Apollo 6: A Major Unplanned Accomplishment.
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On July 20, 1969, at 10:56 PM, eastern time, television images of Neil Armstrong were broadcast world wide as he put his foot on the lunar surface. But there is far more to the program that represented mankind's first extra-terrestrial steps than that first one. And one mission is perhaps more forgotten than others, because of the coincidence of history.
Images and video courtesy NASA
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Script by THG
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Another thing most people don't know is that all those cool films of the launch vehicle separating in flight shot from inside the stages were taken from Apollo 6, which was packed with instrumentation and movie cameras. The film cartridges were separated, dropped in the ocean and picked up by sailors for later analysis. There were no compact HD digital cameras back then like there are today on almost every launch. People get confused because whenever you see some video or documentary about Apollo 11 they always edit in footage from Apollo 6, because that's the only in-flight footage of a Saturn V staging that exists.
Totally fascinating. Didn't know that H.R. Thanks for the info.
My career started working the SETA contract for TRW Ballistic Missiles Division on the Peacekeeper ICBM. Flight Test Missile (FTM) 3 lost the Stage II extendible nozzle exit cone (ENEC) shortly after staging, but the missile carried only 8 reentry vehicles, so was able to complete the flight successfully. I knew the utility of visual coverage in flight testing, and launched a one-man crusade to figure out how to do it on future Peacekeeper FTMs. I was the Stage IV development engineer for TRW at the time, so I knew the Rockwell (at the time, Rocketdyne) community very well. I contacted Bunky Allred, who had been the Rockwell lead test engineer on S-II of the Saturn V, to see how they got all of those great movies of the I/II staging. He knew how it had been done, and researched how to get a camera that we could use on future Peacekeeper flights. At that time, there was no hope of telemetering video from the missile - this was 1982, after all, and we had at best a 1 megabit/second telemetry stream. But Apollo used actual film cameras, which were recovered after atmospheric entry. Unfortunately, Bunky found that the drawings for the cameras in question had, under the terms of the Apollo contracts, been destroyed six months earlier! My quest for camera coverage of the upper stage ENECs never came to fruition (we lost a Stage III ENEC on one flight, as well, and never knew why). If I recall correctly, Orbital Sciences was the very first company to equip its launch vehicles (the Pegasus being the first) with video telemetry. The practice is almost passé these days, but I can assure anyone that having that visual record of what took place in flight is worth all of the pressure, temperature, strain, and acceleration data combined.
If I were a film cartridge, I would get picked up by sailors - yay! 😂😂 I'm bad......
@@mskellyrlv Absolutely. Video used to be scorned as nice to have for newbs but sensor data is for professionals, mainly because getting video from space missions required heavy, bulky equipment and lots of bandwidth. Technology has advanced very far just in the last 15 years. The video camera technology in your phone is something NASA would've loved to get their hands on in the 60s.
@@mskellyrlv Mr Kelley, in the cover photo for this video why does the exhaust plume seem to go forward of the nozzles and engulf the lower rocket body? .....and did they worry about that exploding the fuel tanks? I wonder at what altitude that photo was taken......and by whom, come to think of it? That looks like all the stages are still together, including the escape tower.
I remember Apollo 8 being front page news. The video of "Earthrise" as the capsule came around from the far side of the Moon was spectacular.
The letter that said to the Apollo 8 crew. "You saved 68!"
That week, I was sick in bed from the Hong Kong flu strain that had hit the U.S. But sick as I was, I roused myself enough to watch the Earthrise scene on TV. And the astronauts' Christmas message to Earth, I'll always remember.
Those of us who lived in Cocoa Beach witnessed every launch. We have not forgotten.
Amazing! I was privileged to view every single Saturn V launch in history from the beach at Daytona Beach. My 12 year-old self used a 6" aperture telescope for Apollo 6 and could read the "UNITED STATES" on the side of the rocket 45 miles away. That's how huge these rockets were. Five minutes later the ground could be felt vibrating under my feet! Those were amazing times.
Was working in oakhill and watched a few shuttle launches from acRoss the water...you could see the sound wave coming across the water ! Most impressive!
363 feet from the bottom of the F-1 engines to the Q-Ball that topped the Launch Escape System.
I watched 6 and 11 launch from Titusville we moved right after 12 couldn't see it launch because we were in school and the weather was bad so they wouldn't go outside
@@timwinn3904 "I think we need to do a little more all-weather testing."
What a great time to be a kid seeing buck Roger's flash Gordon finally came to life.
I still think George Mallory's and Andrew Irvine's failed attempt to scale Mt. Everest in 1924 is terrific forgotten history that deserves to be remembered.
EmpLemon did a pretty good video on the 1924 Everest attempt, however his video is not solely about their climb.
His approach to the subject matter is not as cut and dry as THG's.
th-cam.com/video/T-VZ1kL8ZgE/w-d-xo.html
There is a suspicion that the failed on the way back…
Agreed
Hardly forgotten
There was some kind of documentary on the search (and finding) of Mallory’s body. Face down and a large proportion of his back was frozen in time. They thought they had found Irvine but the back of the shred of collar left had Mallory’s name on it.
Apollo 8 was the first time human beings visited the moon. They didn't land on the moon but they were the first people to see the far side of the moon with their eyes. I remember all of the manned launches from Mercury to Apollo. I had scale models of the Mercury and Gemini capsules and launch vehicles. It was an exciting time for us.
I was also a kid when all that happened, my uncle worked at the Cape from Mercury through the ISS, after he passed away in 2017 family of mine down there sent me his jewelry box that has tie pins and cuff links from all the missions he was involved in, and he was involved in all of them.
