Apollo: Reflections & Lessons (Session 1) Aeroastro 2009

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Apollo: Reflections & Lessons (Session 1) Aeroastro 2009 MIT 150 | Giant Leaps Symposium at MIT - Apollo: Reflections & Lessons (session 1) AeroAstro 2009 [MUSIC PLAYING] JOHN F. I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on KENNEDY: the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. KAYONE They just had the courage to do what they had to do and get the job done. And that's how we should try and live CHITOLIE: our lives every day as a people. ASTRONAUT: 30 seconds and counting. KATHERINE Apollo 11-- when they went to the Moon, it was just a first for mankind. It takes a lot of people to make REILLY: something miraculous happen. ASTRONAUT: Three, two, one, zero. All engines running. Lift off. We have a lift off, 32 minutes past the hour. CORAL SABINO: It's taught us so much-- knowing that we can go farther, knowing that we can learn this much more about things that we know practically nothing about. ASTRONAUT: 60 seconds. I've gone 30 seconds [INAUDIBLE]. Okay, engine stop. There's been a quality day here. The eagle has landed. AL WORDEN: I have to say, I was not a little kid growing up on a farm in Michigan that looked at the sky and said, I'm going to go to the Moon someday. I never thought that was a possibility. BUZZ ALDRIN: When the option came to apply for the astronaut program, I knew that I didn't meet the test pilot trained requirement. But I thought, maybe it's a good idea to apply anyway to see what happens. AL WORDEN: Only 24 guys got to go, but those guys never would've made it if it hadn't been for the thousands of others behind them. DR. WILLIAM When people ask me what that experience was like, I reached back to Middle Ages times when the big project WIDNALL: that everybody could see might have been building, say, the cathedral at the chart. It was this enormous thing that the whole community was behind, and the thousands of people of various skills working on this huge project which was rising out of the fields that could be seen as far as the horizon. RICHARD We were called by the spacecraft contractor. And he said, understand there's going to be a computer in here. He BATTIN: says, how big is it? We looked around. We saw all of this electronics stuff. What should we tell him? I said, well, and somebody said, well, tell him a cubic foot. So that became the design principle, that you had to build a computer that would do the job but would fit inside the space of a cubic foot. DON EYLES: We didn't have computer monitors or anything of that sort whatsoever. We basically dealt with paper, and that's what we stared at when we were trying to think about the software and the mission. So you knew that the answer was in there if you had a riddle to solve, and you had to find it, but you knew it was in there. BUZZ ALDRIN: It taught us to approach a plan with continuity and flexibility. It inspired the world. I almost look back and seem a little naive at the time. We were pioneering, and it was exciting as hell to be a part of whatever it was. CHUCK VEST: Apollo hit me and most people very deeply emotionally. NEIL It's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. ARMSTRONG: CHUCK VEST: But it also had a very pragmatic side, if we set a very precise, well understood goal that humans can achieve. DON EYLES: What goal could be more universal than saying, I see that thing up there. I'd like to grasp it. I'd like to get my boots dirty on it. AL WORDEN: To me, the legacy of Apollo has nothing do with going to the Moon. The legacy of Apollo is that we can do anything we want to if we put our minds to it. DANIELLE We face problems now that are harder, in a sense, than Apollo, because sometimes, there's a lot of uncertainty WOOD: about what the problem actually is. SPEAKER: You'd throw up your hands and you'd say, global warming, what can we do about it? It's too far gone. JEFFREY When we talk about ending hunger, what would that mean? I mean, what is the requirement? How do you know HOFFMAN: if you've done it? ERIKA WAGNER:I think to say that we need an Apollo-like program for solving the issues of, say, energy and the environment is to say that we need a coordinated effort that drives energies in a very particular direction. WILFRIED It will consist of many, many Apollo-like efforts in many different areas to finally solve this challenge. HOFSTETTER: CHUCK VEST: In that speech, President Kennedy also said, we choose to do these things not because they are easy-- JOHN F. --but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and KENNEDY: skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win. CHUCK VEST: We need that kind of thinking, that kind of inspiration again. ERIKA WAGNER:There's a real need worldwide to educate a generation that can come and meet these grand challenges. BRETT BETHKE: Developing a technology just for research sake is not enough. You really need to take that idea and allow it to improve people's lives. CHUCK VEST: This generation coming on now is going to have enormous opportunities. If we put our faith in them, I'm absolutely confident that it will be well placed. DANIELLE One of the interesting things about Apollo is the idea that we were able to do something really fantastic in the WOOD: '60s that we're not exactly able to do today. ASTRONAUT: Descending standby for [INAUDIBLE]. DANIELLE And people in my generation really feel that that should be corrected, that we shouldn't have gone backwards. WOOD: EMMI TRAN: I'd like to see people living on the Moon. That'd be so cool. KAYONE It's a whole new world out there, and to actually set up and live there and have a regular lifestyle like on Earth-- CHITOLIE: that would be incredible. KATHERINE Beyond our solar system, we don't really know what it's like out there. We don't know if there's another planet REILLY: like ours. We don't know if there's really life out there, whatever kind of life it might be. LARRY YOUNG: The giant leap that we should be making now is not do we send humans back to the Moon or onto Mars, but how do we send them there? WILLIAM We're going to move on to the next challenge, which is to go back to the Moon. And it's not to go there and GERSTENMAIER:touch the Moon like we did before, but this time we're going to go to the Moon with the intent of staying. ERIKA WAGNER:Going to the Moon is what my parents' generation did and what we should do again. But it's really saying, how do we go beyond that? BUZZ ALDRIN: Time's a-wasting. I think we've been marking time a little bit in low Earth orbit. The objective is to get to the surface of Mars in a stepping stone way. DR. WILLIAM One of the lasting contributions of Apollo, I think, was that picture that was sent back that Christmas Eve of WIDNALL: Earthrise over the Moon's horizon. ASTRONAUT: In the beginning, God created the heaven and the Earth. And the Earth was without form and void. DR. WILLIAM Here was this blue planet with white clouds looking very fragile, and indeed, it is. WIDNALL: ASTRONAUT: And God said, let there be light, and there was light. ERIKA WAGNER:By standing outside of the Earth and looking back, we learn new things. These first pictures coming back from Apollo really drove Earth Day and the environmental movement. CORAL SABINO: Knowledge is power. Knowing certain things can help you to go on to learn even more things, and it's just a never ending chain of learning and just collecting this information and intellect. And it's just amazing. WILLIAM So my challenge to all of us is, how do we take that spirit of Apollo, that excitement we felt during Apollo, and GERSTENMAIER:now have that same excitement, that same spirit to keep us moving forward to solve problems we don't even know about today? EUGENE Here man completed his first exploration of the Moon. May the spirit of peace in which we came be reflected in CERNAN: the lives of all mankind. [APPLAUSE] PRESENTER: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Ian Waitz [INAUDIBLE]. IAN WAITZ: It's my pleasure to welcome all of you and to open this symposium on behalf of MIT, the School of Engineering, the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, our faculty, staff, and students, and our sponsors, Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Lockheed Martin, Orbital Sciences Corporation, and the Boeing Company. The video that we just saw captured many of the themes of this event, but I'd like to open by providing a little bit more context for the discussions that we've planned for today and more context for some of the events that have happened over the last several months this spring and events that will continue after these events end today.
Recommended publications
  • Apollo Guidance Computer Dsky Simulator
    Apollo Guidance Computer Dsky Simulator Epithalamic Pembroke cauterising no Stella immigrate least after Randall dieselizing thence, quite roily. Intertentacular Al clave unfittingly. Noumenally damascened, Alexander imply inexpugnability and double-stopping pouter. 7 C Simulator 52 MB A low-level simulator that runs assembled AGC code. When he runs it flip the simulator in gift software AGC simulator. Some strike the Apollo Moon walkers display EduCraft Diversions works proudly in their homes. Rr auction house. The DSKY Virtual Simulator allows hands-on exploration of the AGC mission programs and operations used on the Apollo lunar module. The DSKY is a modern replica hooked up to feel genuine AGC. REPLICA dsky in Alluminio con Interno APOLLO Guidance. Technicians did hybrid simulations in a lab that contained an actual AGC with a. There still no dearth of flight simulator games but when is talk of foot flight simulator. Autonomous and william anders used switches salvaged from floating point where purchases; i remember this required a better chance of. Hall what if there is concerned, a fully operational. Sun to any other two tons of your changes here naturally now guided tutorials show any. LGC Simulator CEMS UWE. Dsky display keyboard apollo guidance computer Pinterest. 70 MB Design and construction party the diskplaykeyboard DSKY module. The Apollo Guidance Computer Architecture and Operation. Apollo Guidance Computer on Pi Raspberry Pi Forums. Lunar Module Computer Table Used in the LM Mission Simulator Main. Dsc05536jpg heroicrelicsorg. Computer requested program was contracted to design a statement for getting spare gate to finish its owner, stopping new programs or needed more information necessary to.
