It is that time of the year when some of us think on all the things that happened this year and make our personal review. In my opinion, it is a very healthy and enriching exercise that I strongly recommend everyone to do. I have been doing this for many years now and this year I though to share it.
I will try to go through some of the hightlights of the year but focused in my persona and the things that were somehow important for me.
I will start with the topic that most influenced me this year: the 50th anniversary of the first man walking on the Moon. I was really commited to give my small contribution to celebrate this huge and transcendental moment in our history. By doing this, I have learnt even more about how this feat was done with movies, documentaries and books. And I am even more convinced that it was the pinnacle of human endeavour for a single goal to push further our bounderies. Truely this made me realize how good we can do as species, how much technological potential we have now and how much to learn we have yet about our very near universe.
This year also I was shocked by events to the opposite side. Horrible things that really shakes our morality and shows how evil we can be. We are all playing the macabre lottery just by living on this society and sadly some people get the winning ticket. This things must show us what really matters in life and how we must protect it above any other thing.
And going down to things more personal, this year I managed to push further my creativity. If last year it was the creation of this blog, this year I started to experiment creating my own music with a synthesizer keyboard. It showed me new ways to express myself through music and opened a window to many ideas that I have in my mind. Soon I will have a couple of new creations to share but the two bellow opened the path.
On the professional side, this year has been a busy one specially towards the end. But busy means we have done important and complex things which is always good. Of course there are ups and downs like in every place but in general I am happy with what I had done and with what I have learnt this year.
To finish, I would like to mention about the books that more have impacted me this year.
Life 3.0: Being human in the age of Artificial Intelligence from Max Tegmark, a Swedish-American physicist and cosmologist from the MIT and co-founder of the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit organization backed by big names such Elon Musk or Stephen Hawking, and whose work has helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial. The book talks about AI today and the paths it is taking for the future; all from a technology perspective.
The NASA Archives: 60 years in space. A collectors book built in very high quality by Taschen. It tells you the details of all NASA’s history since its creation until today accompanied with new high definition pictures. Very recommened if you are interested on space exploration.
https://www.eretit.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/scrabble-resolutions-3237.jpg8531280SumotaYhttps://www.eretit.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Logo_wd.pngSumotaY2019-12-17 19:40:392019-12-17 19:40:39A year in words
Launch date: July 16, 1969 Landing date: July 24, 1969
And the day has come. History is watching. The effort of hundred thousands of people and the dreams of other millions rest on one single mission, on three man.
On July 20, 1969, an ancient dream was about to be fulfilled as Commander Neil Armstrong and his right-hand man, Buzz Aldrin, descended towards the first manned touchdown on the Moon. Beginning at about 35,000 feet (10,670 m) above the surface, a series of alarming warning on Eagle’s computer set everyone on edge…
“Program alarm”, said Armstrong. “1202”.
At mission control in Houston, a 26-year-old Steve Bales was sitting at the Guidance console, monitoring Eagle’s systems via remote telemetry. Another code, 1201, also came out. “What’s a 1201?”, the senior flight controller asked. Bales needed a few seconds to think, but Eagle’s crew needed an immediate answer. Should they abort the landing? Bales had not time left for thinking. Making the bravest decision of his life, he spoke into his headset for all mission controllers to hear. “We’re ‘Go’ on the alarm”. This meant, astronauts to carry on with their descent. Then Eagle started its way to the surface. Bales had recalled similar alarms showing up during one of the many trainings simulations, and he thought that it was not a threat to the mission.
Just as Bales was recovering, Charlie Duke, CapCom at that moment, radioed a warning up to Eagle’s crew. “You only have 60 seconds-worth of fuel remaining”. Unsure whether the astronauts had got the message, he called out another warning. “Thirty seconds”. Chief astronaut Deke Slayton, standing behind Duke, said softly to him, “Shut up, Charlie, and let ’em land”.
With less than a hundred feet remaining before touchdown, Eagle apparently was pitching forward at a very steep angle and skimming over the ground at 30 miles (48 km) per hour. Had the astronauts lost control of their ship?
At last, Aldrin radioed, “Contact light. Mode control to auto. Engine arm off”. Those were the first words spoken by a human on another world. Sadly for Aldrin, we prefer to remember Armstrong’s words a few moments later. “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed”.
A fascinating reply from Duke seems not to have been much remarked on at the time. “Roger, Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot”.
Later Armstrong explained what happened on those last seconds before touchdown. The Eagle’s guidance computer was taking them right into a crater with a large number of holes and rocks. He had to manually nudge Eagle forward to hover a few feet over the surface until he could find a safe place to land.
