One small step for man, ...

*Bokehboy* · 07-20-2009, 06:52 PM

...one giant leap for Mankind. Forty years ago today Astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins took us to the surface of the moon. I was just going on 5 years old and just barely remember watching this on the tube. I think I remember it because it had everyone else so excited. I was in my grandmother's living room with the rest of our family.

So, if you were around then, what where you doing when these words were first said by Neil Armstrong, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for Mankind"?

By the way it was supposed to be "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for Mankind". Armstrong got excited and fuddled things a bit. Who can blame him, Eh?

*Driver3* · 07-20-2009, 07:02 PM

Very heady times. Not just the space program but the general upheavals in society along with the Viet Nam conflict.
The whole world tuned in. Universal awe.
I saw the launch live, just like everyone from about halfway through the Gemini program.
Never a machine like the Saturn 5!
Most of us probably have more computing power on our desktops than the engineers at NASA had in their data centers!

MoiVous · 07-20-2009, 07:03 PM

A memorable day indeed!

I was 8 years old, and they gave us half a day off from school to go home and watch it on TV (it was about 13:00 Central Australian time).

I had the cardboard cut out (fold tab A into slot A, etc) Eagle lander hanging from my light, the commemorative medal (both lost sadly) - but it lives on in my memory......

*graphicgr8s* · 07-20-2009, 07:18 PM

It's just amazing that we put a man 1/4 million miles away onto an orb we knew nothing about with the computing power of a Commodore 64 and it was mostly mechanical. The Space Shuttle design is over 35 years old and now we're going back to those basic designs of Apollo. Why did we stop? (That's rhetorical. I already know the answer)

I saved every article as a kid. Wish I still had them. Think of all we gained from the space program.

*Bokehboy* · 07-20-2009, 08:00 PM

I think a lot of us sometimes loose focus on the fact that this was a world effort. The equipment, technology, knowledge and support came from all over the world. Also from the Soviet Union came that constant raising of the bar. Without their challenge we would probably not have been motivated enough to do it.

This image of this plaque really means so much to me:

Apollo 11 Lunar Surface Journal

"We Came In Peace For All Mankind"

*Sailor* · 07-20-2009, 08:06 PM

Originally Posted by Driver3

Very heady times. Not just the space program but the general upheavals in society along with the Viet Nam conflict.
The whole world tuned in. Universal awe.
I saw the launch live, just like everyone from about halfway through the Gemini program.
Never a machine like the Saturn 5!
Most of us probably have more computing power on our desktops than the engineers at NASA had in their data centers!

Heady times, indeed. When the lunar lander touched down on the moon's surface, my wife (of a few months) and I were hustling our Mach I Mustang from Mt. Vernon, IL to Nashville, TN where I was a first-year grad student at Vanderbilt. We rushed to get back in order to see the first "moon walk" (I mean the real thing); as it happened, it's lucky we pushed it, since NASA pushed up the "extravehicular activity" several hours ahead of schedule.

A sailing friend of mine, who also has a boat in the Clear Lake Area (i.e. near Houston Space Center), took Neil Armstrong sailing several years after Apollo 11; my buddy retained the tiller of the boat (long after it was worn out) as a talisman, since Armstrong enjoyed the afternoon while steering the boat with that tiller - perhaps, one supposes, as much as piloting a space ship.

Jer

*graphicgr8s* · 07-20-2009, 08:13 PM

Come on.That was all fake. We never landed on the moon.

MoiVous · 07-20-2009, 08:23 PM

Originally Posted by graphicgr8s

It's just amazing that we put a man 1/4 million miles away onto an orb we knew nothing about with the computing power of a Commodore 64 and it was mostly mechanical.

Interesting comparison - the Commodore 64 had 64Kbytes of RAM, whilst the Apollo Guidance Computer had 2 KibiWords (a word is 16 bits or 2 bytes, but Kibi stands for kilobinary in computer terms, so 2 * 2 kWords or 4 kilobytes of RAM!!!). And to make life really interesting, the RAM was core memory - ferrite beads!

The AGCs ROM was 36KibiWords (ie about 72kBytes) - but 20Kbyte on the Commodore with the ROM BASIC

Interestingly, the AGC had a 16bit CPU, compared to the C64s 8bit CPU

I'd say that the AGC probably had less RAM, but its power and "multi-tasking" (up to 8 jobs at once) made it quite a machine in its day (ie 1969 vs 1982!).

Heady days indeed!

