\"Tranquility base here.........the Eagle has landed.\"

[Shawn R. L.]

Interesting little factoid - we can buy a hand-held device with more computing power than
NASA mission control had for the Apollo missions.

“There’s as much computational power in a Furby as was in the whole Apollo 11 capsule and module. It’s not clear that it’s as good a social good, but we managed to get guys on the surface of the moon with less computing power than is embodied in a Furby.”


Furby

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by Shawn R. L.
Interesting little factoid - we can buy a hand-held device with more computing power than
NASA mission control had for the Apollo missions.

“There’s as much computational power in a Furby as was in the whole Apollo 11 capsule and module. It’s not clear that it’s as good a social good, but we managed to get guys on the surface of the moon with less computing power than is embodied in a Furby.”


Furby

Wow the benefits of modern technology.

 

[Niall]

We watched a conspiracy video in general studies a few months ago and one argument was that there is a layer of radiation surrounding the Earth which is 100s of miles thick, and that you would need 6 feet of lead to sheild a human from it. I\'m not sure how truthful that was - any learned folk here know if that is real?

 

[Roger Bunting]

The guy who discovered that radiation actually says (he\'s still alive) that you would have to be exposed for half an hour at its most dangerous whereas the Apollo rockets spent at most a minute going through the thinnest part.

 

[darklord]

i think thats the van allen belt? im probably wrong though - its radiation from the sun mostly i think. we can obviously get through it otherwise there would be no enterprise , galactica or wall-e

 

[Niall]

Originally posted by Roger Bunting
The guy who discovered that radiation actually says (he\'s still alive) that you would have to be exposed for half an hour at its most dangerous whereas the Apollo rockets spent at most a minute going through the thinnest part.

Then I\'ve been deceived by a conspiracy documentary...

Onwards and upwards! In 10 years perhaps another probe will reach a distant place to tell us there is 14% Hydrogen on it!

 

[fiesta0618]

Forty years, huh? Two lifetimes ago, for me...

By the way, this subject is in my field (I\'m an aerospace engineer/astrophysicist in progress) so I can tell you with full certainty that the Apollo missions carried computers with 64 KB of RAM...I still can\'t believe it.

And about the Van Allen belts: Yes, they contain a lot of radiation, but it\'s all alpha and beta particles, most of which would be stopped by a good, solid cotton T-shirt. lol No worries, lads. In fact, the whole getting there part isn\'t nearly so impressive as the fact that they survived the return trip, IMO.

 

[mattsterbenz]

My astronomy professor (an older chap) was once asked by a student what his opinion was on the moon landing conspiracy. He seemed to get a little disgusted by the thought, but he simply replied that he had been in mission control for one of the landing missions. (or maybe it was two - can\'t remember as it was a couple years ago) That shut the conspiracy guy up really quick! lol

-Matt

 

[MmmmBalf]

What I don\'t get is if they could announce in the 60\'s that they were going to go to the moon within that decade, and succeed, why we can\'t do it now until 2020 with all the increased technology and computing power??

Balf

 

[mattsterbenz]

Originally posted by MmmmBalf
What I don\'t get is if they could announce in the 60\'s that they were going to go to the moon within that decade, and succeed, why we can\'t do it now until 2020 with all the increased technology and computing power??

Balf

Money. Politics.

But also there is the concern of safety. If you look into the first moon landing, it is close to a miracle that they succeeded considering all the problems they encountered (the take off engine on the lunar craft only worked 50% of the time they tested it on Earth. The engine switch was also accidentally broken off and astronauts had to use a ballpoint pen to fix it. The lunar craft had walls the thickness of aluminum foil. Nixon even had a speech prepared in the very likely event that the astronauts were stranded on the moon, just to name a few of the issues). Now there are a lot more regulations for NASA to follow. And accordingly the crafts take much longer to build considering this and the huge technology improvements.

-Matt

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Originally posted by mattsterbenz
My astronomy professor (an older chap) was once asked by a student what his opinion was on the moon landing conspiracy. He seemed to get a little disgusted by the thought, but he simply replied that he had been in mission control for one of the landing missions. (or maybe it was two - can\'t remember as it was a couple years ago) That shut the conspiracy guy up really quick! lol

-Matt

The metal fabrication shop my dad worked at during the 60\'s worked on the window frames for the \'set piece\' lander. lollol:drunk: