Wait, soviets already did automated sample returns while apollo was still ongoing [0]?! That's quite a surprise to me... don't think I ever came across this, and I do follow quite a bit of space news. E.g. this [1] recent set of videos how Apollo moon rocks are stored did not mention it at all, and I'd certainly expect them to have exchanged some samples.
Now I'd really love to learn more about what kind of tech that long ago achieved the precession necessary for an automated sample return.
It’s interesting technically. I just think the scale is really telling. Three missions returned a combined 300g. By comparison the Apollo missions collected 382,000g while also returning with several people etc.
Apollo missions where IMO the most massive projects without direct benefit beyond basic research throughout human history. In aggregate the Internet for example is a larger investment, but there is direct utility and ROI. Honestly, only the ISS really compares.
It’s more a misleading than a false statement. The Apollo guidance computer was one of the first computers to use integrated circuits. But, several much earlier examples exist such as the minute man ICBM in 1962.
So, sort of but not really. NASA has associated the space race with all kinds of tech advancements. But, tight deadlines has meant the focus was less on research than integrating existing technology that was at worst almost ready for use. We had existing huge rockets, they kept scaling them even more.
In the end the majority of this stuff is mostly PR. Much like how research papers include hand wavy this is good for X, Y, and Z sort of if you squint.
Furthermore, Draper (well the MIT Instrumentation Lab at the time) did not only the Apollo Guidance Computer but I believe pretty much all the earlier guidance systems. Minuteman I'm pretty sure but possibly systems like Nike as well. (Doc Draper basically invented inertial navigation.)
Space is very conservative due to its nature. Even (or especially) at the offset.
When you mission planning and construction takes several years, you can’t just go in and swap parts for “cutting edge” and “best-of-breed”. Mission parameters are locked several years before the actual mission takes place and are based on tech that was considered safe, sound, and stable by the time parameters are locked.
So, when the mission flies, you get 6-8 year old tech that flies in it.
The combination of all the components is usually bigger than the sum of its parts (that is it could be pushing the envelope of what mankind can achieve), but it’s usually built on top of some very boring things.
A lot of early computer work was classified. NASA was able to leverage this work which made evolutionary changes seem revolutionary. But, that’s simply because so many of the intermediary steps where hidden from public view.
PS: The enigma cracking for example is very well known now. But, that’s a surprisingly recent revelation... After the end of World War II, the Allies sold captured Enigma machines, still widely considered secure, to developing countries.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine. This meant keeping the machines that could crack these codes secret was important for decades.
That had some creative editing. “The Apollo flight computer was the first computer to use integrated circuits (ICs).[citation needed]”
The integrated circuit first won a place in the military market through programs such as the first computer using silicon chips for the Air Force in 1961 and the Minuteman Missile in 1962.
It was very much cutting edge for the time, but not really more innovative than other similar examples.
If you think that's interesting, check out the buran shuttle which landed autonomously from orbit, a feat only replicated in the us decades later with the x-37.
Yeah, kinda sad it only made orbit once. Buran is at least mentioned every once in a while, though obviously not as often as Sputnik, Gagarin and the like. Youtube has a bunch of hits for it, while in contrast to what there is barely anything at all in english for "Luna 16". I also vividly remember this photo series about remaining Buran mockups [0].
The American space shuttle orbiter at the time had exactly the same autonomy capabilities as the Buran. The only constraint was computer memory: the astronauts had to manually load magnetic tapes into the flight computer that had the takeoff and landing programs in them.
The American shuttle also had a few things that needed to be done by hand, like deploying the landing gear and the air data probes. These were actions that are irreversible (once the Shuttle drops its gear, they can't be raised without outside help) and would lead to destruction if they happened too early.
During the early Shuttle program, there was a worry about these events happening due to a software problem, so the decision was made to isolate them from the computer.
Post-Columbia, cables were made that allowed the shuttles to be re-wired to allow these events to occur under the control of the computer, to allow a damaged shuttle to attempt a return without crew, or to dispose of itself safely.