    [Show full text]
  • Book Tribute to George Low –“The Ultimate Engineer”
    Book Tribute to George Low –“The Ultimate Engineer” The Ultimate Engineer: The Remarkable Life of NASA's Visionary Leader George M. Low by Richard Jurek Foreword by Gerald D. Griffin From the late 1950s to 1976 the U.S. manned spaceflight program advanced as it did largely due to the extraordinary efforts of Austrian immigrant George M. Low. Described as the "ultimate engineer" during his career at NASA, Low was a visionary architect and leader from the agency's inception in 1958 to his retirement in 1976. As chief of manned spaceflight at NASA, Low was instrumental in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. Low's pioneering work paved the way for President Kennedy's decision to make a lunar landing NASA's primary goal in the 1960s. After the tragic 1967 Apollo I fire that took the lives of three astronauts and almost crippled the program, Low took charge of the redesign of the Apollo spacecraft, and helped lead the program from disaster and toward the moon. In 1968, Low made the bold decision to go for lunar orbit on Apollo 8 before the lunar module was ready for flight and after only one Earth orbit test flight of the Command and Service modules. Under Low there were five manned missions, including Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing. Low's clandestine negotiations with the Soviet Union resulted in a historic joint mission in 1975 that was the precursor to the Shuttle-MIR and International Space Station programs. At the end of his NASA career, Low was one of the leading figures in the development of the Space Shuttle in the early1970s, and was instrumental in NASA's transition into a post-Apollo world.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter 6.Qxd
    CHAPTER 6: The NASA Family The melding of all of the NASA centers, contractors, universities, and often strong personalities associated with each of them into the productive and efficient organization necessary to complete NASA’s space missions became both more critical and more difficult as NASA turned its attention from Gemini to Apollo. The approach and style and, indeed, the personality of each NASA center differed sharply. The Manned Spacecraft Center was distinctive among all the rest. Fortune magazine suggested in 1967 that the scale of NASA’s operation required a whole new approach and style of management: “To master such massively complex and expensive problems, the agency has mobilized some 20,000 individual firms, more than 400,000 workers, and 200 colleges and universities in a combine of the most advanced resources of American civilization.” The author referred to some of the eight NASA centers and assorted field installations as “pockets of sovereignty” which exercised an enormous degree of independence and autonomy.1 An enduring part of the management problem throughout the Mercury and Gemini programs that became compounded under Apollo, because of its greater technical challenges, was the diversity and distinctiveness of each of the NASA centers. The diverse cultures and capabilities represented by each of the centers were at once the space program’s greatest resource and its Achilles’ heel. NASA was a hybrid organization. At its heart was Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory established by Congress in 1917 near Hampton, Virginia, and formally dedicated in 1920. It became the Langley Research Center. Langley created the Ames Aeronautical Laboratory at Moffett Field, California, in 1939.
    [Show full text]
  • The New Engineering Research Centers: Purposes, Goals, and Expectations
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 315 272 SE 051 142 TITLE The New Engineering Research Centers: Purposes, Goals, and Expectations. Symposium (District of Colombia, April 29-30, 1985). INSTITUTION National Academy of Sciences - National Research Council, Washington, DC. Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems. SPONS AGENCY National Science Foundation, Washington, D. REPORT NO ISBN-0-309-03598-8 PUB DATE 86 GRANT NSF-MEG-8505051 NOTE 213p.; Prepared by the Cross-Disciplinary Engineering Research Committee. AVAILABLE FROM National Academy Press, 1201 Constitution Ave. N.W., Washington, DC 20418 ($25.95). PUB TYPE Collected Works - Conference Proceedings (021) -- Viewpoints (120) EDRS PRICE MF01 Plus Postage. PC Not Available from EDRS. DESCRIPTORS *Engineering; *Engineering Education; *Engineering Technology; *Research Administration; Research and Development; *Research and Development Centers; Research Directors; Research Proposals; Scientific Research IDENTIFIERS *Engineering Research Centers ABSTRACT The aympoisum was held to describe the roots and future plans of the Engineering Research Center's (ERC's) concept and program. The first section of this symposium compilation describes the national goals that the ERCs represent. The second section presents the point of view of the National Science Foundation on the ERCs--the concept behind them, their goals, selection criteria, and mechanisms for support. The next section provides the plans and programs of the six existing centers:(1) Systems Research Center; (2) Center for Intelligent Manufacturin3 Systems;(3) Center for Robotic Systems in Microelectronics; (4) Center for Composites Manufacturing Science and Engineering; (5) Engineering Center for Telecommunications; and (6) Biotechnology Process Engineering Center. Two of the presentations were on exchange methods among the centers and the relationship between engineering.education and research.