I'll bet I could get a pretty penny for everything in that jewelry box, but I'll NEVER part with it.
@@dukecraig2402
I vividly remember Apollo 8. Myself and Willie Goods were guarding Pad 18 (the Alert Air Craft) C Diamond Osan AFB Christmas eve. It was a COLD clear night, and looking up realizing there were Americans circling The Moon. 54 years, and I still remember it like it was yesterday.
I'm totally alone on this, but I think the reading of the verses in orbit about the Moon was more significant than even the Apollo 11 landing.
@@thomasaquinas2600 No.
My brother used to have all sorts of Apollo models. I remember when everything was about space travel and astronauts and everyone was optimistic about the future of the world and USA. Those were the days my friend.
Some years back, I had as my computer desktop at work, a series of eclipse phases of the Moon with the largest central picture the full eclipse. Had several folks comment that the shots were really good and well done. Though in the past a photographer, they were not mine, and I'd just credit the fella who took the pictures, one David Morgan-Mar, creator of the "Irregular Webcomic". Only one co-worker ever got what was "wrong" with the pictures. "Why is the Moon upside down?" DMM is an Aussie, and lives in Sydney
This is a great story. Thank you for sharing that. One of my husband's and my favorite films is The Dish. We watch it several times a year. We love the scene where their science Guy had to rework all NASA's figures because they were from the northern hemisphere...
Fixes 1) POGO - add helium damper 2) second stage motor failures - caused by crossed cables so they shortened them preventing a mistake in assembly (also see #3), and 3) re-ignition of motor failure - beefed up the igniter that was ruptured by the POGO event (same fix on second stage).
That's right, the igniter pipe. I remembered the other two but forgot about the silly igniter.
Apollo 13 also experienced a minor pogo oscillation.
Second stage had ice problems too.
Excellent video, thank you. More space history please.
It's depressing to have lived through arguably the greatest achievement of humankind, only to see it fade into obscurity and become the subject of conspiracy theories. But I'm so very grateful I was born at the beginning of the Space Age and got to experience these events firsthand.
Same, same, same and same.
Follow SpaceX and you won't feel that way anymore. Starship, the largest rocket to ever (yes, EVER) try to reach orbit is nearly ready to be flown. The Falcon 9 rockets regularly fly and LAND on their tails, with some flying over 10 flights each. Their company has already flown several times more tonnage to orbit so far this year than the combined total everyone else has planned, yet they consider themselves to be about 1/3 done for the year. Their company goal: found a colony on Mars.
I only wish I was born then to watch it happen…
@@shugninx295 It was amazing. The entire world was captivated by Apollo like nothing since,
There was no space age it was one four decade long conspiracy
I was 9 years old when the Apollo I tragedy occurred. Like many boys my age, I was fascinated and extremely interested in the space program and, of course, drank Tang. I was devastated to learn of Ed White’s passing. Since he was the first American to do an EVA, he was somewhat of a hero to me. In addition, I had an uncle who worked at NASA in Houston whose house was only a few doors down from White’s. He was a medical doctor and, interestingly, can be seen in the background of a shot for Don Knotts’ movie, The Reluctant Astronaut. Because of that connection, I had some great tours of NASA and wowed my classmates when I was able to bring some “astronaut food" to show-and-tell.
Is tang still around??? Thanks cw..
@@cedarwest37 "Tang" is 100% certainly still around. Fun Fact: The creator of "Tang" also invented "Cool Whip" and "Pop Rocks".
Nothing like some good Tang first thing in the morning when you wake up
@@jamesslick4790 you can't have pie without cool hwip
@@hankkingsley9300 Nope, You can't.I believe doing so might even be illegal, 😜
When I was a kid and looked up at the night sky, there were no man made objects orbiting the Earth. Since that time, I have followed everything with varying degrees of interest. The Apollo One event was like losing family, but that is because the space program is one of the things that define our generation. In the late 1950s, at summer camp, we sent the nature camp counselor to the Moon on an overnight mission to bring back specimens. The older campers built a tall gantry out of timber and for special effects, dry ice was placed in tubs of water. When the campfire ceremony was concluded and the countdown commenced, a rocket was launched into the night sky. The next morning, the counselor made a presentation of his trip to the moon and showed us the Luna Moth that he had brought back that would be available for close inspection at the nature cabin. Only a dozen years later it became a reality, minus the green insects. Mova Globes are pretty nifty. I think my next one is going to be the Moon for sure.
I love studying the history of the USSR space missions and one of the aspects of both the Space Programs (manned, lunar and exploratory) is the history of the failure of launches, tests and lessons learned from people working hard and trying their best to engineer such feats.
A lot of men (and animals too) died horribly in the name of Science during that time and even, sometimes, today.
All work of mankind is a marathon and not a sprint, but we seem to love the more grandiose and easily successful missions when they go right. But Life is a series of lessons learned through failure and the more celebrated successes wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the tries and failures.
I do love the term “Unplanned Accomplishment” and I think it should be used more often. I’m going to start using more often starting today!!
I believe the Soviets had more failures with live crews than they have ever been admitted to.
In Mother Russia, anyone and anything can be sacrificed. As long as you are not a member of the Central Committee.
After John F. Kennedy announced going to the Moon on May 25, 1961, projects Gemini and Apollo were fast-tracked. Landing human crews on the Moon became a sprint. Gemini was a stop-gap program to test peocedures necessary to Apollo in LEO, such as EVA and rendevouz and docking. Apollo was supposed to start 3 months after Gemini 12, but the Apollo SA-204 fire changed that. That was the manifestation of the "GO fever" culture that had crept into NASA and filtered over into North American Aviation, who was building Block 1 CSMs hastily.
