3 ms·
Well, yes, it did not come back. But it also took a tiny fraction of Apollo development costs. I think I read an article that described that humans were given
by lmilcin 7y ago
Well, yes, it did not come back. But it also took a tiny fraction of Apollo development costs.
I think I read an article that described that humans were given tasks that would normally be given to computers just to keep them occupied. For some task it was just convenient as humans were already on board. Some tasks were given so that astronauts were in control of their lives, otherwise they could just as well be performed from the ground.
If you think about it, there is only 2s round trip time for signal from Earth to Moon. If the only thing astronauts do is sit in the cockpit, flip switches, type commands and maybe handle some kind of steering, the same thing could just as well be performed from Earth. There could of course be possibility for communication disruption but at the same time, with no actual people on board, less fallout from possible problems.
- JoeAltmaier 7y agoHm, 2 second delay loop earth-moon is unforgivably slow to perform landing procedures. Heck you can't ride a bicycle with anything longer than 0.1sec or so?
- lmilcin 7y agoI would not say it is unforgivably slow. When it comes to landing things like keeping attitude and slowing down for touchdown are easily automated. Keeping attitude is what all rockets are designed to do. Slowing down for touchdown is also quite simple when you get precise distance to ground measurement and a human on Earth can point a relatively flat piece of ground to land on. SpaceX booster landings are difficult because of couple extra requirements. First, it is in Earth gravity and dense atmosphere and from high speed. Second, boosters are very long necessitating perfect stability at landing. Third, they use what is called "suicide burn" which means that boosters basically coast until almost end where they break very hard with basically nil margin for error. But this is in the name of efficiency because every kg of fuel saved on landing as many, many more that could not be taken to orbit. In other words, booster landing is very dynamic process. Compared to that landing on Moon surface were pretty simple and with relatively large margin for error. Landing on Moon surface could be done without large dynamic component like suicide burn. The craft can leisurely hover over the surface and touchdown with barely any speed. This is comparable to cheap quadcopter landing --keep your attitude straight, descend slowly loosing speed until it is zero at zero distance to ground.
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoThe first moon landing, they had 15 seconds of fuel remaining.