*graphicgr8s* · 07-20-2009, 08:30 PM

Originally Posted by MoiVous

Interesting comparison - the Commodore 64 had 64Kbytes of RAM, whilst the Apollo Guidance Computer had 2 KibiWords (a word is 16 bits or 2 bytes, but Kibi stands for kilobinary in computer terms, so 2 * 2 kWords or 4 kilobytes of RAM!!!). And to make life really interesting, the RAM was core memory - ferrite beads!

The AGCs ROM was 36KibiWords (ie about 72kBytes) - but 20Kbyte on the Commodore with the ROM BASIC

Interestingly, the AGC had a 16bit CPU, compared to the C64s 8bit CPU

I'd say that the AGC probably had less RAM, but its power and "multi-tasking" (up to 8 jobs at once) made it quite a machine in its day (ie 1969 vs 1982!).

Heady days indeed!

I just remember when I had my Commodore 64 (yes I know it only had 64K ram) the comparison always was NASA sent up Apollo with about the same computing power but it took up a city block. I gathered they were talking about more then just guidance though.

*Bokehboy* · 07-20-2009, 08:39 PM

Originally Posted by MoiVous

Interesting comparison - the Commodore 64 had 64Kbytes of RAM, whilst the Apollo Guidance Computer had 2 KibiWords (a word is 16 bits or 2 bytes, but Kibi stands for kilobinary in computer terms, so 2 * 2 kWords or 4 kilobytes of RAM!!!). And to make life really interesting, the RAM was core memory - ferrite beads!

The AGCs ROM was 36KibiWords (ie about 72kBytes) - but 20Kbyte on the Commodore with the ROM BASIC

Interestingly, the AGC had a 16bit CPU, compared to the C64s 8bit CPU

I'd say that the AGC probably had less RAM, but its power and "multi-tasking" (up to 8 jobs at once) made it quite a machine in its day (ie 1969 vs 1982!).

Heady days indeed!

Yeah, analog too!

Check it out:

http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/vs-mi...-guidance.html

Wow!

*Blue* · 07-20-2009, 08:47 PM

Originally Posted by Bokehboy

...one giant leap for Mankind. Forty years ago today Astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins took us to the surface of the moon. I was just going on 5 years old and just barely remember watching this on the tube. I think I remember it because it had everyone else so excited. I was in my grandmother's living room with the rest of our family.

So, if you were around then, what where you doing when these words were first said by Neil Armstrong, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for Mankind"?

By the way it was supposed to be "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for Mankind". Armstrong got excited and fuddled things a bit. Who can blame him, Eh?

I wish I still had my moon buggy from '69!

*graphicgr8s* · 07-20-2009, 08:50 PM

Originally Posted by Bokehboy

Yeah, analog too!

Check it out:

M.I.T. Apollo Guidance Computer

Wow!

The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was built by Raytheon and used approximately 4000 discrete integrated circuits from Fairchild Semiconductor. Spanning nearly a decade of project development, the AGC began as a research project at the MIT Instrumentation Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The lab was home to the world's foremost experts in guidance and control, where Polaris and Poseidon missile guidance programs were developed. However, until Apollo, all computations for the equations of motion in these systems were performed by analog computers. In April 1961, NASA contracted with MIT to study the feasibility of a digital control system for the Apollo program.
So was it digital? or analog?

*Bokehboy* · 07-20-2009, 08:53 PM

Originally Posted by graphicgr8s

The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was built by Raytheon and used approximately 4000 discrete integrated circuits from Fairchild Semiconductor. Spanning nearly a decade of project development, the AGC began as a research project at the MIT Instrumentation Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The lab was home to the world's foremost experts in guidance and control, where Polaris and Poseidon missile guidance programs were developed. However, until Apollo, all computations for the equations of motion in these systems were performed by analog computers. In April 1961, NASA contracted with MIT to study the feasibility of a digital control system for the Apollo program.
So was it digital? or analog?

If I am reading things right the AGC was analog. My understanding is that there were a mix of analog and digital used for various applications but I may be wrong. Happens a lot to me.

*graphicgr8s* · 07-20-2009, 09:00 PM

Originally Posted by Bokehboy

If I am reading things right the AGC was analog. My understanding is that there were a mix of analog and digital used for various applications but I may be wrong. Happens a lot to me.

But if you look at the sentence just before what I hi-lited it says up to apollo which leads me to believe it was digital. I am looking for confirmation.

**Damn Brit** · 07-20-2009, 09:03 PM

It's a shame America hasn't done anything to be proud of since then.