As for Russia, their Lunar dreams died in December, 1966 when Sergei Korolev expired on the operating table. Without him to work out the problems with the N-1 Moon Rocket, their project was doomed. 4 N-1s were built, all of them ended in RUD.
I'm a programmer and like calling bugs undocumented features.
There is speculation that a female cosmonaut was also killed in a secret mission in 1961 with radio transmissions recorded by two brothers who were ham radio enthusiast (can be heard elsewhere on TH-cam).
Excellent review. I wasn't aware of what Apollo 6 had achieved. Apollo 8 is my favourite.
I still recall being at my grand parents house in Opelousas Louisiana as a kid on Xmas whenever Apollo 8 was flying out around the Moon.
@@randybaumery5090 I remember watching the later moon landing on the news. I was 6 in 72.
@@SimonAmazingClarke I was10 years old when Apollo 11 did its landing.
8 was probably the most risky Apollo mission
Apollo 6 proved Murphy's Law. It pointed up that the Saturn V was capable of pogo oscillation. And somebody at North American Aviation cross-wired the S-II's J-2 engines somewhere in the thrust structure.
I love how recently the foreground and background decorations model the subject at hand.
Ah, the Apollo missions. I did a paper on them in 9th grade, the year following the landing of the first man on the moon. And I had a hard time finding anything on any mission between Apollo 1 and 7.
I still get goosebumps whenever I hear, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” Glued to the TV set we were, allowed to stay up way past bedtime to see it. What a day!
Thank you, History Guy, for the trip down Memory Lane, and the info I lacked for my report!
When your budget is 26 billion dollars, things don't go wrong, things go right in unexpected ways!😁👍
26 billion dollars would perk even Brandon's ears up. The Big Guy wants 10%.
@@1pcfred NASA's appropriation peaked at 4% of total Federal spending in 1966.
And the cost of the Orion-SLS for Artemis 1 is $21 billion over 11 years.
@@dalethelander3781 they'd better push the schedule up with the SLS being as relations are so poor with the Russians now. Perhaps we can divert some of the money we're flushing down in Ukraine? I do not see that investment paying any dividends. But then again my last name isn't Biden either.
@@1pcfred With the launch costs...only the operations at KSC...at $4.1 billion, Orion-SLS is unsustainable.
@@dalethelander3781 if that is the case then it fits right in with the present administration's economic policies. Remember, The Big Guy gets 10%! Did you hear what that chicken head Kamala just said to the Space Force? More like space farce. th-cam.com/video/vauVw45rNm0/w-d-xo.html
I have two things to comment on: 1) The American public was not disinterested in the program or bored, it's the press that gets bored and buries the news. It's the press that decides what it's going to cover or not cover. Same thing happens today. 2) There is a very good book, good read on the entire program. It's the "Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles"
Thanks for the tip about the book. Just downloaded it.
The chicken and the egg. The media reacts to the desires of its audience. If people aren’t watching, they don’t put stuff on, they’ll change the programming. A Frankensteinian sensationalism meets customer service.
Right, the first launch of the Saturn 5,Apollo4 was covered live by the networks but if I recall correctly only the Mutual Radio Network broadcast the launch of Apollo 6 only 5 months later.
I don't think that's true. The American public was very interested in Apollo--up to Apollo 15, when it had become clear that the Moon was just an airless, waterless, lifeless rock. Rocks are boring.
One of the directors of the Smithsonian said after Apollo:
"We went to the Moon--and then we stopped. And the reason we stopped was: we didn't find any Klingons there."
Gee, I remember Apollo 7 very well. Although I was a pre-teen at the time, I had a healthy interest in all kinds of technology - including space missions. But yes, all 2-6 Apollos were not registered by the press here in Europe. I don't remember Apollo 1 either - being too young at the time. I learned about that one much later in life. However - Apollo 8 was great news, because it was the first lunar flight. I was glued to the TV the whole time.
Ditto. That was my experience exactly. Born in 58
@@rogerpatry5167 Jahrgang 1960 ;-) Not too far apart!
@@rogerpatry5167 same!!!!
My first memory of the Space Program was Apollo 8, and I was all of 5 at the time. It was memorable for the Christmas Eve television broadcast from Moon orbit.
Born in 58.
Apollos 2 & 3 were cancelled in 1966 as they were carbon copies of Apollo 1's mission plan. Apollo 4 was the first "all stages live" test flight of the Saturn V carrying an unmanned Block 1 Apollo CSM. Apollo 5 was an unmanned test of the Lunar Module launched by a Saturn 1-B into LEO. Apollo 6 was a second "all stages live" test of the Saturn V, again flying an unmanned Block 1 Apollo CSM. At least 4 and 6 used up the Block 1 inventory.
Engineering is often thought of as always focused on exacting detail, and need to arrive at a desired right answer. This episode brings up two of my favorite characteristics of Real engineering, especially in early development. 1) sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good and 2) many (most?) of the best learnings come from examining failures that you didn’t expect.
This is why you test- you don’t know what you don’t know…and as good as simulation is today it only gets you so far.
Yep. Reminds me of an old saying: "The man who never made a mistake, never made anything."
Unfortunately that is a way of engineering that has largely been left behind thanks to Corporate America deciding that practical testing is too expensive and time consuming. Now it's all digitally modeled and simulated. Which does have it's benefits but relies on the computer being told all of the variables. Practical real world testing will always find flaws that the computer doesn't.
Being born in 1956 I grew up with the Apollo program. I remember collecting the badges off the back of my morning breakfast cereal. Watching it step by step. How many of us recall looking up at the moon and knowing that two men were on the surface. Suddenly the moon seemed closer.
