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> the only people who did it were highly trained, had balls of pure cast iron Astronauts are highly-trained, but I haven't seen any evidence they were necessar

> the only people who did it were highly trained, had balls of pure cast iron Astronauts are highly-trained, but I haven't seen any evidence they were necessary - they don't do the orbital calculations, and if there was an emergency, Ground Control would solve the problem.

Latteland 8y ago
well, they did something on apollo 13. they would have died if they hadn't done the 'rebuilding work' as seen in apollo 13. if they were not highly trained, capable, in self control they might not have been able to make it, repoint the spacecraft manually.
shshhdhs 8y ago
> and if there was an emergency, Ground Control would solve the problem. False. If there was an emergency, it could take several minutes for communication. Multiple responses could take an hour or more. They were highly trained to deal with issues because of this
- informatimago 8y ago
  Nope, not to the Moon. It takes less than 2 seconds. You can still do interactive conversation with that delay. Remember, the speed of light is very big!
nickik 8y ago
Nowdays Astronauts maybe don't need to be that good, but they absolutely did have to do difficult calculation and other tasks in the 60s to land on the moon.
andyjohnson0 8y ago
> Astronauts are highly-trained, but I haven't seen any evidence they were necessary - they don't do the orbital calculations, and if there was an emergency, Ground Control would solve the problem. Although the normal procedure was to get navigation instructions from earth by voice and uplink, the Apollo astronauts that flew on lunar missions were trained to navigate without assistance, if that was necessary in an emergency. They could even navigate without assistance from the onboard computer, if that wasn't available, by using charts and a sextant. Buzz Aldrin had a doctorate in astronautics and helped develop the navigation techniques that were used by NASA at that time.

Latteland 8y ago

well, they did something on apollo 13. they would have died if they hadn't done the 'rebuilding work' as seen in apollo 13. if they were not highly trained, capable, in self control they might not have been able to make it, repoint the spacecraft manually.

shshhdhs 8y ago

> and if there was an emergency, Ground Control would solve the problem. False. If there was an emergency, it could take several minutes for communication. Multiple responses could take an hour or more. They were highly trained to deal with issues because of this

informatimago 8y ago
Nope, not to the Moon. It takes less than 2 seconds. You can still do interactive conversation with that delay. Remember, the speed of light is very big!

nickik 8y ago

Nowdays Astronauts maybe don't need to be that good, but they absolutely did have to do difficult calculation and other tasks in the 60s to land on the moon.

andyjohnson0 8y ago

> Astronauts are highly-trained, but I haven't seen any evidence they were necessary - they don't do the orbital calculations, and if there was an emergency, Ground Control would solve the problem. Although the normal procedure was to get navigation instructions from earth by voice and uplink, the Apollo astronauts that flew on lunar missions were trained to navigate without assistance, if that was necessary in an emergency. They could even navigate without assistance from the onboard computer, if that wasn't available, by using charts and a sextant. Buzz Aldrin had a doctorate in astronautics and helped develop the navigation techniques that were used by NASA at that time.