RCS Design On Apollo

[NeoMorph]

I've been really interested in how RCS works because of the way my craft used to either move like an elephant on tranquillisers or skips about like a dragonfly on acid.

Then I found this... http://history.nasa.gov/afj/aoh/aoh-v1-2-05-rcs.pdf

It's the Apollo RCS design document. It's really interesting seeing how they did it in the 60's. I was impressed with the simple way they get the fuel to move through the system in zero gravity. I never thought of the fact that it would need some way to get the fuel to the ports... I just assumed that it would go there under pressure but as you use the fuel, the pressure in the fuel tank drops and then you get less fuel the more you use it... so they added an internal bladder in the fuel tank with helium gas around it that is pumped in to squeeze the fuel out.

Edited June 13, 2013 by NeoMorph

[Nibb31]

Yes, when you look at all the engineering details in Apollo, it really leaves you in awe. When you look at the details, Apollo is full of these kinds of tiny implementation details that took years and hundreds of engineers to figure out.

Which is why I can't stand people who think that space missions are easy and can be done on the cheap. They tend to handwave away the engineering as just bolting parts together. The actual implementation details in the preparation of any space mission are staggering.

Edited June 13, 2013 by Nibb31

[Henri von Braun]

Think of bolting a Saturn V up. Now that's bolting.

[rdfox]

The only "simply bolting parts together" is the actual stacking of the booster and payload for launch. (That's relatively simple work, just using a crane to hold parts weighing tens of tons in positions to an accuracy of an eighth of an inch or better, while someone else bolts them together with explosive bolts so that someone can crawl inside through a manhole and connect all the plugs and plumbing, all with intensely fragile items, a hundred feet or more in the air, usually outside in whatever wind there is... yeah, simple!)

In essence, a hell of a lot of very difficult engineering work goes into making it possible to "just bolt together" as much as possible once you get into actual operations... and even then, it's nowhere near as simple as that makes it sound.

[Death Engineering]

What often gets overlooked is the artisan work that went into actually constructing the Saturn 5. I mean, the specs are all there - I have blueprints of the Saturn 5, the F1 engine and the CM/LM on the wall behind my model rocket collection, but the skills to build them are gone. This is because the people who did the welding and knew every inch and every bolt on these machines started on the smaller rockets and were there when the techniques for constructing them were being developed. When the programs were cancelled, the skilled laborers went on to other things and took their knowledge and experience with them.

Not to say that those skills could not be learned again, but when people say that the Saturn 5 could not be build today, its partially true.

[Xeldrak]

The realization that leaves me awestruck every I think about it is: They did not use Computers (in any scale that we do nowadays, like AutoCAD), nor did use Calculators, they designed this rocket with pencils, paper and f*cking slide rules! Slide Rules! This:

Im becomming math teacher and have no idea how these things are operated....and they built the Saturn V with it!?

They would draw the original blueprint by HAND und write manuals with typewriters....thats just....*shakes his head*

Edited July 21, 2013 by Xeldrak

[DerekL1963]

Yes, when you look at all the engineering details in Apollo, it really leaves you in awe. When you look at the details, Apollo is full of these kinds of tiny implementation details that took years and hundreds of engineers to figure out.

Any project of any significance is filled with implementation details, Apollo isn't anything particularly notable in that respect. And an awful lot of the details in Apollo are just adaptations of stock solutions - using bladders to separate gases and liquids or liquids and liquids goes back a very long time.