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The most famous carbon dioxide absorber
- jrflowers 1y ago> On July 21, 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder of his spacecraft and became the first human to walk on the Moon. The first words spoken by him on the Moon that day are still remembered. >[img that misquotes Neil Armstrong] is a hilarious way to start
- rolandog 1y agoTo be fair, they did not say they were remembered correctly.
- jrflowers 1y agoOr who remembers them (not the person that made the image)
- RandallBrown 1y agoI believe Neil Armstrong said that is the correct quote, it just dropped the "a" in the transmission.
- nrds 1y agoUntil recently I believed that too. However, I came across some discussion which made me realize I was mixing up the sequence. The transmission interruption, which can be clearly heard, didn't happen at that point in the quote; it happened a moment later, after the word "man". The critical part of the quote seems to come through clear. It's more of a linguistic question about how "for a" and "for" may sound almost indistinguishable in Armstrong's accent.
- alnwlsn 1y agoI have a similar accent and we would say it like "furrah-man". For me, the "ah" becomes a lot weaker going into the "m", so I can easily see it. I'm also intrigued by the idea that it was a flub which he realized instantly (if you listen to the recording): ... step for man <pause> (dammit) ... one giant leap...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- AStonesThrow 1y agoThere is a whole controversy and analysis about that particular syllable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Armstrong#First_Moon_walk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Armstrong#First_Moon_walk Also, the blog post in the submission omits a major detail: the on-orbit docking maneuvers for the CSM to mate with the LM. A minor detail is that the Saturn V's third stage performed TLI (trans-lunar injection) and it actually impacted the Moon. After this TLI, the LM and the CSM were flying free in space, with a bit of separation, and it was the CSM pilot who needed to turn 180° and nose-in to the LM in order to be in the proper configuration for the hypothetical Moon landing. It was an unusual configuration for Apollo 13, to say the least, because of course they did not land on the Moon, but also because the "base/legs" part of the LM wouldn't be "left behind" on the lunar surface, so they sort of lugged it around awhile. I don't know the exact sequence of jettisoning that base, but they certainly relied on the LM "head" as a lifeboat and a source of additional life-support functions.
- mandevil 1y agoAt one point they discussed jettisoning the landing stage of the LM, for less mass so that the PC+2 burn would get them home faster, but most of the batteries and O2 tanks on the LM were in the descent stage (4 of the 6 batteries, I don't remember the distribution of the tanks) so dropping the landing stage made their other problems even worse. The landing stage stayed attached to the ascent stage for the entire life of Odyssey, and was dumped into a deep trench in the Pacific Ocean because there was a nuclear RTG to power the ALSEP attached to one of the legs of the lander.
- userbinator 1y agoThere is a whole controversy and analysis about that particular syllable Oh FFS... this guy went to the Moon and all people can argue about is what he said? How far we've fallen...
- krapp 1y agoBe glad people still believe anyone ever went to the moon at all. That may not be the case in a few more years.
- euroderf 1y agoIIRC Armstrong said some years later that he had unintentionally left out the "a".
- breakyerself 1y agoIt's a fun read. It does seem to imply that the parachutes slowed them down from 25,000 mph, but the heat shield smashing through the atmosphere would have slowed them down first.
- HeyLaughingBoy 1y agoThat would be one helluva parachute.
- schiffern 1y agoI don't know of any actual parachutes, but the closest thing is probably inflatable heat shields like HIAD or MOOSE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIAD#Inflatable_heat_shield_entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIAD#Inflatable_heat_shield_en... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOOSE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOOSE
- weard_beard 1y agoMy favorite goal in Kerbal Space Program is not the more common “return from a high gravity planet” or “orbit all the planets in the solar system in one trip” but instead “use every method including atmospheric air breaking, parachutes, and gravity assists, and mining resources /lunar/martian refueling to land a single stage rocket on mars and return” Most fun thing to plan build and execute in the whole game IMHO Bonus points if you bring and execute all types of science experiment available. This, and mining to refuel makes SSTO much harder. *If you find this too easy then an upgrade is to do the same mission, but bring and deploy a permanent base to laythe (fictional moon of Jupiter with oceans). (bonus points if the base is mobile/submersible)
- wolfi1 1y agoand I thought the most famous carbon dioxide absorber would be caustic potash solution
- fph 1y agoMyself, I was thinking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Sherman_(tree) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Sherman_(tree) .
- Angostura 1y agoI was thinking ‘Amazon rainforest’ or perhaps ‘ocean’
- elihu 1y agoI was going to guess "trees". A not-at-all-famous-but-maybe-it-should-be CO2 absorber is azolla. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event
- josefritzishere 1y agoMany of us knew the story from books, or even the Tom Hanks Apollo 13 film, but the detail here is fascinating.
- hinkley 1y agoThe triumph of the movie, as described at the time, was making people care about a story they already knew the ending to. Opie sure turned out good.
- JadeNB 1y ago> The triumph of the movie, as described at the time, was making people care about a story they already knew the ending to. One could, I think, argue the same about any movie about a historical event. I think that it would seem strange, for example, to say that that was the main achievement of Sands of Iwo Jima.
