50/30 years

[WA1GFZ]

50 years first manned space flight, 30 years first shuttle flight.
I remember back in '81 we were watching a monitor a couple days before the first shuttle flight. The software guy sitting next to me turns and tells me the mission will scrub at XX seconds. Sure enought the time goes by and zap the mission is scrubbed for the day. He then turns to me and says when computer control is transfered to the bird stuff happens. He had worked on the software. guess he knew there was still bugs.

[KB2WIG]

FWIW


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11#Lunar_descent


klc

[Bill, KD0HG]

i have heard that the Shuttles possess computers no more up to date than the 486DX2-66 jobs from 20 years ago.

I will always remember watching the first lunar landing on TV. With a bunch of friends and family on Chicago network TeeVee.

And the first Rusky Soyuz capsules were nothing but a sealed and riveted tin can. Yuri had big ones.

Y'all ought to see our Apollo capsules at a museum. Astronauts crammed in like sardines. The Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta, western Ohio is well worth a visit. Got a few space capsules, you can look inside, Gemeni and Apollo space suits, the German cameras used to take pictures on the moon. Also samples of moon rocks to see. A theater that simulates the G forces of a Saturn V takeoff on the seats. The Smithsonian prolly has similar pieces on display.

I crashed the Shuttle more than three times trying to land it on the simulator that NASA uses to train pilots. %$$^%$!! No throttle, a dead-stick landing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Armstrong_Air_and_Space_Museum

[KB2WIG]

'  486DX2-66 jobs from 20 years ago. '

Well, in some respects, it makes sense. The hardware and software bugs would have been worked out, or worked around. If it were up to me, I'd keep the chunks of code as simple as possible and with the fewest changes.


klc

[WA1GFZ]

I bet a 486DX2 does better with SEU than the newer processors and memory.

[WA3VJB]

About 25 years ago I covered a Challenger mission from start to finish, getting to see the launch from Florida, the tracking in Houston, then the shuttle landing in the Mojave Desert, where I'd never been before.

One of the things they tested on that flight was an odd, pressurized soda can, to dispense carbonated beverages. Sure beats Tang I suppose, but it seemed so quaint that they were still trying to work that out.

Also, I don't think at that time the shuttle had the capability to receive television / video signals from the ground.  So there was a "HAM" project on board that allowed hobbyist ground stations with some schools to beam signals up.

From hours of listening to that mission came the idea of "space shuttle audio" as a qualitative phrase among AM stations, huh-HA!