getting uphill on a candle: crushed spines, detached retinas and one small step
TRANSCRIPT
Getting Uphill on a Candle
Crushed Spines, Detached Retinas and One Small Step
On July 20, 1969 a quiet man from Ohio set foot on the Moon.
On December 13, 1972 an outgoing man from Chicago was the last to step off the Moon.
We talk about the Apollo Project as if it is too big to ever do again.
We talk about this as if humanity has lost something essential to itself.
But we haven’t.
1903 North Carolina
Orville Wright takes off in Flyer 1.
This is the first powered flight in human history.
The Wrights continue their research and
begin selling it in the US and in Europe.
By 1910, advances are being made in Europe using adapted Wright Brothers technology.
The U.S. is the world leader in aeronautics
research.
Then the Great War happens.
Early aircraft are not for combat.
Early aircraft are for reconnaissance purposes.
That is, until a Frenchman takes a machine gun up
in a reconnaissance craft.
Great Power advances in aeronautics happen
rapidly.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is twiddling its rudders.
It’s obligated to buy French aircraft on entering the war.
1915 Washington, D.C.
NACA is formed.
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
A government agency conducting basic R&D for the benefit of American industry.
1922 Langley, Virginia
Variable Density Wind Tunnel
1928 Langley, Virginia
Aerodynamic engine cooling.
1934 Langley, Virginia
photograph of airfoil
shockwave
American aviation makes great strides.
1934 London→Melbourne
DC-2 leisurely keeps pace with custom race aircraft.
Let’s talk about
Artillery
Single biggest threat to infantry in WW1.
(Other than the flu.)
Very difficult to maneuver.
Tanks are mobile, but you still have to be right in the action.
Airplanes tend to fall out of the sky.
What’s wanted is a remote weapon.
1923 Göttingen, Germany
Hermann Oberth publishes “Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen”
1926 Auburn, Mass.
Robert Goddard achieves first-flight of a liquid fuel rocket.
His paper on the flight casually mentions sending a probe to the Moon.
He is promptly ridiculed in the New York Times.
Members of the Verein für Raumschiffahrt in Germany take notice.
1930 Berlin
Oberth fires his liquid fuel rocket.
Werhner von Braun is one of his research assistants.
1932 Roswell, New Mexico
Goddard stabilizes rocket flight gyroscopically.
1934 Kummersdorf, Germany
von Braun group fires Aggregat-2 into the North Sea.
Gyroscopically stabilized, it’s based on Goddard’s designs.
1940 Peenemünde,
Germany
1940 Peenemünde,
Germany
A-4 takes flight.
The von Braun group solve a key problem: guidance.
They perfect the use of gyroscopic control.
The Aggregat-4 is also called the
Vergeltungswaffe-2.
This was not for peaceful purposes.
1942 Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Mass production of U-235.
The US project to construct a nuclear weapon is the largest practical R&D project in the nation’s history.
1945 Los Alamos, New Mexico
The research pays off.
This was not for peaceful purposes.
Nuclear weapons pose a particular problem.
It’s real easy to
kill yourself.
What’s needed is a remote delivery
mechanism.
You can bazooka
them.
You can shoot them out of an artillery cannon.
You can drop them from a bomber.
All much too close for comfort.
In the late 40s there were two options:
In the late 40s there were two options:
1. Hypersonic aircraft
In the late 40s there were two options:
1. Hypersonic aircraft 2. Long-Range Rockets
Neither were available.
1946 Pinecastle Army Airfield, Florida
Jack Woolams pilots the NACA designed Bell X-1.
The X-1 is a drop-craft rocket plane.
1947 Rogers Dry Lake, California
Chuck Yeager hits Mach 1.07.
The United States has hypersonic aircraft.
There’s a slight problem.
It is believed that greater than 18G’s of acceleration are fatal.
1948 Edwards Air Force Base
Captain John Stapp survives 35G’s on the “Gee Wizz”
All the capillaries in Stapp’s eyes burst, filling them with blood.
“"This time, I get the white cane and the seeing eye dog."
He was only temporarily blinded by the ride.
1945 White Sands Missile Range,
New Mexico
Captured V-2s are studied by the U.S. Army.
The rocket is significantly more sophisticated than the solid rockets the Army used in the war.
1946 Fort Bliss, Texas
Operation Paperclip brings the von Braun group to the United States.
In exchange for a clean slate, they bring the Army up to speed on the V-2 rocket.
1946 WSMR, New Mexico
The first U.S V-2 sounding rocket flies.
The V-2 is a single stage rocket.
Single staging is an extreme limit on the efficiency of a rocket.
Staging correctly requires sophisticated coordination in the rocket control system.
1950 Cape Canaveral, Florida
Bumper-8 delivers its payload 320km downrange.
V-2
V-2
WAC Corporal
The U.S. sophistication in rocketry advances rapidly.