But what really made this safe landing was something more genius: the 1201/1202 sequence alarms. This was the “kill and recompute from a safe place” restart approach of the revolutionary software running in the Eagle’s guidance computer. Just seconds before the alarms triggered, the computer was overloaded with interrupts caused by incorrectly phased power supplied to the lander’s rendezvous radar. These 1201/1202 alarms indicated “executive overflows”, meaning the guidance computer could not complete all of its tasks in real time and had to postpone some of them.
The priority alarm displays interrupted the astronauts’ normal displays to warn them that there was an emergency “giving the astronauts a go/no go decision (to land or not to land)”. Steve Bales knew the astronauts were seeing these alarms and that is why he shouted the GO to land. This might sound obvious nowadays, but back on 1969 the software development was at its earliest stages and to create a code smart enough to recognize which tasks are more critical than others, reorder them and execute them was nearly science fiction.
The brain behind this was a 33-year-old woman Margaret Hamilton; pioneer in software engineering (a term which was coined by her) and her work is a fundamental part to understand how software is develop today. She and other women that time were key in programming. Another example was Grace Hopper, inventor of COBOL programming language, US Navy rear admiral and also remembered by coining the term debug after finding out that one of her lab’s computer was malfunctioning because a moth.
Margaret Hamilton standing next to listings of the software she and her team produced for the Apollo project
Hamilton later wrote of the incident with the landing of Apollo 11 and describes perfectly the importance of her software:
The computer (or rather the software in it) was smart enough to recognize that it was being asked to perform more tasks than it should be performing. It then sent out an alarm, which meant to the astronaut, ‘I’m overloaded with more tasks than I should be doing at this time and I’m going to keep only the more important tasks’; i.e., the ones needed for landing … Actually, the computer was programmed to do more than recognize error conditions. A complete set of recovery programs was incorporated into the software. The software’s action, in this case, was to eliminate lower priority tasks and re-establish the more important ones … If the computer hadn’t recognized this problem and taken recovery action, I doubt if Apollo 11 would have been the successful moon landing it was.
Margaret Hamilton
Armstrong and Aldrin tried to rest, but they were too keyed up to sleep. After two hours of preparations for the EVA, the Eagle was depressurized, hatch opened and Armstrong began his descent to the lunar surface. Once he jumped into the surface, the whole world heard his words:
That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind
19 minutes later it was the turn of Aldrin to step out of the Eagle. His first impression was to take a picture of his first step in the Moon; the bootprint picture we all remember. Both astronauts began the multiple surface operations: mount the TV cameras, collect soil and rock samples, experimental walkthrough the surface, deploy seismic experiment device to measure moonquakes and a retroreflector used for the Laser Ranging experiment to measure the exact distance between Moon and Earth for the first time.
After 21 and a half hours, the Eagle lifted off lunar surface to rejoin Collins onboard of the Columbia module in lunar orbit and being the journey back to Earth. Apollo 11 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on 24 July 1969 at 16:50:35 UTC at 400 miles of Wake Island and 24 km (15 mi) from the recovery ship USS Hornet. The performance of the spacecraft was excellent throughout the mission. The primary mission goal of landing astronauts on the Moon and returning them to Earth was achieved. Armstrong was a civilian on his second spaceflight (he’d previously flown on Gemini 8), Aldrin was a USAF Colonel on his second spaceflight (Gemini 12), Collins was a USAF Lt. Colonel also on his second flight (Gemini 10).
Finally the ancient dream was accomplished. The primary goal of the Gemini and Apollo projects was achieved flawlessly and within deadlines. The immense hard work of thousand of men and women was finally recognized and inserted in a memorable place in human history. The legacy of this shows what humans can achieve if we really focus. When the society falls to its darkest stage or we only see horrendous actions, examples like this must be present with all of us and poke our lives; continue growing as species and look up to these bright moments which are the ones pushing us forward.
But this must be just the beginning. We need to set our next goal to push further our boundaries, our next giant leap. Is it Mars? is it Titan? Predictions says it would be the red planet but we must go back to the Moon first. There is much more to discover and study over there to understand the early stages of our planet and solar system. I believe humans will need to leave Earth and make a new home on another planet. In the next 100 years we will embark in our greatest ever adventure and a stablished crew on the Moon will be the real first step: our destiny is in the stars.
Neil A. Armstrong – Michael Collins – Edwin “Buzz” E. Aldrin Jr.
https://www.eretit.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/apollo_50th_full_color_72dpi.png9341500SumotaYhttps://www.eretit.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Logo_wd.pngSumotaY2019-07-20 09:00:272019-07-20 12:00:10Apollo 11 - The Big Leap
Launch date: May 18, 1969 Landing date: May 26, 1969
Apollo 10 was the second crewed mission (after Apollo 8) to orbit the Moon and the first to travel to the Moon with the full Apollo spacecraft: Command and Lunar Modules.