Software engineer Hal Lanning commented "Something I did is on the moon right now. That is, a neat thought."
YES!! More engineering stories like this, please!
The early Apollo program is a treasure trove of fun history.
Life magazine had a 2-page photo spread showing the liftoff, which was probably the least coverage it gave to an Apollo mission. Also on April 4, 1968, "The Party" opened in theatres.
Peter Sellers' worst film.
Another movie premiere that day (April 4, 1968) was the first showing in Hollywood of "2001: A Space Odyssey". If you had to choose just one day to sum up the 1960's, I would vote for April 4, 1968. In the morning was the launch of Apollo 6 and in the evening were the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr and the Los Angeles premiere of Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke's most well known work. 2001 had screenings in New York on Monday April 1 (April Fool's Day) and in Washington D.C. on Tuesday April 2.
I should also mention that the first Stanley Cup playoffs of the NHL's expansion era began that night: Boston 1 @ Montreal 2: Chicago 1 @ New York 3; St. Louis 1 @ Philadelphia 0; Minnesota 1 @ Los Angeles 2.
Starring one Sharon Tate
@@jamessimms415 She wasn't in either of those movies.
Thank you again. I was consumed by the Mercury and Apollo program as a young boy in the 60's. I was transported back to that magical time by your episode.
A much different time than now. Would you have believed then that we'd have no way to get astronauts in space now?
50 years ago today, Apollo 16 astronauts John Young and Charlie Duke were on the Moon.
Are you sure about that?
Yes he is....sane people are...they splash down on the 27th after return.
That day, if I'm calculating right, Jupiter and Venus will be in pretty close conjunction, which will be a great pre dawn of easy viewing in the Eastern sky with the two brightest objects.
The moon will be New, but in the sky close by, in Aquarius.
@@WontSeeReplies it was on TV!
@@STho205 The lunar module of Apollo 16 touched down on the Moon's surface on April 20th 8:23pm Houston Texas local time.
They would stay on the surface for the next 3 days.
@@WontSeeReplies He is correct.
Tang was actually pretty good. At least that's how I remember it.
Some drowsy mornings, the babysitter would ask if I wanted orange juice and I would agree, only to be served Tang.
He son loved the stuff, I didn't.
I remember all of them. I was 5 years old and totally immersed in the Apollo program. I even had pajamas that looked like a space suit
I had Apollo rocket and capsule bed sheets.
As closely as I followed everything I didn’t know this at all. I turned 18 while Neil and Buzz were out of the LEM taking that first walk for humans on our Moon. I watched the final launch, Apollo 17 late at night, from outside the South Gate of KSC. I grew up 40 miles from the test center in Mississippi. I went with friends in high school to watch a couple of tests of the mighty Saturn V booster. I got an idea and pulled it off. We arrived laden with a lot of camera gear from 35 mm cameras to a 16 mm Bolex movie camera. I boldly went up to a NASA porters office and told him we were from a magazine (I made up a name on the spot) and got us all press passes. We loaded up on a school bus type bus and were driven to a gravel lot only one mile from the test stand. When it lit an angry looking orange flame multiple stories high and (I estimated) 700’ long shout out to the left. The sound was like nothing you will ever know, because even at a launch the VIPs are about 4 miles away I believe. It was so intense the bus rocked back and forth violently. I cupped my hands around the ear of a friend and shouted instructions. He could not hear a word I shouted from one inch away. My pants legs flapped from the sound pressure. There was no wind. Totally calm day. Atmospheric conditions had to be just right to have a test firing. It has to be a cloud free day. Tricks with listening equipment l had to go to surrounding towns while an extremely large horn was blown to test for clear air reflective layers. They didn’t know they needed to do this until after the first test. What happened? It broke windows out of houses in a town 25 miles away, well outside the giant forested easement zone. They learned. I heard a test firing from home one day. Pictures hanging on the wall started vibrating from low frequency shaking. I couldn’t imagine what the noise was at first, so I ran outside to see what direction it was coming from. It was from the west, exactly in the direction of the (now named) Stennis Space Center. There was a small cumulus cloud it was bouncing off of. The sky wasn’t 💯% free of clouds that day. The first ever test firing was at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville Alabama. They quickly saw the need for a remotely located facility tripartite to populations, as that was a cloudy day that repeatedly bounced the sound between land and sky. It was heard in downtown Atalanta. Southwest Mississippi was the obvious place for it as the booster was built at Michaud in New Orleans East. From there it was transport by barge, too big for land, along the Intercostal Waterway to the Pearl River and up a canal to the test stand. Then back out on a barge following the Gulf Coast all the way around Florida and up the Banana River to be offloaded to go to the giant VAB for the rocket stages to be stacked. It was a great rocket. I wish e were still built them or better yet, the proposed C8, a Saturn with 8 instead of 5 F1 engines on the first stage, 12 million pounds of thrust. That would have shook things up! I tried to see a shuttle launch but unfortunately I had bad timing in my attempts when there were lots of postponements. I intend to to an manned Artemis launch one day with a VIP pass. I haven’t figured out how, but I wrangled one in the Shuttle era so I’ll find s way to arrange something again, while I’m still here on Earth! I have, of course, just over seven decades behind me now, so there’s only a few more decades left I think, to get it done!
I love the comments on this channel, there’s always historical tidbits.
Historical tidbits and hysterical idiots.
I read that too quick I thought you said historical idiots which is usual for you tube
strongly suggest reading Breaking the Chains of gravity by Amy Shira Teital for the space era from the beginning through the founding of NASA and the Apollo program
I'd love to see a THG series that spends one episode per mission starting with Mercury.
