Winston
Lorenzo von Matterhorn
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A once-classified anomaly nearly killed Apollo 11 astronauts, a new book reveals
https://www.businessinsider.com/cla...eatened-to-crash-first-moon-astronauts-2019-6
The service module became useless and posed a collision risk after the two parts separated, so it was supposed to skip off Earth's atmosphere like a stone thrown across a pond.
But it did not.
Instead, as Atkinson explains, the service module chased the astronauts during their descent.
"Houston, we got the service module going by. A little high and a little bit to the right," Aldrin, who was looking out of the command module's window, told Mission Control over the radio.
Moments later he added: "It's coming across now from right to left."
Gary Johnson, who worked as an electrical engineer on the Apollo program, told Atkinson that the service module should have been "absolutely nowhere close to the command module" as it descended.
If the part had collided with the command module carrying the astronauts, it could have crippled or destroyed the vehicle or sent it flying out of control. Chunks of the disintegrating service module could also have struck the capsule, which could have led to catastrophe as well, Atkinson wrote.
"If things had gone bad, we could have lost the Apollo 11 crew," Johnson told Atkinson. "We were lucky."
NASA launched an investigation based on their reports and found that two prior missions — Apollo 8 and Apollo 10 — had suffered the same glitch. Those astronauts did not see the service module outside their windows, however, so they didn't report it, Atkinson wrote. (A review of old radar recordings showed the service modules on those missions did also fly dangerously close to the command modules, though.)
The problem's cause turned out to be a bad sequence in a controller that helped jettison, or separate, the command and service modules. NASA knew the same problem was baked into the Apollo 12 spacecraft, which launched in November 1969, but decided not to fix it due to time constraints, Atkinson said.
According to Johnson, NASA kept the Apollo 11 astronaut debriefs classified for some time. An official report about the anomaly came out in November 1970 — about six months after the harrowing Apollo 13 mission — and somehow managed to stay out of newspapers.
"The event never made it into the Apollo 11 mission reports and somehow was largely forgotten — I think due to the frantic-ness of the time, of needing to move on to the next flight, etc.," Atkinson said. "The first time the fix for this anomaly was in place was for Apollo 13. And of course, you know what happened with 13, and I think the anomaly was probably largely forgotten due to all the other excitement."
An Apollo astronaut explains how he nearly killed himself 'horsing around' on the moon in 1972
https://www.businessinsider.com/apollo-astronaut-charles-duke-moon-jump-video-2019-6
They were just "horsing around," Duke said, but he was able to leap 4 feet in the air — an impressive height for anyone, especially a person wearing a bulky spacesuit. However, he straightened his body mid-jump, and that turned out to be a huge mistake, he said.
The lunar-surface spacesuits Apollo astronauts wore weighed more than 300 pounds each on Earth. This wasn't as much of an issue on the moon because of its weaker surface gravity; there, the suits weighed about 50 pounds. Still, the Apollo spacesuit's backpack made up more than half of the mass, creating balance issues (especially for leaping humans).
"The backpack weighed as much as I did. So I went over backwards," Duke said. "It's a fiberglass shell, and it contained all your life-support systems. If it broke, I was dead."
Duke said he rolled right to break his fall but still bounced onto his backpack, also called a portable life-support system, or PLSS.
If he'd cracked his PLSS or ripped open his suit, it would have caused a "hiss-out," or loss of breathable air. This would have knocked Duke unconscious and likely killed him before Young could drag him back to the lunar module, close the air lock, and pressurize the spacecraft.
"My heart was pounding. John Young, my commander, came over and looked down and says, 'That wasn't very smart, Charlie.' And I said, 'Help me up, John,' and I got real quiet," he said.
Duke said that once he got up, he listened to the sounds of the PLSS to determine whether anything had broken.
