A *better* Apollo 18 Plot Synopsys...

Val Kraut wrote:
LM got you above the landng sight and the astronaut
accepted or redesignated to a clear area. In the poles you get poor light
with long shadows that mask hazards. One of the reasons polar missions were
ruled out early in the game. If you land the Taxi first the crew can pick
smooth sppots and place beacons for the cargo and habitat landers -
hopefully away from each other and the taxi- LM-6 exhaust kicked up enough
dust to do some sandblasting on the Surveyor they visited.

Would it be possible to have rigged a 'Block 3' LM to eject multiple flare
clusters from a reasonably high altitude once over the landing area to yield
enough illumination from different angles for a minute or two to be able to
see an appropriate landing site? There would have had to have been some
consideration of how to do unmanned landing sight surveys prior to sending
down an LM Taxi into the polar regions of the moon.

I guess that all goes into the "background material" leading up to the story
line's decision to commit to the polar landing commit decision.. :-)

I'll need to research how to rig a space flare. Given the limited time and
illumination provided by a flare this would certainly be one of the more tense
moments in the mission (up till then anyway ;-)...

Dave

" There would have had to have been some
consideration of how to do unmanned landing sight surveys prior to sending
down an LM Taxi into the polar regions of the moon.

Make another interesting chapter. There was a post recently that NASA was
considering a pre-landing mssion with the LM replaced with a large camera
from the intelligence folks. Maybe have something left over from air force
Manned Orbiting Laboratory, replace the Gemini adpater with a LM docking
hatch. May require some flash flares to illuminate the area from direct
above, Some suspense while they're bringing the film home to be developed to
see if they got lucky.


Val Kraut

On Mar 8, 8:38*am, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article b398a0d6-4371-45de-82bf-9444c02d2e3a@
34g2000pru.googlegroups.com, says...







On Mar 7, 9:13*pm, David Spain wrote:
Jorge R. Frank wrote:
But apart from that, your script sounds better than whatever "Apollo 18"
turns out to be. (well, that and Rusty getting a lunar flight... highly
doubt Slayton would have gone for that).

*From what I've read about Slayton vs Kelly, it's doubtful Apollo 21 would
have returned with two crew even if it HADN'T successfully docked with the
abandoned LM.

:-D

Dave

PS: In this alternate history original Apollo 21 mission patch before re-task
contained Ace & Jack of Spades. CSM codename was Blackjack. Because of the
urgency and rush of the mission re-task no one bothered to actually change it....

Hey it's MY story... Artistic license, blah blah blah... :-D

Neil Armstrong runs for president right after apollo 11s return with
the vision of sending astronauts to mars in 10 years.

Now this one really is fantasy. *Neil Armstrong doesn't have the
personality to be a politician. *He barely has the personality to do
public appearances every few years. *I ought to know, Armstrong has
lived in the Cincinnati since at least the late the 70's (I moved here
permanently in the early 90's).

Buzz Aldrin has always had a much more outgoing personality than Neil
Armstrong. *One look at buzzaldrin.com proves that.

Using multiple saturn 5 launches and Nerva they pull it off with time
to spare. Niel wants to be the first man on mars but looses.

The USSR is devastaed end ends communism right after the mars
landing....

USSR in a race to Mars *and* they beat the US there? *Just when I
thought you couldn't push further into fantasy land...

Jeff
--
" Solids are a branch of fireworks, not rocketry. :-) :-) ", Henry
Spencer 1/28/2011- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

niel wanted to be first on mars but wasnt allowed to go, my point is
the US would of won the race to mars, and the USSR would of given up
admitting democracy is better.

niel wasnt a good choice being so low key he wasnt up to the lifetime
job of encouraging futher space exploration

Rick Jones wrote:
I suppose some bright landing lights flipped-on at N feet was either
too heavy or pulled too much power? Too simple? (Or today, some
rather high intensity LEDs)

Well if I'm powering my electronics from RTG's maybe I can devote a small APU
running off the LM/DM RCS fuel system to power-up those landing lights for the
brief period I'm going to need them.

Once I'm down I can turn them off. And on again to help during EVAs as well.

You know it IS a Block 3 LM after all, with Polar Excursion config.... ;-)

LED's??? You mean those dark reddish dot like things that flicker in my BOMAR
Brain calculator? No way those would work...

