund NASA. The private sector "Boeing" will not shell out billions either. The only way to even attempt it, you would need Five other countries involved to help defer the cost. I don't see that happening for at least 30 year's.

[seg9585]

@WizzRacing Yes they will. And as I said, that was the design for the Ares program (before this administration cancelled it). NASA has even recently talked about fuel depots in earth orbit to refuel rockets thereby reducing initial launch weight and rocket size. I am an aerospace engineer in the industry, this is the direction the industry will be going.

[WizzRacing]

@seg9585 They will not do it, They tried it once with the first space capsule docking. They almost never had the second launch because of issues with the fuel system pressure. After that NASA never tried again.

[seg9585]

@WizzRacing At the time you're right -- NASA didn't give much thought to LEO rendezvous to build their spacecraft for a lunar landing and return, mostly because on-orbit rendezvous was new and largely untested. But the most recent designs in both the government and private industry consider using smaller rockets with multiple launches to get the hardware in place before the attempt. A lunar landing + return is entirely possible with smaller rockets.

[WizzRacing]

@seg9585 I have no idea what you're talking about. They never considered multiple launch "Only in the Movies" was that ever given a thought. The Saturn V was required because that is what they designed it for from the very start. It's not like they had rockets just seating around to use. Every rocket was purpose built from the ground up as well.

I never said you could not. I said the N1 rocket could not due to its design.

[seg9585]

@WizzRacing A rocket the size of the Saturn V is not required to get to the moon (and back). NASA could have chosen the use of multiple smaller rockets to get hardware to LEO and assembled the pieces via earth orbit rendezvous (and this was the idea behind the Constellation program as well).

In regards to the Soviet launch latitude, an equatorial launch or plane change is not required for lunar orbit insertion. This can be done even from a polar orbit, but the timing must be more precise.

[olentangy74]

@WizzRacing Very fascinaing. Thanks for the info!

[WizzRacing]

@olentangy74 Think of it like the space shuttle. It gets you into space but that is it. The Saturn V rocket was designed to carry the LEM, CSM, and 3 astronauts to the moon and back. The N1 was massive because of were it was launched from to enter orbit. They did not have a close base to the equator.

I had read why we picked the moon sometime ago. The Soviets could not have competed when they had so much invested in satellites and low earth orbit designs.

[olentangy74]

@WizzRacing I must say that I have never heard of your theory before, but I am no engineer. I cannot figure what other purpose a monster like the N-1 would have served. I wonder what the payload capacity was. The "comand /service module" would have been a variant of the Soyuz, and the LK lunar lander flew unmanned in earth orbit, and was supposedly ready for the moon. The LK was a crude, unpressurized thing that would have carried one man to the surface by automation. It would have been dicey.