Fascinating. This presentation sure has brought out the Kooks & conspiracy nuts. The members of the tinfoil hat wearing Flat Earth Society are certainly out in force today!
Good idea but I'd like to see it done thinking bigger; the history of rocketry beginning with Goddard perhaps?
I vividly remember the Apollo 1 disaster. It was the first time I was allowed to stay up later than usual the boom. I cried for several hours and never got to sleep that night.
I’ve done quality control, including designing and authoring build and test procedures. Getting failures based on the documentation is always welcomed as it assures the quality control is doing its’ job.
If everything goes as predicted you learned nothing new. It's almost like exploration, triangulation, trigonometry and research- new data points from multiple perspectives yield superior depth of information.
Yeah, but somebody at North American Aviation cross-wired the J-2 engine's connection to the IU on Apollo 6.
A little more info on why the second and third stage engines failed, from someone who's been a fan of this stuff for years:
The J2 engines on those stages were kept alight by somehing called an Augmented Spark Igniter (ASI); it's basically a tiny spark plug that constantly burns some fuel tapped off from the main flow to produce a flame that ignites the fuel coming into the main thrust chamber.
Fuel is fed to the ASI through a set of bellowed pipes; during sea-level testing, a layer of liquid air condenses around them due to how cold the liquid hydrogen and oxygen in them is. The liquid air serves to dampen oscillations; however, in the vacuum of space, there is no air to condense, and the pogo effect that happened to the entire rocket happened on a much smaller scale to these bellows. Eventually, the one on Engine 2 ruptured, causing it to lose performance and eventually shut down. That would have been the end of it, but the wiring of Engines 2 and 3 is actually accidentally reversed; thus, when the computer tried to shut the problematic engine down, it shut down the adjacent, perfectly good engine.
As for the third stage, its ASI was also damaged by these vibrations. However, the engine managed to last through the first burn to orbit. Then suffice it to say that this failure was enough to prevent the engine from restarting.
It was hypothesized that this didn't happen on Apollo 4, since the pipes weren't weakened beforehand by the kind of oscillations 6 experienced.
The fix applied here was to change the bellowed ASI pipes to straight ones, which behave the same regardless of air condensation.
As for the "alternate mission", this involved using the Apollo spacecraft's Service Module (SM) engine to boost itself into an elliptical orbit, though it was still lower than what was planned. (Ironically the SM was underfuelled for this mission, when the Saturn 5 was perfectly capable of sending it to the Moon fully fuelled.) The resulting burn was the longest ever logged for an SM, lasting almost 500 seconds.
With that, here's some additional infor on all that I summarised:
www.drewexmachina.com/2018/04/04/apollo-6-the-saturn-v-that-almost-failed/
heroicrelics.org/info/j-2/augmented-spark-igniter.html
www.enginehistory.org/Rockets/RPE08.22/RPE08.22.shtml
I wondered why it looked like a torch lighting the engine bell
So the short story is we never went to the Moon
I had the great honor to meet Jim Lovell many years ago before the movie Apollo 13 came out, he was also on Apollo 8 that took the famous earth rise photo
Jim Lovell always seemed like a chill guy.
And held the record for hours in space for many years, until Skylab 2. Gemini 7, Gemini 12, Apollo 8, Apollo 13.
Agreed Jim Lovell despite all his accomplishments always seemed like a nice guy; no ego issues with him
I was in high school, back in the Apollo days. The manned flights were certainly covered on TV, but you didn't hear much about the unmanned flights. I also read a lot about the Apollo and earlier programs in later years.
That was a good one! They're all good ones but Apollo is a favourite.. ❤️😎👍
I used to work for someone (who has since passed) who worked for one of the contractors on the Apollo program. He was a software engineer who wrote some of the onboard software for the modules. He told one story, never exactly identifying which mission it was, that failed due to being launched in a rush to beat the Soviets to some milestone. The government pushed for it to be launched knowing some of the necessary software was incomplete or missing.
At its peak 10% of the US workforce was in some way connected to the Apollo mission. So yeah a lot of folks knew someone that worked on Apollo in some often obscure way. Even if we didn't exactly know.
I used to work with someone who was good friends with an engineer who worked on the Apollo reentry. We all used to all go to happy hour once a week and got lots of stories
@@1pcfred Do you have a source for that info?
@@hubbsllc was something I read someplace. It isn't surprising considering the scale of Apollo and how government contracts are awarded. Basically if you want the funds allocated you have to promise enough politicians their district will get work out of it. Houston we have a budget problem. Ever wonder why they launched from Florida but mission control was in Texas? Texas wanted to get paid too!
The Apollo software (CM and LM) was not developed by a contractor but by MIT. There is enough information about the Apollo Guidance Computer here on TH-cam.
Another Awesome video, I love this channel!!
thank you! i always enjoy your videos regarding space travel
The comment at 13.44 is slightly inaccurate as the next time NASA "used a rocket" was for Apollo 7. Apollo 7 was the next and first manned mission using the redesigned Apollo capsule atop of a Saturn 1B launch vehicle and it didn't leave Earth orbit, it was manned by Walter M. Schirra, Donn F. Eisele, R. Walter Cunningham. It wasn't until Apollo 8 that another Saturn 5 launch vehicle was used to take a crewed mission into TLI and headed for the moon, that mission was crewed by Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders. The Apollo missions were labelled eg : Apollo Saturn, Apollo Saturn 1B or Apollo Saturn V (5). The proceeding 4 missions at the end of the manned moon space flight missions were for Skylab. Skylab (1) (unmanned) was the last of the Saturn V (5) launch vehicles to be used and the 3 crewed missions to Skylab were all flown with a Saturn 1B launch vehicle using the same launch tower as a Saturn V (5) only it sat on what was called a milk stool. The final mission of any Saturn launch vehicle was the Apollo- Soyuz mission in 1975 and was the last Saturn 1B used.
