Neil Armstrong has Died

"Fevric J. Glandules" wrote in message ...

Stuf4 wrote:

snip

Some very interesting stuff in this and your other posts. However:

...and the Armstrong-Aldrin pairing survived crew rearrangements and
mission
swaps. And it is the robustness with how this bonding carried through
to the announcement of the prime crew for Apollo 11 that serves as the
most solid evidence that Slayton was very clear on who he wanted as CDR
and LMP on that very first landing attempt.

"attempt" being the operative word, surely? AIUI it was considered at
the time to be about 50/50. Had the coin flipped the other way, it
would have been Conrad to do the first landing (and step). Which doesn't
fit with your hypothesis that they were consciously aiming to put a
"civilian" on the moon first.

I believe at one point Slayton said he told Armstrong that if they aborted,
he'd reassign them to Apollo 12.

The reason given (and I believe to be honest) is that he didn't want
Armstrong taking any unnecessary risks simply to be first.





--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net

In article ,
Fred J. McCall wrote:

"Greg \(Strider\) Moore" wrote:



"Fevric J. Glandules" wrote in message ...

Fred J. McCall wrote:

And no, most agree that NOT "any of them could of anded [sic] safely".

Really?

Genuine question, not trying to argue for the sake of it.

I would have thought that any of the Apollo astronauts could, with
Commander's training, have done the first landing. Or was Neil A
exceptional even within that highly-rarefied elite?

I would argue probably any of the commanders could have done it, but
Armstrong probably was one of the best overall at that point.


We'll never know for sure, but with the guy who was acknowledged to be
the best in the world doing the flying they barely got down (something
like 25 seconds of fuel left). I wouldn't bet that anyone else trying
the same thing wouldn't have run out of gas before they got it down.

In the world of rockets, 25 seconds is almost an eternity. You have to
plan everything down to the millisecond.

In article ,
Fred J. McCall wrote:

Orval Fairbairn wrote:

In article ,
Fred J. McCall wrote:

"Greg \(Strider\) Moore" wrote:



"Fevric J. Glandules" wrote in message
...

Fred J. McCall wrote:

And no, most agree that NOT "any of them could of anded [sic] safely".

Really?

Genuine question, not trying to argue for the sake of it.

I would have thought that any of the Apollo astronauts could, with
Commander's training, have done the first landing. Or was Neil A
exceptional even within that highly-rarefied elite?

I would argue probably any of the commanders could have done it, but
Armstrong probably was one of the best overall at that point.


We'll never know for sure, but with the guy who was acknowledged to be
the best in the world doing the flying they barely got down (something
like 25 seconds of fuel left). I wouldn't bet that anyone else trying
the same thing wouldn't have run out of gas before they got it down.


In the world of rockets, 25 seconds is almost an eternity. You have to
plan everything down to the millisecond.


What utter poppycock! You know Apollo 11 went down 'long' and was
landed via manual controls, right?

Of course.

No wonder you post under a nym!

A) I don't post under a nym.

B) I worked rockets for 40 years.

C) When landing on the Moon, there is a budget for descent, braking,
hover and landing.

Descent and braking budgets are defined dow to the millisecond of burn;
hover and landing are open loop quantities because you need the
propellant for adjustments for errors in guidance and landing site
selection. 25 seconds is still a fair amount of propellant to have
aboard.

Orval Fairbairn wrote:

C) When landing on the Moon, there is a budget for descent, braking,
hover and landing.

Descent and braking budgets are defined dow to the millisecond of burn;
hover and landing are open loop quantities because you need the
propellant for adjustments for errors in guidance and landing site
selection. 25 seconds is still a fair amount of propellant to have
aboard.

How much would have been left if the landing had been nominal?

And how much did it weigh?

In article ,
"Fevric J. Glandules" wrote:

Orval Fairbairn wrote:

C) When landing on the Moon, there is a budget for descent, braking,
hover and landing.

Descent and braking budgets are defined dow to the millisecond of burn;
hover and landing are open loop quantities because you need the
propellant for adjustments for errors in guidance and landing site
selection. 25 seconds is still a fair amount of propellant to have
aboard.

How much would have been left if the landing had been nominal?

And how much did it weigh?

I don't have the details.

On 10/09/2012 10:00 AM, Fevric J. Glandules wrote:
Orval Fairbairn wrote:

C) When landing on the Moon, there is a budget for descent, braking,
hover and landing.

