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50 years

Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:14 am
by fretless
Image
:usa:

Re: 50 years

Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:22 am
by TurboPablo
Fake news.

Re: 50 years

Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:24 am
by ajaxlepinski
Recorded on June 20, 1969.... 50 years ago...
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYYRH4apXDo[/youtube]

Can't get youtube vids to show... what's up wit dat? EDIT: Thanks Fretless!!! :thu:

Re: 50 years

Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:25 am
by TurboPablo
The internet says it didn't happen.

Re: 50 years

Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:28 am
by Thurston
So recent, feels like ancient history.

Re: 50 years

Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:29 am
by Ry Manchu
It's too bad they didn't send a drone to drive the lander vehicle around to celebrate 50 years of American technology. After a battery replacement, you know that bitch will still work.

I could never be a skeptic, because my mother calculated the trajectory and wrote the computer program for it.

Re: 50 years

Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:30 am
by clipless bumper
ajaxlepinski wrote:Recorded on June 20, 1969.... 50 years ago...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYYRH4a ... adio=1&t=9
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYYRH4apXDo[/youtube]

Can't get youtube vids to show... what's up wit dat?



get rid of everything after '&list....' in the address.

Re: 50 years

Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:31 am
by TurboPablo
Ry Manchu wrote:It's too bad they didn't send a drone to drive the lander vehicle around to celebrate 50 years of American technology. After a battery replacement, you know that bitch will still work.

I could never be a skeptic, because my mother calculated the trajectory and wrote the computer program for it.



Wait, so you don't beleive Steph Curry?

Re: 50 years

Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:36 am
by Ry Manchu
TurboPablo wrote:
Ry Manchu wrote:It's too bad they didn't send a drone to drive the lander vehicle around to celebrate 50 years of American technology. After a battery replacement, you know that bitch will still work.

I could never be a skeptic, because my mother calculated the trajectory and wrote the computer program for it.



Wait, so you don't beleive Steph Curry?


Have you seen the new Samsung AI that can create videos from a single picture? I think it's entirely possible that Steph Curry isn't a real person. Though his wife makes some mean barbecue.

Re: 50 years

Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:37 am
by fretless
Ry Manchu wrote:It's too bad they didn't send a drone to drive the lander vehicle around to celebrate 50 years of American technology. After a battery replacement, you know that bitch will still work.

I could never be a skeptic, because my mother calculated the trajectory and wrote the computer program for it.

Tell us more Hommie . The women of NASA had to endure some serious high level top down BS every single day . They deserve a medal for putting up with that shit and opened the door for all women to follow .

Re: 50 years

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 4:19 am
by IndyWS6
fretless wrote:
Ry Manchu wrote:It's too bad they didn't send a drone to drive the lander vehicle around to celebrate 50 years of American technology. After a battery replacement, you know that bitch will still work.

I could never be a skeptic, because my mother calculated the trajectory and wrote the computer program for it.

Tell us more Hommie . The women of NASA had to endure some serious high level top down BS every single day . They deserve a medal for putting up with that shit and opened the door for all women to follow .

^This. Interested. My math and science (and history) nerd alert is at DefCon 1 - or 5 - whichever one is a big deal. "War Games" and Matthew Broderick confused me...

Re: 50 years

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 7:54 am
by Pepi
And the two young men that pulled this off suddenly died. I saw the movie so I know it's true

Re: 50 years

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 9:20 am
by Ry Manchu
fretless wrote:
Ry Manchu wrote:It's too bad they didn't send a drone to drive the lander vehicle around to celebrate 50 years of American technology. After a battery replacement, you know that bitch will still work.

I could never be a skeptic, because my mother calculated the trajectory and wrote the computer program for it.

Tell us more Hommie . The women of NASA had to endure some serious high level top down BS every single day . They deserve a medal for putting up with that shit and opened the door for all women to follow .


My mom didn't work for NASA, she worked for GE.

My mom graduated from Stetson University about a year after JFK made his moon pledge, May of 1962. She had a degree in math. She took computer programming in college because she thought it would become important in the future. She figured that there would be a lot of hiring in the Cape Canaveral area, so she got an apartment there and planned to walk in and try to interview at NASA and some of the big contractors. I don't know if her interview at GE was a walk-in, but I do know that she was hired in her first interview as she knew the programming language they were using.

GE had been involved in the feasibility studies pretty much from the outset of the Apollo program. Originally the mission was going to be unmanned. GE's job was to double check NASA's numbers, write the computer program and get that to work on the computer which GE made. I'm not sure exactly how many people were involved in the programming at GE, but it wasn't that many. My mom told me that they wrote the trajectory program on punch cards. She hated the punch cards because every time she would walk them over to the compiler she was worried that she would drop them and they would wind up out of order.

I asked her about flying through the Van Allen belt. She said that the plan was for the rocket to be going as fast as possible and for it to go through the belt at a time and angle where it was less expansive. The trajectory also involved a point when the moon was close on its elliptical orbit.

My mom married my father and moved to Texas in 1968, about a year before Apollo 11 launched. She planned to interview at NASA in Houston, but she got pregnant with my brother and my dad got a job with Texaco, so she put it on hold. I don't know too much else. I could ask her more.

