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I wish it went into even more technical depth. I've also been trying to find documents and movies about the Apollo missions that are more about the engineering

I wish it went into even more technical depth. I've also been trying to find documents and movies about the Apollo missions that are more about the engineering than the people. (Nothing wrong with the latter, just feels like that's all the existing, sometimes over-dramatized films are about).

dylan604 2y ago
> sometimes over-dramatized films are about) For a film that's meant for entertaining, this is all you well ever see. The drama is what the mass audience can understand. The mass audience will not grasp the majority of the science/engineering and will get bored. There are some very science oriented content, but their popularity is dwarfed by the dramatic stories of the people. It's just like what true hacking in films is mostly just made up stuff to look cool rather than just the boring work that hacking truly is because nobody will watch it. They might as well cut to a YouTube stream of someone live coding.
mulmen 2y ago
I feel like Hidden Figures did a good job showing the impact of innovation and the impact of hard work done on the ground. There’s drama too but it has a unique perspective. The “this has to be calculated correctly or we miss the moon and people die” moment was particularly impactful to me
- ted_dunning 2y ago
  Sadly many of the situations depicted in the movie were entirely fictional. There were plenty of critical moments and plenty of drama. Ironically, for all of the manufactured scenes about discrimination and rejiggering of timelines by decades in the movie, John Glenn apparently did ask for Johnson to check some calculations ... he just didn't do it during final launch prep. The wikipedia page on the topic has a great list of "things that didn't happen that way" in the movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Figures#Historical_accuracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Figures#Historical_accu...
jessriedel 2y ago
Scott Manley has some good videos focusing on various engineering aspects of Apollo: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=apollo+scott+manley https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=apollo+scott+ma... You could do worse than just reading all the Wikipedia articles on all the various pieces of hardware, e.g., the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Landing_Research_Vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Landing_Research_Vehicle
ranger207 2y ago
Haynes, who is more well known for car repair manuals, puts out a surprisingly good set of "owner's manuals" that are highly technical. I loved the "Apollo 13 Owners' Workshop Manual" since it went into exacting detail about how each part of the spacecraft, including wiring diagrams and plumbing charts. Their Saturn V manual was also very good
imemyself 2y ago
I also find the "people" stories somewhat less interesting than technical. I really enjoyed the "How Apollo Flew to Moon" book. I also have "Stages to Saturn" on my list to read sometime, sounded interesting but haven't read it yet.
PaulGaspardo 2y ago
Maybe you're aware but NASA publishes lots of technical and scientific documents to https://ntrs.nasa.gov/ https://ntrs.nasa.gov/ Like this technical memo about Apollo data network systems from 1966: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19670009662 https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19670009662 JPL specifically has its own repository with similar content at https://dataverse.jpl.nasa.gov/dataverse/jor https://dataverse.jpl.nasa.gov/dataverse/jor Like this paper about file transfers with the Europa Clipper spacecraft: https://dataverse.jpl.nasa.gov/file.xhtml?fileId=72593&version=2.0 https://dataverse.jpl.nasa.gov/file.xhtml?fileId=72593&versi...
ThinkingGuy 2y ago
The engineering-focused "Omega Tau" podcast had some some good episodes on the Apollo program: http://omegataupodcast.net/83-how-apollo-flew-to-the-moon/ http://omegataupodcast.net/83-how-apollo-flew-to-the-moon/ http://omegataupodcast.net/97-how-apollo-explored-the-moon/ http://omegataupodcast.net/97-how-apollo-explored-the-moon/

dylan604 2y ago

> sometimes over-dramatized films are about) For a film that's meant for entertaining, this is all you well ever see. The drama is what the mass audience can understand. The mass audience will not grasp the majority of the science/engineering and will get bored. There are some very science oriented content, but their popularity is dwarfed by the dramatic stories of the people. It's just like what true hacking in films is mostly just made up stuff to look cool rather than just the boring work that hacking truly is because nobody will watch it. They might as well cut to a YouTube stream of someone live coding.

mulmen 2y ago

I feel like Hidden Figures did a good job showing the impact of innovation and the impact of hard work done on the ground. There’s drama too but it has a unique perspective. The “this has to be calculated correctly or we miss the moon and people die” moment was particularly impactful to me

ted_dunning 2y ago
Sadly many of the situations depicted in the movie were entirely fictional. There were plenty of critical moments and plenty of drama. Ironically, for all of the manufactured scenes about discrimination and rejiggering of timelines by decades in the movie, John Glenn apparently did ask for Johnson to check some calculations ... he just didn't do it during final launch prep. The wikipedia page on the topic has a great list of "things that didn't happen that way" in the movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Figures#Historical_accuracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Figures#Historical_accu...

jessriedel 2y ago

Scott Manley has some good videos focusing on various engineering aspects of Apollo: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=apollo+scott+manley https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=apollo+scott+ma... You could do worse than just reading all the Wikipedia articles on all the various pieces of hardware, e.g., the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Landing_Research_Vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Landing_Research_Vehicle

ranger207 2y ago

Haynes, who is more well known for car repair manuals, puts out a surprisingly good set of "owner's manuals" that are highly technical. I loved the "Apollo 13 Owners' Workshop Manual" since it went into exacting detail about how each part of the spacecraft, including wiring diagrams and plumbing charts. Their Saturn V manual was also very good

imemyself 2y ago

I also find the "people" stories somewhat less interesting than technical. I really enjoyed the "How Apollo Flew to Moon" book. I also have "Stages to Saturn" on my list to read sometime, sounded interesting but haven't read it yet.

PaulGaspardo 2y ago

Maybe you're aware but NASA publishes lots of technical and scientific documents to https://ntrs.nasa.gov/ https://ntrs.nasa.gov/ Like this technical memo about Apollo data network systems from 1966: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19670009662 https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19670009662 JPL specifically has its own repository with similar content at https://dataverse.jpl.nasa.gov/dataverse/jor https://dataverse.jpl.nasa.gov/dataverse/jor Like this paper about file transfers with the Europa Clipper spacecraft: https://dataverse.jpl.nasa.gov/file.xhtml?fileId=72593&version=2.0 https://dataverse.jpl.nasa.gov/file.xhtml?fileId=72593&versi...

ThinkingGuy 2y ago

The engineering-focused "Omega Tau" podcast had some some good episodes on the Apollo program: http://omegataupodcast.net/83-how-apollo-flew-to-the-moon/ http://omegataupodcast.net/83-how-apollo-flew-to-the-moon/ http://omegataupodcast.net/97-how-apollo-explored-the-moon/ http://omegataupodcast.net/97-how-apollo-explored-the-moon/