Descent and braking budgets are defined dow to the millisecond of burn;
hover and landing are open loop quantities because you need the
propellant for adjustments for errors in guidance and landing site
selection. 25 seconds is still a fair amount of propellant to have
aboard.

How much would have been left if the landing had been nominal?

And how much did it weigh?


Look up "Apollo By The Numbers" - it should be on a NASA server. That
will have the mass details, including propellant remaining.

Fred J. McCall wrote:

How much would have been left if the landing had been nominal?

And how much did it weigh?

I don't have the details.


Of course you don't. All you have is some rather ignorant opinions.

1) Apollo 11 landed with less remaining fuel than any other lander; .

2) Apollo 11 landed within a handful of seconds of a call for a
MANDATORY abort (which Armstrong had already decided he was going to
ignore).

The Descent Stage started out with around 8200 kg of propellants
giving a total delta-V of around 2500 m/s.

Nominal plan required a delta-V (total) of 2081 m/s. This profile
would leave 441.7 kg of fuel in the tanks upon touchdown. Apollo 11
used 106% of the 'nominal delta-V' case and 98% of the 3-sigma worst
case.


Thanks to Alan's tip I also have some numbers available.

Apollo 11 started off with 18,184 pounds of fuel & oxidizer which
equates to 8248 kg and tallies with your figure of "around 8200".

Upon landing it had 305 kgs usable - 349kg in the tanks.

So if the nominal flight plan left 441.7kg "in the tanks", Eagle
still had 79% of its "contingency" fuel left. Or if that's 441.7
usable, we're at 69%.

"Fevric J. Glandules" wrote in message
...
Stuf4 wrote:

snip

Some very interesting stuff in this and your other posts. However:

...and the Armstrong-Aldrin pairing survived crew rearrangements and
mission
swaps. And it is the robustness with how this bonding carried through
to the announcement of the prime crew for Apollo 11 that serves as the
most solid evidence that Slayton was very clear on who he wanted as CDR
and LMP on that very first landing attempt.

"attempt" being the operative word, surely? AIUI it was considered at
the time to be about 50/50. Had the coin flipped the other way, it
would have been Conrad to do the first landing (and step). Which doesn't
fit with your hypothesis that they were consciously aiming to put a
"civilian" on the moon first.


Also, wasn't Aldrin originally CMP on Armstrong's crew? IIRC he switched to
LMP when Mike Collins replaced Lovell following his neck surgery.
--
Gordon Davie
Edinburgh, Scotland

"Slipped the surly bonds of Earth...to touch the face of God."

In article , lid says...

Fred J. McCall wrote:

How much would have been left if the landing had been nominal?

And how much did it weigh?

I don't have the details.


Of course you don't. All you have is some rather ignorant opinions.

1) Apollo 11 landed with less remaining fuel than any other lander; .

2) Apollo 11 landed within a handful of seconds of a call for a
MANDATORY abort (which Armstrong had already decided he was going to
ignore).

The Descent Stage started out with around 8200 kg of propellants
giving a total delta-V of around 2500 m/s.

Nominal plan required a delta-V (total) of 2081 m/s. This profile
would leave 441.7 kg of fuel in the tanks upon touchdown. Apollo 11
used 106% of the 'nominal delta-V' case and 98% of the 3-sigma worst
case.


Thanks to Alan's tip I also have some numbers available.

Apollo 11 started off with 18,184 pounds of fuel & oxidizer which
equates to 8248 kg and tallies with your figure of "around 8200".

Upon landing it had 305 kgs usable - 349kg in the tanks.

So if the nominal flight plan left 441.7kg "in the tanks", Eagle
still had 79% of its "contingency" fuel left. Or if that's 441.7
usable, we're at 69%.

As Fred mentioned, there was a level at which a mandatory abort would
have been called and Apollo 11 was within seconds of getting that call
when they landed. That's not saying Armstrong would have actually
aborted, but if he ignored that abort, there would have been no margin
for safety. Apollo 11 would have landed, or would have run out of fuel
and crashed.

Why? Because if the abort was called, I believe that the remaining fuel
in the lander would have been used to gain altitude in order to safely
start the ascent motor.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

Jeff Findley wrote:

As Fred mentioned, there was a level at which a mandatory abort would
have been called and Apollo 11 was within seconds of getting that call
when they landed.

Yes, but how many seconds til that call in a nominal landing?

The more I look at it the more it seems that they didn't actually go
that far into the contingency zone.