Nibb31

There is no maybe this or maybe that. We simply don't know the effects of microgravity or partial gravity on development of a foetus, an infant or a child.

The Shenzhou is rated for 3 men, in a living space that is similar to Apollo (maybe even larger, I haven't checked). I supposed they would go with a similar 3-man mission profile, because it simply makes sense. You can have all the computers you want, it's always better to have at least 2 crew members for double checks and contingency modes, plus it's hard to don a space suit on your own. I really doubt anyone would do a 1-man lander, it just doesn't make sense.

Right. I seem to remember you claiming that the pen kind of saved the day, but whatever. The DSKY was just a keypad and display panel. It was the user interface, not the computer. The DSKY couldn't start anything. And the computer could not start the engine if the engine arm circuit was open. Which is why it had to be closed in the first place. The whole point of a engine arm circuit breaker is to prevent the engine from firing. Using the computer to fire the engine was the primary procedure. There was an auxiliary procedure to start the engine manually which involved pressing a manual START button. Both of these probably needed the engine arm circuit to be closed. And there were probably a dozen other procedures and workarounds to fire the engine because they were so paranoid about it and had devised multiple contingency modes for just about any component failure, including circuit breakers.

This should be in the Space Lounge, not Science Labs.

That really depends on where you live. In Europe, most of the large power and transport infrastructures, and even a large chunk of the heavy industries (mining, aerospace, automobile, power, etc...), were initiated, developed, and controlled by the government until the 1980's.

Did you bother to read the rest of the thread? A circuit breaker doesn't have a «handle». It has a push-pull button. The button broke off leaving a hole. You keep on moving goalposts here, and using words that you clearly don't understand (use the DSKY ? Seriously?). You claimed that without their pen, they would have been stranded on the Moon. You were wrong. Which seems to be a bit of a pattern here.

It wasn't a handle. It was a circuit breaker. And it had nothing to do with the computer. Do you even know what a circuit breaker is? The engine could be fired manually by pressing a big yellow START button. The circuit could also have been rerouted and the switch could have been repaired. The pen didn't save their lives. Their lives were never at risk. It saved them a bit of repair work or manual burn, that's all.

50 years of paper study doesn't make much of a good start.

It's just you. Just compare: - The number of prospective Mars and Moon base studies complete with pretty "artist's impression" pictures and scale models. - The number of actual Mars and Moon bases that have been built. This is just another paper study. It's business as usual in the space world.

Note that these films weren't just for PR. The staging events between the S-IC and the S-II were pretty complex and it was essential that everything worked fine. For example, if the interstage had stayed attached to the S-II, the mass penalty would have prevented the rocket from reaching orbit and the mission would be lost.

The camera pods detached from the stages and parachuted down. They had a beacon that allowed them to be located and retrieved in the ocean. In those days, video transmission quality was insufficient for this sort of application and it was routine business for the navy to go out and pick up film capsules from spy satellites.

I really don't have an answer for the question. Competition is usually a waste of resources, whereas cooperation allows to share competencies and resources in a far more rational way. Humans however, are not fundamentally rational beings, especially in a group. I just wanted to thank the OP for his well constructed posts. The tone, the illustrations, the captions, and the actual content raise the quality of this forum. Thanks.

Mobile phones would have been invented with or without Star Trek.

I have, and so can you. You could start by the actual voice recorder transcript of the event here. Aldrin reports the problem at 04 06 56 28. Later, the problem seems to be solved at 05 03 20 43. Liftoff happens nominally 1 hour later at 05 04 21 54. There doesn't seem to be any other reference to the engine arm circuit breaker problem, so judging by the transcript and the 3 or 4 lines dedicated to the matter, without making a big deal out of it, he just stuck a pen into the hole when he was supposed to close the breaker a few hours before liftoff. His only concern was that he couldn't reopen the circuit breaker if necessary, but there was no reason to do so and Houston didn't seem too concerned. I found this tidbit here. And also this: So there seems to be some confusion about whether the circuit breaker was fixed by rewiring or by inserting a pen. There are some other quotes here. You can see what the panels looked like here. Look for the LMP Circuit Breaker Panels. Like the rest of the LM, these panels had apparent screws so that they could be dismantled and fixed if necessary. It would have been easy to replace the broken circuit breaker if necessary. The LM had all sorts of backup systems and redundancies. I can assure you that neither NASA nor the astronauts were stupid enough to die stranded on the Moon because of a dumb switch.

