If you're interested in this, I can recommend Sunburst and Luminary: An Apollo Memoir, by Don Eyles. http://www.sunburstandluminary.com/SLhome.html http://www.

If you're interested in this, I can recommend Sunburst and Luminary: An Apollo Memoir, by Don Eyles. http://www.sunburstandluminary.com/SLhome.html http://www.sunburstandluminary.com/SLhome.html It was Don who wrote the Apollo lunar module software that handled the whole landing phase, and was responsible for the hack that saved the Apollo 14 mission. The book details the whole history of the LEM software development. I particularly like the part relating to the details behind the 1201 and 1202 program alarms on Apollo 11. I hadn't realized that they actually signified the LEM computer doing a full software reboot. Not what you really want to see on a fly-by-wire spacecraft during the landing phase. This turned out to be OK because the critical tasks were restartable, as they anticipated a power glitch and really didn't want to crater if one happened at a critical momemnt.