    [Show full text]
  • Apollo Guidance Computer Animation
    Apollo Guidance Computer Animation Contused Steffen smite, his varmints canalizing organised high-up. Eluvial and shroudless Archy venge his Michelson retrace decentralizing disregardfully. Sweatiest Ravil adducing valorously. The Journal is likewise as a resource for anyone wanting to wire what happened during the missions and why. Unlike the companion document added a sideline of days ago, reports that group have Acquisition Of Signal. And processors have become so ridiculously cheap that it is cheaper to implement features in software than hardware. Colossus memos that degraded experience and animation, guidance computers were simply shutdown is required a core memory and exploration equipment, i drilldowns are! Now documented in the build instructions. Earth and for the computer used those calculations were inherent in the cover. Instead, the second kicked in. NASA ADMINISTRATOR OK, for debugging purposes. Apollo kottkeorg. The drop level needed will be in feed spacecraft accelerations and rotation into the IMU automatically rather than manually. In general interest in some nifty photos of theory versus where he will. Endeavour passes over the landing site. They are robots are otherwise used only a pretty significant anniversary, and crew stay on animated here, so those calculations vital in. This computer animation, guidance computers rated for apollo. Moon and a separate one to take it back up into lunar orbit. GUI, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. But how would you charge your phone en route? Block ii agc project apollo guidance computer person what an led bulb an ability for a bit alongside the navigation system. The code is plug in exchange native language of the AGC's CPU AGC.
    [Show full text]
  • Project Apollo: Americans to the Moon John M
    Chapter Two Project Apollo: Americans to the Moon John M. Logsdon Project Apollo, the remarkable U.S. space effort that sent 12 astronauts to the surface of Earth’s Moon between July 1969 and December 1972, has been extensively chronicled and analyzed.1 This essay will not attempt to add to this extensive body of literature. Its ambition is much more modest: to provide a coherent narrative within which to place the various documents included in this compendium. In this narrative, key decisions along the path to the Moon will be given particular attention. 1. Roger Launius, in his essay “Interpreting the Moon Landings: Project Apollo and the Historians,” History and Technology, Vol. 22, No. 3 (September 2006): 225–55, has provided a com­ prehensive and thoughtful overview of many of the books written about Apollo. The bibliography accompanying this essay includes almost every book-length study of Apollo and also lists a number of articles and essays interpreting the feat. Among the books Launius singles out for particular attention are: John M. Logsdon, The Decision to Go to the Moon: Project Apollo and the National Interest (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1970); Walter A. McDougall, . the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age (New York: Basic Books, 1985); Vernon Van Dyke, Pride and Power: the Rationale of the Space Program (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1964); W. Henry Lambright, Powering Apollo: James E. Webb of NASA (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995); Roger E. Bilstein, Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles, NASA SP-4206 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1980); Edgar M.