Among other things, yes. Having a crew member aboard the CSM allowed all sorts of contingency modes that simply weren't possible if they had left it on orbit unmanned. For example, the CMP could have performed the rendez vous if the LM failed to reach the proper altitude. Or he could have actively done the docking if the LM's tracking radar had failed or if, for some reason, the LM's manoeuvring systems didn't work. Or he could have prepared an EVA if the LM failed to dock. He could also relay communications between the LM and Houston. The CMP's role was essential. It really was a no brainer.

You've really got to stop rehashing that pen thing. It was just a circuit breaker switch that broke off, nothing life-threatening and hardly a "stranded on the Moon" situation. There were a dozen contingency plans for such a situation, including rerouting the circuit through another switch or fixing it with any of the tools they had on board. They simply used a felt-tip pen to move the switch because it was at hand and it was the obvious thing to do.

Weight. The engine weigned 82 Kgs and the LM had to be as light as possible. It was so shaved down that its skin was as thin as aluminium foil in some places. Instead of adding a redundant engine, they decided to make it as reliable as possible by using gravity-fed hypergolics and limiting the number of moving parts to a couple of valves.

If the LM failed to dock, the plan was to transfer to the CSM by EVA. This required that the Command Module Pilot would depressurize the CSM, open the hatch, and maintain position with the LM. Just about every event during the mission had at least one or two contingency modes. Just about the only thing that didn't was if the LM ascent engine failed. And that was the event for which a presidential speech prepared.

That's exactly the reason. The Soviet lunar stack was much less capable and much more dangerous. The LK could only stay a few hours on the Moon surface, and the crew would have had to stay strapped in their seats for the entire mission. Even if the N1 had reached orbit, the rest of the mission was so risky that they would have been very lucky if the cosmonauts had returned alive.

There were no "engineers" or "medics". Except for Jack Schmitt who was the only civilian and a geologist, all NASA astronauts were test pilots with a military background. These guys considered themselves the best of the best, senior test pilots, and had a huge ego. During Gemini, when the program required mission titles for the crew, the first proposal was to have "Pilot" and a "Co-pilot". This caused a huge protest, because they were senior test pilots and none of them wanted to have the title of co-pilot during a mission. So they came up with the roles of "Commander" and "Pilot" (CDR and PLT in the mission transcripts). This was carried over for Apollo where the roles were defined as "Commander", "Command Module Pilot" and "Lunar Module Pilot" (CDR, CMP and LMP in the mission transcripts). After Apollo, for Skylab, the mission roles were CDR, CMP and Science Pilot (for Skylab) or Docking Module Pilot (for ASTP)

I don't think Yucca Mountain would have had anything to do with Fukushima debris, not being on the same continent. One doesn't simply ship thousands of tons of radioactive material half way around the World.

The US alone produces 2kg of waste per person per day. That's more that 200 million tons per year, about half of which is domestic waste. You'd need a whole lot of concrete to just make a dent in that much garbage.

That's a very bold assumption with nothing at all to back it up. We simply have zero data on the effects of partial gravity.

Most of our trash floats. If you dump stuff deep enough, it gets crushed by the pressure and won't float back up. The difficulty is actually getting the trash to sink. You'd have to process it to weigh it down with tons of ballast, which, for the massive amounts we are talking about, would be prohibitavely expensive.

Most of our trash floats.