- hinkley 1y agoI think it’s different when you’re talking about an army versus three people in that army. We don’t know if Private Ryan or any of the other characters make it. We can assume most of the actors make it off the beach at the beginning, but that’s about it.
- AStonesThrow 1y agoI mean it was also way better than the first 12 prequels
- tenpies 1y agoAlso for anyone interested, some of Flight Director Gene Kranz's recordings are available online. Here's the first part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWfnY9cRXO4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWfnY9cRXO4 The comments have time stamps for some particularly interesting moments, but the incident occurs 8 minutes in, and the infamous "Houston, we've had a problem" remark happens at 9:20. The blog post talked about how everything had to be communicated verbally because you could not share images, but since we're so used to Hollywood adaptions or documentaries, I find the recordings really drive the point home.
- hinkley 1y agoPSA: Apollo 13 is currently marked as “Leaving Soon” on Netflix.
- laidoffamazon 1y agoThe scenes where they identify the square peg/round hole problem and where John Aaron and Ken Mattingly get the power draw down are some of my favorite in any movie. Must watch for any engineer
- schiffern 1y agoI love how their solution was not to fit the square peg into the round hole, but to use the suit air hose system to pull air through the filter instead. They achieved the important function ("flow cabin air through the filter") in a totally different way. https://www.nasa.gov/history/afj/ap13fj/15day4-mailbox.html https://www.nasa.gov/history/afj/ap13fj/15day4-mailbox.html https://spacecenter.org/apollo-13-infographic-how-did-they-make-that-co2-scrubber/ https://spacecenter.org/apollo-13-infographic-how-did-they-m...
- userbinator 1y agoIt's worth remembering that this is 1960s technology.
- intrasight 1y agoI watched the moon landing as a young kid. On our rich neighbors TV. We didn't have one. I do hope that live to see another one. Not sure as they keep delaying it.
- croisillon 1y agoI hope your rich neighbours live long enough to allow you to watch it!
- kragen 1y agoWhich, apparently, nobody knows how to replicate today.
- gaoryrt 1y agoMaybe 2030? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_Prog...
- rkagerer 1y agoSo... like... it's tough, generally works, and doesn't show you ads. Sign me up!
- sparky_z 1y agoThat's the best part - it doesn't ask you to sign up!
- giraffe_lady 1y agoWait did they really launch apollo 13 at 13:13 local time lol. I think of myself as not particularly superstitious but that's pushing it.
- timewizard 1y agoNo. Local time for the vehicle was 14:13. Local time for mission control was 13:13.
- breput 1y agoWe shake our heads at round vs. square filter in the distant 1970 past, but flash forward 55 years and we have that a very similar situation in the active American space capsules - none of the spacesuits are compatible with any of the other ships. The Boeing spacesuit isn't compatible with the SpaceX capsule, which was recently an issue with the Crew 9 mission. And neither are compatible with the NASA Orion capsule.
- londons_explore 1y agoAnyone selling house-size CO2 absorbers to keep CO2 in my house to more like pre-industrial 200ppm rather than the 800ppm that's more common of house air in cities?
- mppm 1y agoHonest question: Why would you want to? The average CO2 concentration in your lungs is something like 20,000 ppm, so it doesn't matter much whether ambient CO2 is at 200ppm or 800ppm. Other aspects of air quality do matter, but I'm highly skeptical about the value of capturing CO2 in your house.
- OutOfHere 1y agoAre you not familiar with any of the research linking high CO2 with harmed cognition and harmed alertness? It is manifest at as low as 800 ppm, certainly at 1000 ppm, and personally even at 600 ppm for me. There is good reason to want the preindustrial level that humans lived with for almost their entire history.
- mppm 1y agoYes, I've seen such research, but I am highly skeptical, to put it very mildly. This actually being the case is simply implausible from the physiological perspective, considering the very high (and constantly changing) concentration of CO2 in the lungs and in the bloodstream. Early research with Navy submariners was consistent with this -- no detectable impairment below 1% (10,000 ppm) and clear impairment at 3-4%. Later long term studies with 0.5% exposure (5,000 ppm) also found nothing. I put the recently popular research showing cognitive impairment as low as 600 ppm in the same mental niche as vitamin megadosing -- underpowered, low quality research with no basis in human physiology. That said, CO2 can often serve as an easily measurable proxy for stuffy air, which can contain particulates, formaldehyde and other organic exhalations which may actually have some effect (psychological, if nothing else). But this just calls for ventilation and air filtering, not CO2 scrubbing.
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- teekert 1y agoI never knew this whole story, fascinating. There is a nice intro for my “Interoperability in Healthcare” talks in there. Nice write up!
- 8474_s 1y agoThe part of story where Co2 absorbers were incompatible between two modules sounds really dumb. What was the cause?
- evgen 1y agoThere was never any requirement for sharing anything between the two vehicles and they were made by completely different contractors. Grumman made the LEM and North American Aviation made the command module. There was also a significant redesign of the command module after the Apollo 1 fire which completely changed the cabin environment. Sort of how you probably cannot take a chunk of equipment out of the cockpit of an Airbus 320 and expect to slot it in to a similar role in a Boeing 737.