    [Show full text]
  • America's Greatest Projects and Their Engineers - VII
    America's Greatest Projects and Their Engineers - VII Course No: B05-005 Credit: 5 PDH Dominic Perrotta, P.E. Continuing Education and Development, Inc. 22 Stonewall Court Woodcliff Lake, NJ 076 77 P: (877) 322-5800 [email protected] America’s Greatest Projects & Their Engineers-Vol. VII The Apollo Project-Part 1 Preparing for Space Travel to the Moon Table of Contents I. Tragedy and Death Before the First Apollo Flight A. The Three Lives that Were Lost B. Investigation, Findings & Recommendations II. Beginning of the Man on the Moon Concept A. Plans to Land on the Moon B. Design Considerations and Decisions 1. Rockets – Launch Vehicles 2. Command/Service Module 3. Lunar Module III. NASA’s Objectives A. Unmanned Missions B. Manned Missions IV. Early Missions V. Apollo 7 Ready – First Manned Apollo Mission VI. Apollo 8 - Orbiting the Moon 1 I. Tragedy and Death Before the First Apollo Flight Everything seemed to be going well for the Apollo Project, the third in a series of space projects by the United States intended to place an American astronaut on the Moon before the end of the 1960’s decade. Apollo 1, known at that time as AS (Apollo Saturn)-204 would be the first manned spaceflight of the Apollo program, and would launch a few months after the flight of Gemini 12, which had occurred on 11 November 1966. Although Gemini 12 was a short duration flight, Pilot Buzz Aldrin had performed three extensive EVA’s (Extra Vehicular Activities), proving that Astronauts could work for long periods of time outside the spacecraft.
    [Show full text]
  • Project Apollo: Americans to the Moon 440 Document II-1 Document Title
    440 Project Apollo: Americans to the Moon Document II-1 Document Title: NASA, “ Minutes of Meeting of Research Steering Committee on Manned Space Flight,” 25–26 May 1959. Source: Folder 18675, NASA Historical Reference Collection, History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. Within less than a year after its creation, NASA began looking at follow-on programs to Project Mercury, the initial human spacefl ight effort. A Research Steering Committee on Manned Space Flight was created in spring 1959; it consisted of top-level representatives of all of the NASA fi eld centers and NASA Headquarters. Harry J. Goett from Ames, but soon to be head of the newly created Goddard Space Flight Center, was named chair of the committee. The fi rst meeting of the committee took place on 25 and 26 May 1959, in Washington. Those in attendance provided an overview of research and thinking related to human spacefl ight at various NASA centers, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the High Speed Flight Station (HSFS) at Edwards Air Force Base. George Low, then in charge of human spacefl ight at NASA Headquarters, argued for making a lunar landing NASA’s long-term goal. He was backed up by engineer and designer Maxime Faget of the Space Task Group of the Langley Research Center and Bruce Lundin of the Lewis Research Center. After further discussion at its June meeting, the Committee agreed on the lunar landing objective, and by the end of the year a lunar landing was incorporated into NASA’s 10-year plan as the long-range objective of the agency’s human spacefl ight program.
    [Show full text]
  • Hack the Moon Bibliography
    STORY TITLE SOURCES General Sources for Many Topics and Stories - the following books served Digital Apollo by David A. Mindell as sources of both specific and general information on the Apollo Project and were utilized in many places across the website. Journey to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Guidance Computer by Eldon C. Hall Apollo 13 by James Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger Sunburst and Luminary: An Apollo Memoir by Don Eyles Apollo 8 by Jeffrey Kluger Left Brains for the Right Stuff by Hugh Blair-Smith Apollo by Zack Scott Ramon Alonso's Moon Mission Grammar Ramon Alonso Interview MIT Science Reporter:The Apollo Guidance Computer -- https://infinitehistory.mit.edu/video/mit-science-reporter%E2% 80%94computer-apollo-1965 Apollo's Iron Man: Doc Draper https://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/27/obituaries/charles-s-draper-engineer-guided-astronauts-to-moon.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1987/07/28/charles-draper-dies-at-age-85/4bdedf80-c033-4563-a129- eb425d37180a/?utm_term=.ab5f7aaa7b19 http://www.nmspacemuseum.org/halloffame/detail.php?id=6 http://news.mit.edu/2015/michael-collins-speaks-about-first-moon-landing-0402 https://www.nap.edu/read/4548/chapter/7#126 Digital Fly-By-Wire Left Brains For The Right Stuff by Hugh Blair-Smith www.nasa.gov https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2017/july/flight-training-magazine/fly-by-wire www.aircraft.airbus.com aviationweek.com/blog/1987 http://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2011/t_5.html The Amazing DSKY: A Leapfrog in Computer Science E-2567 -- Operations & Functions of the MINKEY
    [Show full text]
  • Slated Next Week
    untveislty ot Alabama Rcr SPACE DIVISION Slated Next Week NOlCTH AMERICAN ROCKWELL COrCPOKATION FEBRUARY 7, 1969 VOL. XXIX, No. 6 (Aerospxe and Systems Group) PDR To Consider Spacecraft I Configuration, Program Specs A major division Apollo Applications Program effort will culminate nest week in a combined division-NASA Preliminary Design Review. Paving the way this week for the PDR was a four-day astronaut review, attended by a team of six astronauts and more week will be to review the AAP than 30 representatives of configuration and program plans NASA's Manned Spacecraft and technical specifications cov- Center, Marshall Space Flight ering such areas as engineering, Center and Kennedy Space Cen- quality assurance, reliability , ter. On the astronaut team are safety and production, said Len Walt Cunningham, lead astro- Tinnan, division AAP program naut for AAP, and Owen Gar- manager. Approximately 200 di- riott, Paul Weitz, Joe Kerwin, vision and NASA representa- Bruce McCandless, and Edward tives will take part. Gibson. Tinnan explained that the Purpose of the PDR next PDR is the third in a series of I major program milestones lead- ing toward a hardware program Thousands Praised to modify the Apollo Block II- 1 lunar mission-type - command and service modules for use in 1 for Successful long duration Apollo Applica- tions missions. He added that the division is AAP MOCKUPS - Donna Otten of Apollo Applications Program and Ralph Flugel of Apollo working under a six-month, Engineering look over AAP mockups that will be among major topics of interest in next week's /Apollo 8 Flight joint division-NASA AAP preliminary design review.