Apollo-Soyuz was also kind of nice for Deke Slayton, who'd been selected for Project Mercury but didn't get to fly on it, due to a heart condition that was only detected because of NASA's incredibly rigorous medical screening. He spent several years running the flight crew operations for NASA. He had also been following a very careful diet and exercise regime, and got his heart condition to clear up to the extent he got his flight status back in 1970. He was assigned to Apollo-Soyuz, becoming the last Mercury astronaut to fly his first mission, and the last one to fly at all until the business with John Glen getting a shuttle flight.
"Wally, Walt, and what's-his-name."
@@evensgrey Deke Slayton & Tom Stafford taking seats on Apollo-Soyuz after years between missions (for Stafford) and no flights at all (for Slayton) almost got them all killed. There was a near disaster on re-entry in which the vented and toxic left over fuel entered the space capsule and nearly killed all three astronauts. It was a very close thing. Slayton & Stafford were both very big shots and used their clout to get their seats on Apollo-Soyuz over better trained and readier astronauts still in the program, which turned out to be an unwise decision.
As for John Glenn's shuttle flight, Frank Borman has some interesting comments on that. Basically it was a quid-pro-quo for Glenn's supporting Bill Clinton during the Monica Levinsky scandal. NASA doesn't exist outside the world of politics.
@@RRaquello Tom Stafford's quick thinking saved his life as well as the lives of his two crew members by first manually throwing the switch to deploy the parachutes and then handing the oxygen mask to Slayton and putting it on for Brand who had already passed out from inhaling the fumes. I believe the main reason he was chosen to command this mission was that he was already fairly fluent in Russian from the times he had spent in Star City which is where the Russian Cosmonauts train.
@@dsny7333 It's interesting that in Slayton's own book, when he talks about Gemini 9, he expresses regrets in allowing sentiment to cloud his judgement in that Elliot See was commander of the flight when he thought Charlie Bassett was better qualified, and he blamed the crash that killed both on what he saw as See's weaker piloting skills. Had Bassett been commander, he would have been flying the T-38, and Slayton was convinced that in the same situation, Bassett wouldn't have crashed. (He considered the now almost forgotten Bassett to be "the star" of his astronaut group and a very strong possibility to be on the first moon landing flight). But he thought it was impossible to make a junior (Bassett, Group 3) astronaut a commander in a flight with a senior (See, Group 2) astronaut. Military guys are so obsessed with seniority. Slayton was picked for the Apollo-Soyuz flight for the same reason-sentiment-and it almost cost him his life.I guess they figured it was a simple flight, just into orbit and back, and that there was little danger of hazards, but once again the idea that there is a simple, safe space flight was proven wrong.
I was in elementary school at the time. The teachers rolled in TV'S so we could watch all of the lunches. It was a big deal for kids who lived in the country and didn't have TV'S. We got the first set in 1971 and could watch the one station that would come in.
Of course kids today are so accustomed to audio-visual presentation was in the classroom they can't really appreciate what a big deal it was.
In the late 60's, my dad was stationed in Hawaii. I remember being over at some ones house to watch the landing and then getting to see the capsule
I remember when broadcasts went off the air for periods during the day and then again around midnight with the star spangled banner.
So true...our first tv 1954....cost a fortune!!!
Congratulations on 1 Million Subscribers. 🎊
Great video! I watched a lot of Apollo related videos in the last five years but I still learned a few new details.
Your opening animation reminds me of Schoolhouse Rock, how appropriate. I remember watching that while watching astronauts being launched and gallivanting on the moon!🧑🚀🌜
And now I'm singing "I'm Just a Bill"
@@romeogolf4 seems to be a recurring theme today, I've been reminded of the fifth Dimension's Age of Aquarius/let the sunshine in & Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Free Falling by some of today's comments
@@romeogolf4 "Interplanet Janet"! Why didn't we think of that?!😃👍
Conjunction Junction, what's your function? Damn near 50 years later and I can still sing them all.
Tx u again for a fantastic video.👍🏻👍🏻
Great video and as usual, very educational.
I'm going to check out those globes. The way you were holding it, I was almost expecting you let them go and they'd float in mid air.
Looking forward to that Apollo 7 video, hope you make it!
As a kid who never missed a manned launch starting with Gemini 3, I totally missed Apollo 4 and 6. I never knew until much more recent times that either was televised. I suspect that neither was or would have been front page news given that they were unmanned flights. At the time, they were just not important without a crew. It was nothing like now where almost anything going to space can be seen live on demand.
This week is the anniversary of Apollo 16 I think.
Excellent retelling, and thank you for citing your sources (unlike many TH-cam productions).
Great videos! 👍 Always learn something new! 😃
As an engineer who watched the Apollo launches as a child, it always amazes and inspires me how the rigorous mission testing ultimately led to the later successes of the Saturn V launch platform. Compare that with the failed Soviet N2 program, which was an all-or-nothing test that failed spectacularly.
Proper preparation prevents poor performance
@@HM2SGT I always adore alliteration.
Imagine if Korolev had come to the US and gotten the support von Braun did.
*N-1
All 4 N-1s experienced RUD.
@@samsignorelli Korolev was dead by the time of the N-1. If he'd been alive the results would likely have been different.
I really enjoy your channel and am always looking forward to your next episode!