1953 Huntsville, Alabama
Army Ballistic Missile Agency flies first Redstone.
This is a multi-stage derivative of the V-2, designed by the von Braun group.
Semi-secretly, the von Braun group has used Army money to build a LEO satellite system.
Per spec, payloads are nuke sized.
But not necessarily
just nuke sized.
1954 Bell Aircraft Corporation,
United States
Walter Dornberger proposes a manned spaceplane.
The idea is to test re-entry procedures in a reusable craft.
NACA bites and starts assembling the funding.
The U.S announces it will launch a satellite.
The U.S announces it will launch a satellite.
The USSR announces
it will launch a satellite.
The Space Race is on.
Fun fact: Soviet nukes are heavier than U.S. nukes.
Extra fun fact: Soviet rockets are bigger to
make up for this.
1957 Baikonur, Kazakhstan
Sputnik 1 becomes the first artificial satellite.
Eisenhower insists on the civilian designed Vanguard.
It doesn’t go well.
The United States seems to be rapidly falling behind the Soviet Union.
1957 Washington D.C.
NACA becomes NASA.
Disparate military programs are folded into the new civilian agency.
Some projects survive, some are put into cold-storage.
Among the survivors, an early stage proposal for
a Moon landing.
1958 Cape Canaveral,
Florida
1958 Cape Canaveral,
Florida Explorer 1 launches atop a Juno.
Explorer 1 is the first US satellite.
The Juno is an ABMA improvement over the ABMA Redstone.
1959 Edwards Air Force Base,
California
Albert Crossfield pilots the first X-15 flight.
The X-15 will prove out controlled re-entry techniques, flight equipment.
1960 Huntsville, Alabama
ABMA becomes the Marshall Space Flight Center.
They bring plans for an exceptionally large rocket.
Originally commissioned by the Army to heft
fusion bombs…
von Braun semi-secretly designed a rocket that could heft a spacecraft
to the Moon.
1961 Bay of Pigs, Cuba
The US backs a failed invasion of Cuba.
President Kennedy has been working closely with NASA regarding the “missile gap”.
He has also been steadily briefed by his aids regarding the NASA proposed lunar mission.
1961 Washington, D.C.
I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal…
before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.
No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind … or expensive to accomplish.
We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft.
With a massive influx of money, NASA aggressively runs projects in parallel.
“Feeder” projects are established for Apollo.
1962 Edwards AFB, California
X-15 is flown with fly-by-wire system.
The X-15 flights validate interactive fly-by-wire systems.
Apollo will be fly-by-wire.
The X-15 also underscores the need for careful rocket
maintenance.
1957 Langley, Virginia
Wind tunnel tests show re-entry shockwave on
Mercury capsule.
Mercury is intended to prove out ballistic capsule re-entry and retrieval.
“Man in a can”
1962 Low Earth Orbit
John Glenn orbits the Earth three times.
Mercury launches atop an Atlas rocket.
An uprated ICBM.
Nuke
Nuke
Glenn
As the flight plan for Apollo shapes up it’s clear there are many unknowns.
1961 Langley, Virginia
Gemini is a bridge between Mercury and Apollo.
Its re-entry is precise.
It holds two crew.
1965 Gemini 4, LEO
Ed White performs
the first US EVA.
1966 Gemini 8, LEO
Neil Armstrong accomplishes
first dock in space.
1966 Gemini 12, LEO
Buzz Aldrin perfects long-duration EVA.
Saturn V, the largest rocket ever flown, is ready for the Moon.
All the techniques that, just ten years ago, were unknowns are ready.
1968 Apollo 8, Moon
Humans orbit the Moon for the first time.
Humans leave Earth for the first time.
1969 Apollo 10, Moon
LEM descends to 14km
above lunar surface.
Docking with CM checks out okay.
1969 Sea of Tranquility, Moon
Neil Armstrong walks on the Moon.
Buzz Aldrin joins him.
Citing Apollo’s high cost, Nixon
approves a reusable
spaceplane project.
And cancels three Apollo flights.
On July 20, 1969 a quiet man from Ohio set foot on the Moon.
On December 13, 1972 an outgoing man from Chicago was the last to
step off the Moon.
We talk about the Apollo Project as if it too big to
ever do again.
Why?
Progress takes time.
Flying for twelve seconds is one thing.
Flying across an ocean is another.
Flying to the Moon a whole
other.
Each step requires circumstance, effort
and dedication.
We went to the Moon. Why not Mars?
As our ambitions increase, the difficulty increases
exponentially.
We don’t know how to do long-term spaceflight.
We
are
learning.
We don’t know how to write
safe software.
Even when it really matters.
We don’t know how to do cheap launches.
$1billion / launch
Yet.
$0.16billion / launch
We don’t know how to do a lot of stuff.
But we’re figuring it out.
Slowly but surely.