Apollo 11 - 40 years ago today - man's first step on the Moon

Today it was 40 years ago that Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the Moon. This event changed not only the face of history but also what man believed was possible to achieve.

In honour of this day here's a video of the actual event.

Rare Apollo Guidance Computer - AGC video

During the transfer of our blog to it's final domain www.whitelabelspace.com some time has been sent tidying up the old posts, reading the old comments and recategorising the tags. A couple of our posts (Build Your Own Apollo Guidance Computer & Why not try a Virtual Apollo Guidance Computer) centered the Apollo Guidance Computer AGC.

Google Lunar X-PRIZE's own Mike Fabio had commented on one of the posts:

Can we get some videos of this thing in action? That is truly awesome.
The MIT Press (go Engineers!) has recently published a book all about the computers used on the Apollo missions. Check it out here.

Well after another trawl through YouTube's immense archives we finally hit the jackpot. Here's actual footage of the Apollo Guidance Computer staring in it's own YouTube video. We're wondering how much more historically significant space age video will turn up on YouTube & how long that footage will stay available. Let's hope that this one stay's up long enough for you all to see.

Build Your Own Apollo Guidance Computer

Ever wondered what makes a spacecraft's main computer tick? Now, thanks to John Pultorak, you can make yourself a complete replica of the original guidance computer used in the NASA Apollo missions. All the documents you need to repeat his effort are given here.

The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was developed in the early 1960s by the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, and could automatically controll all of the navigational systems onboard the Apollo spacecraft.

John took 4 years to hunt down all the technical reports and find the necessary components. Also, to be sure that his replica AGC would work, he also created simulations of the complete computer's logic using modern development tools.

And if you ever wanted proof that there were some useful technology spin-offs from the space industry into other sectors, note that it was the first computer to use integrated circuits, a technology that has now become an integral part of our everyday life. In fact, the AGC used over 4000 of them!

Spaceflight and competitions have always spawned new designs and approaches so imagine what technology spin-offs will come out of the Google Lunar X PRIZE...

SCE to AUX: When Apollo 12 got hit by lightning

So, you sat on top of what virtually is a bomb hurtling into space & the last thing you need is to be struck by lightning. That's exactly what happened to Apollo 12 during launch on November 14th 1969 on the second attempt to land on the moon. Thanks to the natural curiosity of John Aaron the then ECOM the mission was saved after all electrical systems malfunctioned. When the rocket took the lightning strike the readout from spaces telemetry data at mission control & on Apollo 12 became non-sensical. John remembered seeing a similar pattern before & made the famous call "Flight, tell 'em to take the SCE to AUX". Luckily astronaut Alan Bean knew where the obscure AUX switch was & managed to restore all systems. That must have been a hell of a first mission as flight director for Gerry Griffin. I think if I had been in the same situation I too would have done exactly the same as astronaut Pete Conrad & laughed all the way into orbit.

- Steve Allen

Why not try a Virtual Apollo Guidance Computer

As a follow up to our post Build Your Own Apollo Guidance Computer we thought that there may be a few of you that don't have time to go hunt down the components needed.
Enter the Virtual Apollo Guidance Computer.

You will need to have middle to advanced computer skills to use this but full instructions are provided on how to download/install for Win32, Linux & Mac OSX 10.4 are provided. The software is licenced as "free software" under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

If you have the "right stuff" why not help this great project out.

Mythbusters: We Went to the Moon, Get Over It!

As previously announced, last Wednesday the Discovery channel Mythbusters team tackled the myth that NASA never landed on the Moon.

Several myths were busted during the show such as:

• Non-parallel shadows: Due to the lunar terrain (Reproduced using mockups)
• Flying flag: Due to the inertia applied by the astronauts (Reproduced in a vacuum chamber)
• Boot traces: Due to the nature of the lunar soil (Tested with lunar soil simulant and a vacuum chamber)
• Walking style on the Moon: Reproduced on a zero-g plane

As a last nail in the skeptics coffins, the team visited to a large telescope and shot a laser at the Apollo 15 landing site. They received the reflected signal which can only prove the presenence of the optical reflector deployed by the astronauts at the landing site.

If you are interested by more busted lunar myths, take a look at the Mythbusters website and have a look to the extra myths that could not be shown due to time constraint.

Well, what does this leave for Google Lunar X PRIZE teams going after the Heritage Bonus Prize? Mythbusters proved that the physical effects shown on the Moon were realistic, and debunked the skeptics claims that those effects were proof of a fraud. However they still did not prove that the Apollo astronauts landed, rather they disproved the supposed 'evidence' of fraud. High definition video and photos of an Apollo landing site, perhaps showing evidence of the 40 or so years of exposure to the space environment, would certainly add more to the case!