Thank you , one of the finest programs.
Space, the final frontier.
These are the voyages of the Apollo Space Program.
Its year to year mission, to explore strange, new worlds.
To boldly go where no man has gone before.
I really want one of those globes. They are out of my price range but I don’t doubt they are quality
IIRC, Mova offers their globes at a couple price points. I bought my dad a Mars Mova for his birthday, and he adores it. Tough audience, too -- lifelong astronomer and avid astrophotographer, esp of the planets.
I have the Earth one. Looking at it spinning right now. It's delightful. Need to get more eventually.
@@currentsitguy I’m so jealous lol
@@XD152awesomeness My wife got it for me I think two years ago for Christmas. It doesn't take a lot of light to get it spinning. Mine goes with just a little 5W LED pendant light.
I never heard of Apollo 6, but I remember the Apollo missions from 7 onward. While I knew about the tragedy of Apollo 1, I always wondered why the first actual Apollo flight (that I knew of) was given the number 7.
I was told that it was due to past missions and some superstition regarding manned missions. Liberty 7, Friendship 7.....with Apollo 1 and the tragedy, the fable grew about naming the first real (okay, next ) manned mission starting with lucky 7.... that's stuck with me for 50 years.
Thank you Lance your Video about Apollo 6 will not be forgotten .
A great video, thanks. I remember the days well.
Good way to start the day
I'd like to request you look at the History of floods in Lismore NSW Australia. We have just had a monster flood higher by multiple meters than any in recorded history. I'd love to see an explanation about the mostly forgotten history of major floods here that exceeded 12m.
Great work Sir thank you
I’m definitely ordering one of those mova globes! Great episode!
13:30 Considering the sort of pilot Wally Schirra was, I doubt they would have launched if Wally wasn't happy.
As it was, I think NASA regretted launching him once the mission got going.
The sad part was, Wally wasn't wrong.
Great stuff as usual, love all of your videos. I learn something every time even though I don't want to know some of it! LOL
I remember riding in a 1965 Muscle Car in Yosemite National Park one Summer with an 8 Track Tape Deck with a Quad Speaker System installed. Every time we exited the vehicle Stan would take the Tape out and put it in the Trunk to foil Potential Thieves. Then, when we returned to his vehicle he would take the tape out of the trunk and immediately put it back in the 8 Track Tape Player. The Hall Effect was absolutely fabulous. The sound was like sitting in the middle of a Concert Hall at the point where all the vocals and instruments could be heard with great clarity. I decided that I would get one of these one day but ended up with 1/4 inch tape instead. The 8 Track Tape format may have been displaced by newer technology, but the Hall Effect Sound Quality of those 8 Track Tape Decks was amazing and has never been equaled.
I can't wait for the story of Apollo 7. Great job on this video. You have details that I have not found in many of my Apollo books.
I remember watching Apollo 17 as a boy. I was excited to talk to my friends about it and they couldn’t care less. To think watching a spaceship go to the moon had become boring.
I think a lot of folks realized it'd never be them. Once you realize that you just can't be so invested in it then either. Then it's something that others are doing and you never will.
a lot of my friends didn't care much about the Apollo flights either they were more interested in baseball. which I felt was a boring game. Its a shame they didn't realize they were ignoring the most pivotal event of the era. Now over 50 years later there seems to be a rejuvenated interest in space exploration-and almost all sports fans agree : baseball is boring!
A co-worker and I were talking about this mission about 15 or 20 years ago and both laughed about how things went so wrong that it went into orbit backwards and NASA saying OK lets put men in the next one and send them to the moon.
That reminds me of Wally Schirra's anecdote about how NASA was getting complaints from animal welfare activists about sending chimps into space--so they sent up Al Shepard instead.
The next one was Apollo 7 on a Saturn 1B, which never left Earth orbit.
Apollo 8 was the first manned mission on a Saturn V and circled the moon.
Can you imagine the pucker factor on that mission, first manned full up Saturn V and first humans to leave Earth's orbit.
The astronauts were pretty nuts to go on those missions. It's not something I could do.
I love your work! Thank you so much for the great info and excellent presentation of each episode.
I will, however, make an observation: The sound as you cut away from your studio leaves a lot to be desired, especially lately. I suspect that you're using podcast audio interspersed, but in any case, the audio quality and volume level is very different and sometimes makes it hard to enjoy. Just wanted to let you know, and that I appreciate your work, regardless!
More of this please.. Reminds me of my childhood days... Those globes are the coolest 😎 !
We learn from mishaps, not from things that went as expected. (Okay - I'm a retired troubleshooter... but it is still true.)
As the kids like me say, "Task Failed Successfully"
Lovely intro, lovely content, lovely video, lovely channel!
You are amazing my dude! Keep it up!
When the LM landed it was reported the Eagle has landed. It had a triple meaning -1) lunder module named Eagle 2) American national bird 3)Niel Armstrong Eagle Scout
4:53 That massive writing on the oxygen tank makes the whole thing look like a model shot from Thunderbirds.
I'm thinking about how everyone smoked everywhere at that time. NASA probably needed monster font for employees to take the warning seriously.
Derek Meddings' best rocket launch is in "Journey to the Far Side of the Sun," Gerry Anderson's first foray into live action after years of success with Supermarionation. Beats even the launch of SUNPROBE in Thunderbirds.
Meddings stayed with Anderson through UFO until he became Cubby Broccoli's photographic FX in-house supervisor on the Bond films.
@@dalethelander3781 I always looked forward to Derek breaking out his Stuka sound effect, as I know there would be some miniature carnage on the way.
Nice job, and thank you for reminding us of the various steps of the American Moon program.
