24 ms·

Debugging a Live Saturn V

276 points by dblock 13y ago

ljoshua 13y ago
Awesome. I wish/don't wish that my debugging was that exciting.
- edge17 13y ago
  i think those situations find you, not the other way around :)
kabdib 13y ago
Signing off on the paperwork and /then/ getting out of there. So NASA :-)
- ISL 13y ago
  Careful adherence to a well-vetted plan is a good way to get to the moon and back.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- wtracy 13y ago
  I'd rather not drive a mile and a half away and then find out I missed something on the checklist and have to go back.
- dba7dba 13y ago
  Sticking with protocols is a reason why every high tech stuff works in our modern era.
brudgers 13y ago
And that's what is meant by"Steely Eyed Missile Man."
- erbo 13y ago
  We know that astronauts frequently have had to be badasses, and even flight controllers have had to be badasses (e.g. John Aaron, Apollo 12, "SCE to AUX"), but this is proof positive that even the guys that fix the bugs in the rockets sometimes have to be badasses, too.
  - krisgee 13y ago
    Gene Crantz is another certified badass flight controller, I highly recommend his book "Failure is not an Option" which is all about his time in the American space program (which stretches from Mercury all the way to the Space Shuttle).
geetee 13y ago
Amazing story and many condolences. I hope he was able to personally tell you some of these stories before he passed on.
larrydag 13y ago
What a great legacy to share. Thanks for sharing.
shospes 13y ago
Incredible story, unfortunately debugging is not that exiting any more..
- mikeash 13y ago
  Since I spend a great deal of my time debugging (I would really say that I spend all of my time debugging), I would say it's a good thing that it's not that exciting.
Arjuna 13y ago
For those that are not familiar, the Saturn V was equipped with 5 (yes, you read that right)... five F-1 rocket engines. Each engine produced an absolutely staggering 1,500,000 pounds of thrust; that's a total of 7,500,000 pounds of thrust! Can you imagine being tucked into the small, cramped Command Module, sitting on top of this power at lift-off? The whole thing, the technology, the sound, the people coming together to make it happen... it's soul-stirring. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-cv_JJOxGI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-cv_JJOxGI
- jlgreco 13y ago
  A fun wikipedia page: 18.3 GW – tech: peak electrical power generation of the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydroelectric power plant of any type. ... 190 GW – tech: average power consumption of the first stage of the Saturn V rocket After that, there are a few lasers that can fire for millionths of a second, but no proper man-made machines. Excluding those experimental lasers, the Saturn V remains the most powerful machine ever made. I have heard that stated a lot, but the truth behind that statement never really sunk in for me before. Edit: whoops, forgot the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(power) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(power)
  - sho_hn 13y ago
    Can you explain what "power consumption" refers to in this context? The power released by the fuel to achieve the thrust, taking efficiency into account? Or how is it calculated?
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      Good question, I am not sure. I suspect that power figure is derived from thrust ("The three-stage Saturn V had a peak thrust of at least 7,650,000 pounds-force (34.02 MN)") and velocity. This (annoyingly "furloughed") page on nasa.gov has an article written by Wernher von Braun that says: >"A large stand was built to static-test the huge stage under the full 7,500,000-pound-thrust of its five F-1 engines. These engines generated no less than 180 million horsepower. As about I percent of that energy was converted into noise, neighborhood windows could be expected to break and plaster rain from ceilings if the wind was blowing from the wrong direction or the clouds were hanging low. A careful meteorological monitoring program had to be instituted to permit test runs only under favorable weather conditions." http://web.archive.org/web/20130216021235/http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/saturn_apollo/giant.html http://web.archive.org/web/20130216021235/http://history.msf... 180 million horsepower is 134.2 GW, so the 190 GW figure is at least in the same general neighborhood.
carterac 13y ago
The author humbly failed to mention that late last night he accomplished quite an extraordinary just-in-time feat himself: Today Artsy launched its live auction platform with TWO x TWO, a charity to benefit AIDS research: http://artsy.net/feature/two-x-two http://artsy.net/feature/two-x-two
- BrainInAJar 13y ago
  Making a website is so amazingly far away from the engineering feat of the Saturn V that it's insulting to the Saturn V engineers to make the comparison.
  - carterac 13y ago
    Was referring to the general idea of last-minute fixing mentioned at the beginning of the post: "We all have stories, as engineers, of fixing some crazy thing at the last minute right before the demo goes up."
bigiain 13y ago
Somehow my occasional entry into the command line on a production server, opening up vi, and snapping a new configuration tweak in place and testing it – it doesn't seem quite so brave or adventurous any more…
AustinLin 13y ago
Beautiful story.
andyjohnson0 13y ago
A fascinating story. Although the situation was very different, it reminded me of the aborted launch of Mercury Redstone 1: "...following a normal countdown, the Mercury-Redstone's engine ignited on schedule at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (14:00 GMT). However, the engine shut down immediately after lift-off from the launch pad. The rocket only rose about 4 inches (10 cm) before settling back onto the pad. It wobbled slightly, but stayed upright and did not explode. An odd series of events then took place. Immediately after the Redstone's engine shut down, the Mercury capsule's escape rocket jettisoned itself, leaving the capsule attached to the Redstone booster. The escape rocket rose to an altitude of 4,000 feet (1,200 m) and landed about 400 yards (370 m) away. Three seconds after the escape rocket fired, the capsule deployed its drogue parachute; it then deployed the main and reserve parachutes, ejecting the radio antenna fairing in the process. In the end, all that had been launched was the escape rocket. Meanwhile, a fully fueled, slightly wrinkled Redstone and its Mercury capsule sat on the launch pad, both with full batteries and live pyrotechnics. Among these pyrotechnics were the capsule's retrorockets and the Redstone's self-destruct system, which was still active. Furthermore, the capsule's main and reserve parachutes were hanging down the side of the rocket, threatening to tip it over if they caught enough wind..." [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Redstone_1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Redstone_1