Re: 50 years

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 9:27 am
by fretless
Cool story Thanks !


on a slightly related but off topic , my new fav artist
https://www.flookart.com/

Re: 50 years

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 10:30 am
by Pepi
fretless wrote:Cool story Thanks !


on a slightly related but off topic , my new fav artist
https://www.flookart.com/



Your welcome

Re: 50 years

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 11:19 am
by Tortuga
Ry Manchu wrote:
fretless wrote:
Ry Manchu wrote:It's too bad they didn't send a drone to drive the lander vehicle around to celebrate 50 years of American technology. After a battery replacement, you know that bitch will still work.

I could never be a skeptic, because my mother calculated the trajectory and wrote the computer program for it.

Tell us more Hommie . The women of NASA had to endure some serious high level top down BS every single day . They deserve a medal for putting up with that shit and opened the door for all women to follow .


My mom didn't work for NASA, she worked for GE.

My mom graduated from Stetson University about a year after JFK made his moon pledge, May of 1962. She had a degree in math. She took computer programming in college because she thought it would become important in the future. She figured that there would be a lot of hiring in the Cape Canaveral area, so she got an apartment there and planned to walk in and try to interview at NASA and some of the big contractors. I don't know if her interview at GE was a walk-in, but I do know that she was hired in her first interview as she knew the programming language they were using.

GE had been involved in the feasibility studies pretty much from the outset of the Apollo program. Originally the mission was going to be unmanned. GE's job was to double check NASA's numbers, write the computer program and get that to work on the computer which GE made. I'm not sure exactly how many people were involved in the programming at GE, but it wasn't that many. My mom told me that they wrote the trajectory program on punch cards. She hated the punch cards because every time she would walk them over to the compiler she was worried that she would drop them and they would wind up out of order.

I asked her about flying through the Van Allen belt. She said that the plan was for the rocket to be going as fast as possible and for it to go through the belt at a time and angle where it was less expansive. The trajectory also involved a point when the moon was close on its elliptical orbit.

My mom married my father and moved to Texas in 1968, about a year before Apollo 11 launched. She planned to interview at NASA in Houston, but she got pregnant with my brother and my dad got a job with Texaco, so she put it on hold. I don't know too much else. I could ask her more.

Interesting... are you saying that your mom wrote navigation info, or the actual navigation software used by the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC)? That software was written at MIT Draper Laboratory, headed up by a woman named Margaret Hamilton. I've been doing a hell of a lot of research / study about the AGC and it's programming, and I hadn't run across any links to GE. Not saying you're wrong - just looking for more of the story.

And yeah, software had to be keyed into machines that then developed code that had to be woven (literally, using wire and extremely small ferrite cores) into looms that were tested, potted into modules, and installed into a wire-wrapped backplane in the AGC housing.

There's a fantastic series going on right now about a team that is trying to restore / resurrect a near- flight-rated AGC in time for the 50th anniversary last month. Here's the first episode:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KSahAoOLdU[/youtube]

Right now, 50 years ago, the Apollo 11 crew were finishing up their last stages of mission training. NASA had successfully launched three (!) manned Saturn V rockets since December - two of which had made the trek to the moon and back. This was badassery at it's best.

Re: 50 years

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 12:44 pm
by Ry Manchu
I don't know too much more. I'll try to call my mom tonight and see what else I can find out.

Re: 50 years

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 2:02 pm
by Tortuga
Would love to hear more!

I spent 3 months digging into core & rope memory theory, AGC (CM & LM) code, and much more.... serious rabbit-hole. Makes it all the more fascinating that they were able to guide that skyscraper to the moon & back.

Re: 50 years

Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 6:30 am
by fretless
And all that other awesome space tech we use in our daily lives. God bless Tang !

Re: 50 years

Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 7:48 am
by Pepi
Even OJ was involved in this

Image

Re: 50 years

Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 9:13 am
by Ry Manchu
I called my mom last night. This is what she told me. She programmed in Fortran 4. The main crux of her job was to calculate the weight of every component on the rocket. Then to determine if their was sufficient fuel to complete the journey. Component changes to reduce weight was a daily occurrence. There were four people on her team, but she was the main programmer. They dealt with one chief engineer at NASA who was an intermediary providing the latest data from NASA. She didn't remember the total weight of the rocket anymore.

Re: 50 years

Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 9:36 am
by Pepi
Wow. FORTRAN. Hard language to use. Your mom must be a major math head. I had a hell of a time getting through this class

Re: 50 years

Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 9:49 am
by Kardula
That's pretty fucking cool.

Re: 50 years

Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 10:09 am
by fretless
Awesome

Re: 50 years

Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 10:10 am
by Ry Manchu
Pepi wrote:Wow. FORTRAN. Hard language to use. Your mom must be a major math head. I had a hell of a time getting through this class


For Geometry, Algebra 2, Trigonometry and Calculus, whenever I got stuck on a homework problem, I would take it to my mom. Without opening the book, she never once failed to solve a problem.