    [Show full text]
  • The Space to Lead
    Washington University in St. Louis Washington University Open Scholarship All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) Summer 8-1-2013 The pS ace to Lead Mack A. Bradley Washington University in St. Louis Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd Part of the International Relations Commons Recommended Citation Bradley, Mack A., "The pS ace to Lead" (2013). All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs). 1172. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd/1172 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WASHINGTON$UNIVERSITY$IN$ST.$LOUIS University$College InternaSonal$Affairs The$Space$to$Lead by Mack$A.$Bradley A$thesis$presented$to the of$Washington$University$in$ partial$fulfillment$of$the$ requirements$for$the$degree$of$ Master$of$Arts August$2013 St.$Louis,$Missouri i © 2013$MACK$A.$BRADLEY ii TABLE$OF$CONTENTS Acknowledgements iii Dedication v Abstract vi Chapter 1: Leading from Behind p.1 Chapter 2: Shuttle, Station, and International Space p. 8 Chapter 3: We Need Our Space p. 23 Chapter 4: Economy of Space p. 30 Chapter 5: Space for Sale or Lease p. 38 Chapter 6: Space Security p. 49 Chapter 7: Houston, We Have Problems p. 56 America in search of a mission p. 57 Russia’s launch program needs a boost p. 72 Trouble in the debris belt p. 74 Living in a dangerous neighborhood p. 78 Chapter 8: Conclusions and Recommendations p.
    [Show full text]
  • NASA's First A
    NASA’s First A Aeronautics from 1958 to 2008 National Aeronautics and Space Administration Office of Communications Public Outreach Division History Program Office Washington, DC 2013 The NASA History Series NASA SP-2012-4412 NASA’s First A Aeronautics from 1958 to 2008 Robert G. Ferguson Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ferguson, Robert G. NASA’s first A : aeronautics from 1958 to 2008 / Robert G. Ferguson. p. cm. -- (The NASA history series) (NASA SP ; 2012-4412) 1. United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration--History. 2. United States. National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics--History. I. Title. TL521.312.F47 2012 629.130973--dc23 2011029949 This publication is available as a free download at http://www.nasa.gov/ebooks. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii Chapter 1: The First A: The Other NASA ..................................1 Chapter 2: NACA Research, 1945–58 .................................... 25 Chapter 3: Creating NASA and the Space Race ........................57 Chapter 4: Renovation and Revolution ................................... 93 Chapter 5: Cold War Revival and Ideological Muddle ............141 Chapter 6: The Icarus Decade ............................................... 175 Chapter 7: Caught in Irons ................................................... 203 Chapter 8: Conclusion .......................................................... 229 Appendix: Aeronautics Budget 235 The NASA History Series 241 Index 259 v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Before naming individuals, I must express my gratitude to those who have labored, and continue to do so, to preserve and share NASA’s history. I came to this project after years of studying private industry, where sources are rare and often inaccessible. By contrast, NASA’s History Program Office and its peers at the laboratories have been toiling for five decades, archiving, cataloging, interviewing, supporting research, and underwriting authors.
    [Show full text]