276 points by dblock 13y ago

ljoshua 13y ago

Awesome. I wish/don't wish that my debugging was that exciting.

edge17 13y ago
i think those situations find you, not the other way around :)

kabdib 13y ago

Signing off on the paperwork and /then/ getting out of there. So NASA :-)

ISL 13y ago
Careful adherence to a well-vetted plan is a good way to get to the moon and back.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
wtracy 13y ago
I'd rather not drive a mile and a half away and then find out I missed something on the checklist and have to go back.
dba7dba 13y ago
Sticking with protocols is a reason why every high tech stuff works in our modern era.

brudgers 13y ago

And that's what is meant by"Steely Eyed Missile Man."

erbo 13y ago
We know that astronauts frequently have had to be badasses, and even flight controllers have had to be badasses (e.g. John Aaron, Apollo 12, "SCE to AUX"), but this is proof positive that even the guys that fix the bugs in the rockets sometimes have to be badasses, too.
- krisgee 13y ago
  Gene Crantz is another certified badass flight controller, I highly recommend his book "Failure is not an Option" which is all about his time in the American space program (which stretches from Mercury all the way to the Space Shuttle).

geetee 13y ago

Amazing story and many condolences. I hope he was able to personally tell you some of these stories before he passed on.

larrydag 13y ago

What a great legacy to share. Thanks for sharing.

shospes 13y ago

Incredible story, unfortunately debugging is not that exiting any more..

mikeash 13y ago
Since I spend a great deal of my time debugging (I would really say that I spend all of my time debugging), I would say it's a good thing that it's not that exciting.

Arjuna 13y ago

For those that are not familiar, the Saturn V was equipped with 5 (yes, you read that right)... five F-1 rocket engines. Each engine produced an absolutely staggering 1,500,000 pounds of thrust; that's a total of 7,500,000 pounds of thrust! Can you imagine being tucked into the small, cramped Command Module, sitting on top of this power at lift-off? The whole thing, the technology, the sound, the people coming together to make it happen... it's soul-stirring. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-cv_JJOxGI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-cv_JJOxGI

jlgreco 13y ago
A fun wikipedia page: 18.3 GW – tech: peak electrical power generation of the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydroelectric power plant of any type. ... 190 GW – tech: average power consumption of the first stage of the Saturn V rocket After that, there are a few lasers that can fire for millionths of a second, but no proper man-made machines. Excluding those experimental lasers, the Saturn V remains the most powerful machine ever made. I have heard that stated a lot, but the truth behind that statement never really sunk in for me before. Edit: whoops, forgot the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(power) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(power)
- sho_hn 13y ago
  Can you explain what "power consumption" refers to in this context? The power released by the fuel to achieve the thrust, taking efficiency into account? Or how is it calculated?
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    Good question, I am not sure. I suspect that power figure is derived from thrust ("The three-stage Saturn V had a peak thrust of at least 7,650,000 pounds-force (34.02 MN)") and velocity. This (annoyingly "furloughed") page on nasa.gov has an article written by Wernher von Braun that says: >"A large stand was built to static-test the huge stage under the full 7,500,000-pound-thrust of its five F-1 engines. These engines generated no less than 180 million horsepower. As about I percent of that energy was converted into noise, neighborhood windows could be expected to break and plaster rain from ceilings if the wind was blowing from the wrong direction or the clouds were hanging low. A careful meteorological monitoring program had to be instituted to permit test runs only under favorable weather conditions." http://web.archive.org/web/20130216021235/http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/saturn_apollo/giant.html http://web.archive.org/web/20130216021235/http://history.msf... 180 million horsepower is 134.2 GW, so the 190 GW figure is at least in the same general neighborhood.

carterac 13y ago

The author humbly failed to mention that late last night he accomplished quite an extraordinary just-in-time feat himself: Today Artsy launched its live auction platform with TWO x TWO, a charity to benefit AIDS research: http://artsy.net/feature/two-x-two http://artsy.net/feature/two-x-two

BrainInAJar 13y ago
Making a website is so amazingly far away from the engineering feat of the Saturn V that it's insulting to the Saturn V engineers to make the comparison.
- carterac 13y ago
  Was referring to the general idea of last-minute fixing mentioned at the beginning of the post: "We all have stories, as engineers, of fixing some crazy thing at the last minute right before the demo goes up."

bigiain 13y ago

Somehow my occasional entry into the command line on a production server, opening up vi, and snapping a new configuration tweak in place and testing it – it doesn't seem quite so brave or adventurous any more…

AustinLin 13y ago

Beautiful story.

andyjohnson0 13y ago

A fascinating story. Although the situation was very different, it reminded me of the aborted launch of Mercury Redstone 1: "...following a normal countdown, the Mercury-Redstone's engine ignited on schedule at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (14:00 GMT). However, the engine shut down immediately after lift-off from the launch pad. The rocket only rose about 4 inches (10 cm) before settling back onto the pad. It wobbled slightly, but stayed upright and did not explode. An odd series of events then took place. Immediately after the Redstone's engine shut down, the Mercury capsule's escape rocket jettisoned itself, leaving the capsule attached to the Redstone booster. The escape rocket rose to an altitude of 4,000 feet (1,200 m) and landed about 400 yards (370 m) away. Three seconds after the escape rocket fired, the capsule deployed its drogue parachute; it then deployed the main and reserve parachutes, ejecting the radio antenna fairing in the process. In the end, all that had been launched was the escape rocket. Meanwhile, a fully fueled, slightly wrinkled Redstone and its Mercury capsule sat on the launch pad, both with full batteries and live pyrotechnics. Among these pyrotechnics were the capsule's retrorockets and the Redstone's self-destruct system, which was still active. Furthermore, the capsule's main and reserve parachutes were hanging down the side of the rocket, threatening to tip it over if they caught enough wind..." [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Redstone_1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Redstone_1