Apollo 12 lightning strikes during launch

[video=youtube;9oda7FnBJzY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oda7FnBJzY[/video]

One of my favorite Apollo photos:

[video=youtube;8udidg7haPk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8udidg7haPk[/video]

Is that Surveyor 7?

cvanc said:

[video=youtube;8udidg7haPk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8udidg7haPk[/video]

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Thanks.

tightwad said:

Is that Surveyor 7?

Click to expand...

3.

Astronauts Pay a Visit to Surveyor 3

https://www.nasa.gov/content/astronauts-pay-a-visit-to-surveyor-3

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Looks at Apollo 12, Surveyor 3 Landing Sites

https://www.nasa.gov/content/lunar-...-looks-at-apollo-12-surveyor-3-landing-sites/

Thanks, Winston.

Cool info that I'd not seen before. Thanks for the posts, folks!

Try SCE to AUX

A good article here: "How Curiosity, Luck, and the Flip of a Switch Saved the Moon Program"

https://motherboard.vice.com/read/john-aaron-apollo-12-curiosity-luck-and-sce-to-aux

One of the things about the incident was nobody knew if the electronics/wring to the parachute deployment system had gotten fried or not. So, send them to the moon, or return to Earth? Well, if the recovery system was ruined then the crew was doomed regardless. So there was no point in coming back early, might as well go ahead and land on the moon.

georgegassaway said:

Try SCE to AUX

A good article here: "How Curiosity, Luck, and the Flip of a Switch Saved the Moon Program"

https://motherboard.vice.com/read/john-aaron-apollo-12-curiosity-luck-and-sce-to-aux

One of the things about the incident was nobody knew if the electronics/wring to the parachute deployment system had gotten fried or not. So, send them to the moon, or return to Earth? Well, if the recovery system was ruined then the crew was doomed regardless. So there was no point in coming back early, might as well go ahead and land on the moon.

Click to expand...

More interesting info. Thanks.

EDIT: I didn't know that "Keep Calm and Try SCE to AUX" was such a popular internet meme. Time to buy a T-shirt with that on it.

Wow, if John Aaron hadn't just happened to see the garbled screen he did when techs accidentally dropped the voltage on the command module during a simulation a year earlier, hadn't remembered it, and the fix, Apollo 12 would have had a launch abort. Amazing accidents of history.

Winston said:

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"On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced before a special joint session of Congress the dramatic and ambitious goal of sending an American safely to the Moon before the end of the decade."

Apollo 11 landing - July 20, 1969

Only eight years to go from virtually nothing to the precision landing on the moon shown in the photo above using a guidance computer far less powerful than any cell phone these days sent along its way using a gigantic Saturn V rocket and hardware designed almost completely without the use of computer aided design.

Absolutely amazing.

BTW - I love that pic, too. Looked into obtaining a 1/16 Surveyor to go with my flying LM. There's a very fragile cardstock model that could be made, just more than I care to do. And so far, no 3D file for getting one 3D printed (I know someone who might be willing to print it cheap as opposed to the commercial 3D printing places).

Anyway, back to SCE to AUX....

A really interesting Light Switch face plate on Zazzle (someone on "Space Hipsters" drew it up, IIRC):

https://www.zazzle.com/apollo_12_sce_to_aux_light_switch_cover-256970907397966625



Someone who bought one took it a step further, adding a switch guard (right) as were used around most switches for Apollo.

That light switch is the coolest thing I've seen all day!! I sent the link to my wife that is having trouble finding things to order for Xmas for me, and I'll be installing it in my basement man-cave asap. My brother, who is also a super fan of the Saturn V, will love it and wish he had one too - but his wife probably won't let him put one in their house.

I might be getting the latest Estes Saturn V model to go with my older model that is a shelf queen. The new one shall fly!!

It would be cool to have a launch controller big enough to have this switch plate on it. Just a duplicate safety switch which keeps the controller from firing unless SCE is switched to AUX.

Edit - Wife said to order it myself today, not to wait for Xmas. Thanks George!

Winston said:

[video=youtube;9oda7FnBJzY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oda7FnBJzY[/video]

One of my favorite Apollo photos:

Click to expand...

I saw the interview with Pete Conrad, Commander of the mission about that lightning strike.
I guess Gordon was command module pilot and Conrad had his hand on the abort handle.
Power went off and rebooted and he said he flinched.
He said " I'm not sure if I was ready to dump nearly a billion dollars worth of spacecraft into the Atlantic!"
I'm paraphrasing but he said ...us Navy guys fly in all types of weather....I think I'll just ride it out and see what happens..." LOL

John Aaron's call "Flight, try SCE to Aux", is probably the second most famous thing said in our space flight history, just after Armstrong's first words upon stepping on the moon. John single handedly saved the Apollo 12 mission and earned him the title of "Steely eyed missile man" by his fellow members of the Mission Control teams.

Winston said:

Apollo 11 landing - July 20, 1969

Only eight years to go from virtually nothing to the precision landing on the moon shown in the photo above using a guidance computer far less powerful than any cell phone these days sent along its way using a gigantic Saturn V rocket and hardware designed almost completely without the use of computer aided design.

Absolutely amazing.

Click to expand...

And here I am struggling to mix two-part foam.....

Dave A said:

I saw the interview with Pete Conrad, Commander of the mission about that lightning strike.
I guess Gordon was command module pilot and Conrad had his hand on the abort handle.
Power went off and rebooted and he said he flinched.
He said " I'm not sure if I was ready to dump nearly a billion dollars worth of spacecraft into the Atlantic!"
I'm paraphrasing but he said ...us Navy guys fly in all types of weather....I think I'll just ride it out and see what happens..." LOL

Click to expand...

Yep, they wisely just decided to calmly (as possible) sit there instead of just aborting. A great, short video about this incident was linked to at the motherboard.com article linked to above by George:

[video=youtube;eWQIryll8y8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWQIryll8y8[/video]