Does Apollo 10 could land on the moon?

[Pawelk198604]

I know that was dress rehearsal before apollo 11,  i heard that Apollo 10 Lunar Module the LM4  "Snoopy' was deliberately under fueled to make sure astronauts not attempt unsanctioned lunar landing, but this a bit lame, it was like when US government forced Von Braun to put sand bags on his Jupiter C rocket to make sure he not make unsanctioned satellite launch with result that Soviets go there first  

I wonder why NASA not attempted Lunar Landing at first possibility and does "Snoopy' was deliberately under fueled?

[Bill Phil]

They weren't quite where they wanted to be when it came to knowledge of the Moon's gravity field.

Really they were testing the LM in close proximity to the Moon. Various things like radar, surveying the Sea of Tranquility, and such things in preparation for Apollo 11. Besides, two out of the three crewmembers got to land on later missions. Why would they load extra fuel for something they weren't going to even do? And of course there's the issue of the crew actually attempting landing... but even if they did, they likely weren't prepared or trained for what would come after the landing.

Edited September 3, 2017 by Bill Phil

[tater]

No, the Apollo 10 LEM did not have all the mass reductions of the later versions, so I as I understand it, the dry mass was a little higher. Since the mission plan did not include landing, the ascent module was under fueled---because NASA wanted the LEM to have the right handling characteristics. As a result the ascent module was fueled such that in lunar orbit it would have the propellant that would have remained after leaving the lunar surface and making orbit.

So, yes, under fueled, but for a different reason. (though maybe both reasons  )

[Ultimate Steve]

1 hour ago, tater said:

(though maybe both reasons  )

Yeah, I could totally see myself making an unplanned Lunar landing against my orders...

[tater]

17 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Yeah, I could totally see myself making an unplanned Lunar landing against my orders...

Yeah, incredibly unlikely that anyone would do that, but knowing it's impossible would improve the psychology of it. Think how much harder it would be on the crew, lol.

[mikegarrison]

Real life isn't KSP. Astronauts aren't going to decide on the spur of the moment to go do some other mission with their spacecraft.

[Scotius]

Rrrrrighhhttt. Not like anyone ever broke the rules. By smuggling contraband onboard the spaceship for example - like unsanctioned ham sandwich or something. Unthinkable

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

They tried to prevent their emigration to the Moon from the world of money.

 

[mikegarrison]

2 hours ago, Scotius said:

Rrrrrighhhttt. Not like anyone ever broke the rules. By smuggling contraband onboard the spaceship for example - like unsanctioned ham sandwich or something. Unthinkable

I've actually been on a lot of flight testing. Little things get bent a little. Big rules don't. It's like doing a pre-flight checklist -- you do what you are supposed to do because you know that's the data you need to collect AND because you know that's what was reviewed for safety.

[Nibb31]

2 hours ago, Scotius said:

Rrrrrighhhttt. Not like anyone ever broke the rules. By smuggling contraband onboard the spaceship for example - like unsanctioned ham sandwich or something. Unthinkable

There's a bit of a difference between smuggling stamps and landing on the Moon when you're not supposed to.

8 hours ago, Pawelk198604 said:

I wonder why NASA not attempted Lunar Landing at first possibility and does "Snoopy' was deliberately under fueled?

There was no rush at this point. The USA knew where the Soviet Union was with the N-1. Remember that NASA was traumatized by the Apollo 1 disaster and the whole Apollo mission profile was extremely dangerous. The LM was the most critical part of the mission and had only flown in space once, so they needed to be sure that it would work. Apollo 10 actually simulated a landing abort.

[KSK]

Apart from all the good reasons pointed out above, Apollo 10 was only the second ever flight to the Moon and there were still a ton of things to test and objectives to meet before the mission planners would have been anywhere near confident in a lunar landing attempt.

Also Mission Control wasn't anywhere near ready for a landing attempt with Apollo 10. Training for the landing was hard - the final powered descent to the surface involved a whole lot of critical go/no go decisions happening very quickly. It took the flight control teams a long time to strike the right balance between taking too many risks and putting the crew into an unrecoverable position, and being too cautious, so calling an abort on what would have been a good landing attempt.

If anyone's curious, I can thoroughly recommend reading NASA's Apollo flight journals  - the one for Apollo 10 is here. It really drives home the sheer amount of detail involved in flying to the Moon, the sheer amount of stuff the crew had to do - and the very large disconnect between doing it in reality and doing it in KSP.

Edited September 3, 2017 by KSK

[wumpus]

6 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

I've actually been on a lot of flight testing. Little things get bent a little. Big rules don't. It's like doing a pre-flight checklist -- you do what you are supposed to do because you know that's the data you need to collect AND because you know that's what was reviewed for safety.

Where does the Skylab mutiny fall on the big/little scale?  I know none of the astronauts flew again.

I think a bigger reason was that they really needed Houston's help to run the entire mission.  Any procedure that didn't assume constant radio contact was either for behind the moon (or other cases that it is expected) or go straight to abort and return home.

[Confused Scientist]

11 hours ago, Scotius said:

Rrrrrighhhttt. Not like anyone ever broke the rules. By smuggling contraband onboard the spaceship for example - like unsanctioned ham sandwich or something. Unthinkable

It was actually corned beef. Before it flew on Gemini 3, the masterminds behind the prank got a couple just like it tossed off a ladder to see which one would handle freefall the best.

The AGS/PGNS guidance software failure may have caused problems with an attempted landing, but if I remember correctly the flaw was just one switch out of position. So the main problem was weight.

[Exploro]

13 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

The LM was the most critical part of the mission and had only flown in space once...

Actually twice; Apollo missions 5 & 9.

[kerbiloid]

Don't know if this cargo was listed.
https://history.nasa.gov/40thmerc7/grissom.htm

Quote

By now, Gus realized that he was having a hard time just keeping his head above the water. "Then it dawned on me that in the rush to get out before I sank I had not closed the air inlet port in the belly of my suit, where the oxygen tube fits into the capsule. Although this hole was not letting much water in, it was letting air seep out, and I needed that air to help me stay afloat."²⁵ With his suit quickly losing buoyancy, Grissom wished that he could dump the souvenirs he had stored in the left leg pocket of his space suit. "I had brought along two rolls of fifty dimes each for the children of friends, three one dollar bills, some small models of the capsule and two sets of pilot's wings. These were all adding weight that I could have done without."

 

Spoiler

Hermes hijack would beat both Skylab mutiny and unauthorized Moon landing.
Two flights to Mars instead of one.

 

[Nibb31]

9 hours ago, Exploro said:

Actually twice; Apollo missions 5 & 9.

Correct. Although for Apollo 5, the LM was seriously cut-down and unmanned.

[NSEP]

On 03/09/2017 at 6:48 AM, tater said:

Yeah, incredibly unlikely that anyone would do that, but knowing it's impossible would improve the psychology of it. Think how much harder it would be on the crew, lol.

I usually fantasize alot about people doing stupid actions in spaceflight. Don't ask why.  Someone turn it into a comedy that nobody would like pls.

Anyways, if you have to test something new, test it, don't risk using an Early-Acces/Alpha as the finished thing.