General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLook what Neil Armstrong's wife, Carol, found in his closet.
At the National Air and Space Museum, as elsewhere around the world, we were enormously saddened when we learned that Neil Alden Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the Moon, had died of complications associated with heart surgery in August 2012. Not long afterwards his family contacted the Museum about artifacts he left in his home office in Ohio.
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This post is about something else however. A few weeks after we returned to Washington, D.C., I received an email from Carol Armstrong that she had located in one of Neils closets a white cloth bag filled with assorted small items that looked like they may have come from a spacecraft. She wanted to know if they were also of interest to the Museum. She provided the following photograph of the bag and the items spread out on her carpet.
Needless to say, for a curator of a collection of space artifacts, it is hard to imagine anything more exciting. Realizing how important it would be to determine whether any or all of these items were actually flown in the Lunar Module Eagle during the historic Apollo 11 mission, I decided to enlist the expertise of Eric Jones, Ken Glover, and the team of experts who have put together the incredible Apollo Lunar Surface Journal (ALSJ) website, an indispensable site of detailed information about all aspects of the Apollo program.
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As far as we know, Neil has never discussed the existence of these items and no one else has seen them in the 45 years since he returned from the Moon. (I asked James Hansen, Neils authorized biographer if he had mentioned the items, and he had not.) Each and every item has its own story and significance, and they are described with photographs in extraordinary detail in an addendum to the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. But two of the items are especially timely. Both have been placed on display as part of the recently opened temporary exhibition Outside the Spacecraft: 50 Years of Extra-Vehicular Activity.
The first is the 16mm Data Acquisition Camera that was mounted in the window of the lunar module Eagle to record the historic landing and one small step made by Armstrong as humankind first set foot on another world.
More: http://blog.nasm.si.edu/highlights-from-the-collection/the-armstrong-purse/
salin
(48,955 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)[hr][font color="blue"][center]Birds are territorial creatures.
The lyrics to the songbird's melodious trill go something like this:
"Stay out of my territory or I'll PECK YOUR GODDAMNED EYES OUT!"[/center][/font][hr]
shenmue
(38,506 posts)Space is very cool.
Sheepshank
(12,504 posts)and wonder what more, how more safely and how clearer everything could have been with todays technology
7962
(11,841 posts)I just cant imagine
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Brave enough to let them be hurled into space while sitting atop a machine made of more than a million parts. Each supplied by the lowest bidder.
And yes, a modern top-line smartphone has more number-crunching capacity than all of the NASA computers that sent Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins to the moon.
A HERETIC I AM
(24,371 posts)calimary
(81,346 posts)Studied in college with some Nobel Prize-winners and some of the people who really "invented the internet" or were midwives and pediatricians to it. He likes to describe the ROOM-SIZE computers whose great-great-great-etc grandchildren now fit in the palm of your hand. And even smaller.
The word "amazing" is so overused, but it sure does fit in here perfectly!
7962
(11,841 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)the computers in the Apollo-era spacecraft.
I once chatted with the fellow who led the effort to build the computer that was used in both the Apollo command module and the lunar module (they both used the same model). Fascinating stuff.
regnaD kciN
(26,044 posts)All computers back then had to do was calculate how to get a spacecraft and crew to the moon and back. They didn't have to do the real tough things like posting pictures of cats to Facebook or Instagramming your dinner!
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Sheepshank
(12,504 posts)I remember being taught how to use them in school (yes, *that's* how old I am). I'd have no idea how to use one today though.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)progressoid
(49,992 posts)That was a big deal. Cost a bunch of money and then died a couple years later.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)progressoid
(49,992 posts)I know a couple people that had those. Or if you were really cool, you got one with a calculator too.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Lifelong Protester
(8,421 posts)and it was the cat's meow!!
regnaD kciN
(26,044 posts)As a fellow student explained of his after a couple of years, "the floating point sank."
regnaD kciN
(26,044 posts)...but I knew teachers who wouldn't accept papers from their students if they had been printed out instead of typed -- they were convinced it meant that the computer's word-processing software had written the paper on its own.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)calimary
(81,346 posts)The whole thing was just a wee bit beyond me. Math was never my thing. Advanced math never bothered with me much except to laugh at me and have me at the end of a fork. But I knew people who could damn near create life with them. With them, it wasn't a mere slide rule. It was a magic wand. I swear, they could figure out ANYTHING.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)calimary
(81,346 posts)with that exam paper! The folds will be precise and sharp, too! Bet it'll fly clear across the classroom!
FSogol
(45,493 posts)Very cool, thanks for posting.
calimary
(81,346 posts)Thor_MN
(11,843 posts)pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)hunter
(38,321 posts)Some of it seems, "Okay, I might need that," and some of it seems to have a story.
Bringing back the cap to the urine collection system, now that's just funny.
msongs
(67,421 posts)progressoid
(49,992 posts)Beringia
(4,316 posts)Glassunion
(10,201 posts)That's some cool stuff.
History is always more amazing when it can't be seen and touched. Not just some page in a book.
This must be a crime.
Initech
(100,086 posts)A HERETIC I AM
(24,371 posts)progressoid
(49,992 posts)Guy from Australia made one out of LEGOs
And Pokerfan found this little clip
Steve Eves broke two world records Saturday, when his 1/10th scale model of the historic rocketbuilt in his garage near Akron, Ohiolifted off from a field on Maryland's Eastern Shore. The 36-ft.-tall rocket was the largest amateur rocket ever launched and recovered successfullyand at 1648 pounds, also the heaviest. Eves' single-stage behemoth was powered by nine motorseight 13,000 Newton-second N-Class motors and a 77,000 Newton-second P-Class motor. (Five Newton-seconds is equivalent to about a pound of thrust.) All told, the array generated enough force to chuck a Volkswagen more than a half-mileand sent the Saturn V more than 4440 feet straight up. It was arguably the most audacious display of raw power ever generated by an amateur rocket.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/rockets/4315103
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)The Tumblr Space Agency would have to exhume the guy, just to scream at him for it.