Always packed with factual information, love it 👍
It’s crazy hearing about all of the research, building, test trials, stress tests and everything that goes into the designing, the engineering, the building, the test trials (especially the ones that end in disaster), and the overall general maintenance of a rocket with falling apart pieces and to know we’ve had the tech for a long time and been using this for comet for almost 60 years while in the land of communist China they are barely getting to that level of rocket tech
Would love to hear more about the Ranger missions and lunar impact equipment on an episode
My family would get up and watch the live TV from JPL of Ranger Mission impacts I was 12 -13. Next was Surveyor, which determined that the surface of the moon was not a deep layer dust formed from frequent meteor impacts, and spacecraft would not sink into the dust like quicksand. That was actually considered a real possibility.
@@stevenlynn3942 the surveyor missions were a vital step leading to Apollo. While NASA was not the first to send spacecraft to the moon, the surveyors were the first to "soft land" on the lunar surface thus paving the way for the Apollo lunar modules
@@dsny7333 Yep.
I worked in south Florida back in the day. On my way home for lunch I looked looked north and saw the broken smoke trail from the Challenger. The company I worked for made underwater remote operated vehicles. We got one ready and sent it north to help in the search.
Fun to hear you talking about things I remember.
While growing up if the launches were during the school day we would watch it during a school assembly.
Same here.
The apollo missions are fascinating. Bit before my time.
It was pretty exciting at the time. But as fast as it happened it died out too.
Great video! Apollo 8 is my personal favorite.
7:50 this is the first full description of the Pogo effect i have heard of :)
Where Apollo 6 proved that humans rated flight could proceed what occurred on Apollo 7 first manned mission would be more fractious. The under current between those at Mission Control-Astronauts was nothing new and still is comes down to who's in charge since every minute has a task planned. Indeed the friction became so heated that it would change how those that flew afterwards were treated but a message was sent by punishing Apollo 7 crew that lasted decades. Giving medals went with space flight and unlike others who received ones for accomplishment finishing a mission Apollo 7 were denied theirs well into the new millennium. Indeed only one of the three crew member was still alive when finally rewarded showed how its culture was often at odds with what the public saw.
Are you related to Ken?
To Phil.. In all likelihood the answer is no but it was a hoot when Apollo 16 lifted of that some reading about it in elementary school class I was in asked me if I was. I remember watching the grainy images of Apollo 11 landing on the Moon on TV and those that came after it often in class if it occurred during those days. On the day the Space Shuttle Colombia was lost I had incidentally been watching the reentry on TV and saw live the reaction on ground control that they were lost. Having many books on aviation I remember writing in one over the illustration of the Shuttle Challenger the date of its loss Just afterwards since it was published before that day was eerie reminder of it as well.
Thanks for this, Lance! Anything about Apollo, and especially about the mighty Saturn V, l justu7) can’t get enough of it. That monster stands alone. Here almost 60 years later, it still dominates everything we have that takes payloads into space. Think what it takes to earn the designation “ The most powerful man made object, machine, device, in all of human history. Imagine a ‘69 model ANYTHING rolling up next to a 2022 model similar thing where the observers are all keenly aware that the antique can smoke the wannabe in every way.
Image if you spent 30 years hearing. Das Kerosin muss schneller fließen! You can offset the weight if you can get rid of it faster.
I am English an as a young lad I like others was spell bound with that famous day that the Apollo missions eventually went to the moon! I have never forgotten it and I was 9 or ten at the time! I have become a member of you channel! I cannot wait for part two ;)
Great one
I knew that it was going to be Spacey unlike Kevin. 🤔
Back in the Saddle Again!
I was literally constipated in sin city about 30 minutes ago ;)
@@Perichron I hope that you are Free Falling Flowing now! Have a safe and happy weekend
@@constipatedinsincity4424 and *NOW* I'm going to have Tom Petty stuck in my head the rest of the day LOL!
@@HM2SGT I have been singing ever since that comment
Dear Mr History Guy , Thank You.
Wonderful addition to my life .
I love history too. Gotta have it !
Have you ever heard of A chap, James Burke ?
Maybe . I grew up on him in the 1980"S
with his historical series Connections & The Day The Universe Change.
Too little space to detail here but is sug... ok
Burke however does a specific narration alongside the Saturn 5 on it 's side walking explaining mechanisms, as one rocket takes
off in the background ,with liftoff at perfect timing ,ending his explanation in grand fashion.
Well , your tidbits of 15 min. of history, I think pick up where his left off!!!
You Rock History Guy....... and sometimes , gal!
CHEERS \m/
Moonport is a great read. Nicely done.
The moon is Flat!! And we never landed on the Earth!!!
wait.... 🤔
😹👍🤣👏
@@HM2SGT🤣👍
Being honest, I think some people can name Apollo 13 easier than Apollo 11. For me, I can honestly only recall Apollo 1, 11 and 13 off hand.
8 was pretty cool.
@@STho205 -- Apollo 8 (not "Apollo XX") first flew men to orbit the moon on Christmas Eve, 1968.
@@markmh835 you're right. Memory is fickle.
Thank's for covering this mission. What's most astounding is that had it been a manned test, the astronauts would have made it to Earth orbit despite what happened. It would have been fascinating to listen to, even if the all the communications tapes would have been censored, there's no way a 'seven second gap' would have been able to filter out all the bad language...
Definitely a wild ride, not for the faint of heart...
Good story. I recently listened to "A Man on the Moon" written by Andrew Chaikin. He covers every Apollo mission in detail. Each mission is an engaging story in it's own right. If you have any interest in space exploration, pick up this book. I highly recommend the audio version.