"You could hear the pumps running. And I said, 'Well, I think I'm OK,'" he said, adding: "I learned a lesson: Never do anything in space that you haven't practiced. And we had not practiced the high jump."
https://www.businessinsider.com/cla...eatened-to-crash-first-moon-astronauts-2019-6
The service module became useless and posed a collision risk after the two parts separated, so it was supposed to skip off Earth's atmosphere like a stone thrown across a pond.
But it did not.
Instead, as Atkinson explains, the service module chased the astronauts during their descent.
"Houston, we got the service module going by. A little high and a little bit to the right," Aldrin, who was looking out of the command module's window, told Mission Control over the radio.
Moments later he added: "It's coming across now from right to left."
Gary Johnson, who worked as an electrical engineer on the Apollo program, told Atkinson that the service module should have been "absolutely nowhere close to the command module" as it descended.
If the part had collided with the command module carrying the astronauts, it could have crippled or destroyed the vehicle or sent it flying out of control. Chunks of the disintegrating service module could also have struck the capsule, which could have led to catastrophe as well, Atkinson wrote.
"If things had gone bad, we could have lost the Apollo 11 crew," Johnson told Atkinson. "We were lucky."
NASA launched an investigation based on their reports and found that two prior missions — Apollo 8 and Apollo 10 — had suffered the same glitch. Those astronauts did not see the service module outside their windows, however, so they didn't report it, Atkinson wrote. (A review of old radar recordings showed the service modules on those missions did also fly dangerously close to the command modules, though.)
The problem's cause turned out to be a bad sequence in a controller that helped jettison, or separate, the command and service modules. NASA knew the same problem was baked into the Apollo 12 spacecraft, which launched in November 1969, but decided not to fix it due to time constraints, Atkinson said.
According to Johnson, NASA kept the Apollo 11 astronaut debriefs classified for some time. An official report about the anomaly came out in November 1970 — about six months after the harrowing Apollo 13 mission — and somehow managed to stay out of newspapers.
"The event never made it into the Apollo 11 mission reports and somehow was largely forgotten — I think due to the frantic-ness of the time, of needing to move on to the next flight, etc.," Atkinson said. "The first time the fix for this anomaly was in place was for Apollo 13. And of course, you know what happened with 13, and I think the anomaly was probably largely forgotten due to all the other excitement."
An Apollo astronaut explains how he nearly killed himself 'horsing around' on the moon in 1972
https://www.businessinsider.com/apollo-astronaut-charles-duke-moon-jump-video-2019-6
They were just "horsing around," Duke said, but he was able to leap 4 feet in the air — an impressive height for anyone, especially a person wearing a bulky spacesuit. However, he straightened his body mid-jump, and that turned out to be a huge mistake, he said.
The lunar-surface spacesuits Apollo astronauts wore weighed more than 300 pounds each on Earth. This wasn't as much of an issue on the moon because of its weaker surface gravity; there, the suits weighed about 50 pounds. Still, the Apollo spacesuit's backpack made up more than half of the mass, creating balance issues (especially for leaping humans).
"The backpack weighed as much as I did. So I went over backwards," Duke said. "It's a fiberglass shell, and it contained all your life-support systems. If it broke, I was dead."
Duke said he rolled right to break his fall but still bounced onto his backpack, also called a portable life-support system, or PLSS.
If he'd cracked his PLSS or ripped open his suit, it would have caused a "hiss-out," or loss of breathable air. This would have knocked Duke unconscious and likely killed him before Young could drag him back to the lunar module, close the air lock, and pressurize the spacecraft.
"My heart was pounding. John Young, my commander, came over and looked down and says, 'That wasn't very smart, Charlie.' And I said, 'Help me up, John,' and I got real quiet," he said.
Duke said that once he got up, he listened to the sounds of the PLSS to determine whether anything had broken.
"You could hear the pumps running. And I said, 'Well, I think I'm OK,'" he said, adding: "I learned a lesson: Never do anything in space that you haven't practiced. And we had not practiced the high jump."