Dave (@the dawn of disco) Spain

;-D

In article 46f10327-1331-4ac5-ac24-
, says...

niel wanted to be first on mars but wasnt allowed to go

Neil wasn't *allowed* to go? That's one bizarre statement, considering
that there has never been any serious manned Mars program.

, my point is
the US would of won the race to mars, and the USSR would of given up
admitting democracy is better.

Moot point.

niel wasnt a good choice being so low key he wasnt up to the lifetime
job of encouraging futher space exploration

Armstrong was a Navy pilot, a test pilot, and an astronaut not a
professional lobbyist.

Jeff
--
" Solids are a branch of fireworks, not rocketry. :-) :-) ", Henry
Spencer 1/28/2011

On Mar 9, 8:34*am, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article 46f10327-1331-4ac5-ac24-
, says...



niel wanted to be first on mars but wasnt allowed to go

Neil wasn't *allowed* to go? *That's one bizarre statement, considering
that there has never been any serious manned Mars program.

, my point is
the US would of won the race to mars, and the USSR would of given up
admitting democracy is better.

Moot point.

niel wasnt a good choice being so low key he wasnt up to the lifetime
job of encouraging futher space exploration

Armstrong was a Navy pilot, a test pilot, and an astronaut not a
professional lobbyist. *

Jeff
--
" Solids are a branch of fireworks, not rocketry. :-) :-) ", Henry
Spencer 1/28/2011

the first man on the moon eeded to be a bit of everything including
loobyist for more space travel.

niel did a excellent technical job but failed at getting us more
missions to space

"Ascent Engine that wouldn't restart after initial liftoff.

It would be fun to see it try that without landing legs. :-D

Pat

Don't need legs - the Lm is in a low orbit after a failure - CSM goes down
and gets them. If you look at all the rescue scenarios and things like
failing one RCS system on LM and still completing Ascent there was a bit
more fuel than absolutely required. Remeber the Descent engine gimballed so
most RCS utilization was planned for Ascent.


Val Kraut

In article aed4eafb-e550-444e-84e1-24e9a0dfa35c@
18g2000prd.googlegroups.com, says...

On Mar 9, 8:34*am, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article 46f10327-1331-4ac5-ac24-
, says...
niel wanted to be first on mars but wasnt allowed to go

Neil wasn't *allowed* to go? *That's one bizarre statement, considering
that there has never been any serious manned Mars program.

, my point is
the US would of won the race to mars, and the USSR would of given up
admitting democracy is better.

Moot point.

niel wasnt a good choice being so low key he wasnt up to the lifetime
job of encouraging futher space exploration

Armstrong was a Navy pilot, a test pilot, and an astronaut not a
professional lobbyist. *

the first man on the moon eeded to be a bit of everything including
loobyist for more space travel.

niel did a excellent technical job but failed at getting us more
missions to space

That's your opinion, and you're welcome to it.

Jeff
--
" Solids are a branch of fireworks, not rocketry. :-) :-) ", Henry
Spencer 1/28/2011

On Mar 10, 11:03*am, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article aed4eafb-e550-444e-84e1-24e9a0dfa35c@
18g2000prd.googlegroups.com, says...







On Mar 9, 8:34 am, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article 46f10327-1331-4ac5-ac24-
, says...
niel wanted to be first on mars but wasnt allowed to go

Neil wasn't *allowed* to go? That's one bizarre statement, considering
that there has never been any serious manned Mars program.

, my point is
the US would of won the race to mars, and the USSR would of given up
admitting democracy is better.

Moot point.

niel wasnt a good choice being so low key he wasnt up to the lifetime
job of encouraging futher space exploration

Armstrong was a Navy pilot, a test pilot, and an astronaut not a
professional lobbyist.

the first man on the moon eeded to be a bit of everything including
loobyist for more space travel.

niel did a excellent technical job but failed at getting us more
missions to space

That's your opinion, and you're welcome to it.

Jeff
--
" Solids are a branch of fireworks, not rocketry. :-) :-) ", Henry
Spencer 1/28/2011- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

well we certinally went no where after the moon, and many expected
mars in their lifetime

Niel never even tried

Which really wasnt his fault, nasa picked the wrong person to be
first........

hopefully the first man on mars, probably chinese will push for
more.

Geez what happened to our country, we crossed the finish line, then
lost interest and tossed out the tools so we couldnt do it again

You do understand that what he meant is that your knowledge
of biography is zero, while your knowledge of the other topics
is in the minus column...

Andre-

Yeah sadly I dnt do scarchasim well