> Post-Columbia, cables were made that allowed the shuttles to be re-wired to allow these events to occur under the control of the computer, to allow a damaged shuttle to attempt a return without crew, or to dispose of itself safely.
As grisly of a question as this is, are there launch failure scenarios that involve complete loss of crew but successful orbit?
IANARC, but it seems if something goes bad in the launch sequence, it's normally catastrophic.
I believe the idea was for this capability to go along with the ISS as a life-boat contingency. That is: shuttle is damaged on launch such that a safe return is no longer a sure thing, so the crew links up with the ISS, shuttle attempts an automated return (or ditching), and the crew hang out while another shuttle is prepared to fetch them.
This is also why all but one post-Columbia mission either went to or was within range of the ISS. The only mission for which this wasn't true was the final repair of the Hubble, and for that they had a second shuttle on stand-by for a potential rescue launch on short notice.
> are there launch failure scenarios that involve complete loss of crew but successful orbit?
Explosive decompression. Not sure if shuttle crews wore pressure suits. Happened on a Russian mission once, during reentry. They opened the capsule on landing and everyone was dead.
Soyuz 11. It wasn't an explosive decompression per se, merely a rapid decompression, but no less lethal to a crew without oxygen masks.
Decompression can be explosive, but in space you'd only be dropping from 1 atmosphere to 0, which isn't that far to drop. For decompression to truly be explosive, a greater pressure differential is required. In the infamous Byford Dolphin incident, four saturation divers were depressurized from 9 atmospheres down to 1 in an instant, and that was a sufficient pressure differential to explode them.
NB: The Apollo Command Mudule operated at 5 PSI in spave, about 34% og atmospheric sea level pressure. Over 25,000 feet / 7600 meters elevation. The LM operated at 3.5 PSI.
The Space Shuttle and ISS operate at 14.7 PSI -- normal sea level atmospheric pressure.
Mir, the Soyuz fleet and the Salyut stations were operating at sea level pressure too. I'm not sure how influential that was in the Shuttle's design, but it certainly simplified docking the Shuttle to Mir. The pressure difference between Apollo and Soyuz was a source of complication for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Program.
Nevertheless it is technically pretty impressive if you take the computers of that time, esp those made in Russia, into consideration. The Russians where into unmanned space exploration pretty early.
It's funny, my Russian friend and I were playing Timelines and the moon landing came up. We couldn't agree on the date; she insisted that "the moon landings" were in 1966, when the first robots landed on the moon. Apparently in Russia that's what they teach as the key milestone.
It is always healthy to be reminded that the seemingly insurmountable divisions of the now are often simply the results of short time choices long ago that had to be defended.
Certainly would have been nice if the lunar plaque had been sincere in a wider context.
I always rather liked the 'Fallen Astronaut' which features US astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts and placed on the moon in secret by one of the Apollo crews:
Would never have happened. There were far too many protected technologies, weapons technologies, involved in getting to and from the moon. At some point the plug would have been pulled.
The 1975 flight did happen, and before that extensive familiarization with each other technologies needed for that. So I don't think it that obviously would never happen; however, historically speaking we have what we have...
Two ships meeting in space is altogether different than two teams working on a single rocket/program to the moon. Apollo-Soyus involved learning of each others abilities, a critical part of cold war/mad deterrence. It did not involve sharing how those abilities were created. The americans didn't give the russians a copy of the guidance computer.
> It did not involve sharing how those abilities were created.
Same approach could be used for cooperative Moon flights.
In fact, after Apollo-Soyuz we've had Shuttle-Mir and then ISS, and there are plenty of cooperation and cross-studying in those projects. From some point of view, technologies on both sides of Atlantic were similar - there were exceptions, of course, but for professionals working on projects for years the inevitable knowledge osmosis tells a lot.
In another sensitive area, achievements in thermonuclear studies, cooperation did happen.
The Soviets beat is to nearly every space milestone. If it wasn’t for the untimely death of the architect of their space program, they would’ve beaten us to the moon too.
Now I'd really love to learn more about what kind of tech that long ago achieved the precession necessary for an automated sample return.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_16
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxZ_iPldGtI