The primary objectives of the mission were to demonstrate crew, space vehicle, and mission support facilities during a manned lunar mission and to evaluate the Lunar Module during lunar environment. The mission was the last one to carry out the crucial series of tests before attending the first Moon landing; in fact it was a full “dry run” for the Apollo 11 mission, in which all operations except the actual lunar landing were performed.
Apollo 10 took off on May 18, 1969, heading to the Moon. Tom Stafford and John Young took their Lunar Module, called Snoopy, to within 10 miles (16 km) of a touchdown, but there was never any intention of “going all the way” during this mission. NASA needed to be sure that the different stages between the CM and LM could be conducted safely above the lunar surface, just in case some kind of an emergency occurred during a descent.
Watching through the windows of Command Module, called Charlie Brown, John Young watched Snoopy glittering in the sunlight 80 miles (130 km) below him. When the time came for Snoopy’s ascent stage to make the climb back to Charlie Brown’s orbital altitude, the guidance computer experienced momentary confusion. The down-facing radas was processing data about lunar surface, while the up-facing radas was looking for Charlie Brown. A mispositioned switch caused two conflicting computer routines to run simultaneously. Snoopy became crazy, bucking and spinning, literally not sure whether it was trying to get away from the Moon or drop down toward it. Luckily Cernan and Stafford regained control and the computer was stabilised. Cernan said afterward, “I saw the lunar horizon go by about seven or eight times in 10 seconds, and that’s a hair-raising experience.”
To mention something curious, back on 2016 mission Apollo 10 was on the news again because new radio conversations on the mission were declassified and a TV show broadcasted in Discovery News suggested that the crew witnessed mysterious or alien signal while they were on the far side of the Moon. Far for being true, this music were actually radio interferences between the CM and LM.
On May 26 the spaceship returned to Earth setting a Guinness World Record for the highest speed attained by a manned vehicle (39,897 km/h) and splashed down in the Pacific ocean at 400 miles east of American Samoa.
After this mission, all was set, tested and calibrated for the Great Leap in the next mission. Alea iacta est!
Eugene A. Cernan – John W. Young – Thomas P. Stafford
Launch date: March 3, 1969 Landing date: March 13, 1969
This year we will celebrate the 50 years anniversary of the first human walking on our Moon. In my opinion, this is the pinnacle of human exploration so far and I would like to contribute to the celebrations with a series of posts talking about the Apollo missions on that year 1969.
The first one was Apollo 9 mission. The second and last Earth orbiting mission (not reaching the Moon) and the first crewed Lunar Module (LM) test.
The primary objective of the mission was to test all aspects of the LM in Earth orbit, including operation of the LM as an independent self-sufficient spacecraft and performance of docking manoeuvres. Basically the goal was to simulate an actual lunar mission. The mission will also test what might happen if, for some reason, a command module and landing module could not redock at the end of lunar operations: could astronauts bridge the gulf by making an emergency spacewalk?
The docking and rendezvous simulations between the LM and command module were successful giving a huge amount of data for the next mission Apollo 10; in which these manoeuvres were planned to be done in Moon orbit. The tests on spacesuits and spacewalks (EVA) were determinant for future missions and gave us amazing pictures (photo1, photo2).
One anecdote of this mission was on March 6. While the vehicles were docked, Schweickart crawled out of the LM front hatch but his ambitious schedules was simplified at the last moment because of a nasty attack of motion sickness he suffered a few hours earlier! Instead they spend most of the time taking pictures. Luckily Schweickart recovered his equilibrium in time for six-hour solo performance the following day, successfully carrying out almost all the planned tasks for a lunar touchdown.
On March 13, Apollo 9 splashed down in the Atlantic ocean 180 miles east of Bahamas.
To sum-up, the mission proved the Lunar Module worthy for crewed spaceflight and ran the latest tests for the ultimate goal of landing on the Moon.
James A. McDivitt – David R. Scott – Russell L. Schweickart
Although it’s been several months since it was released and it’s been few weeks since I watch it, I want to make a post talking about this great movie.
This year we will celebrate the 50 years anniversary of the first human walking on our Moon. In my opinion, the pinnacle of human exploration and achievement as I already talked about last year. It will come several posts about this during the year so, I am sorry for the ones who are bored about it!
To the point… the movie First Man is the Hollywood biopic of Neil Armstrong focused from the years he was part of the Gemini and Apollo projects until the end of Apollo 11 mission. Since years I was waiting to watch a biopic about Neil Armstrong (since I was a little child in love with the space exploration) and finally it arrived!
The movie is great, very well done and it gets you since the first scene (amazing start inside a X-15 experimental aircraft) until the last one. The movie has fast-faced scenes and recreates perfectly all scenery (reason why it is nominated to 4 Oscar awards, one of them to Best Visual Effects) and it is also very personal. And I think this is the reason why it did not have a massive welcome and great reviews from people.
The director (Damien Chazelle) and writer (Josh Singer), instead of making an Oscar-winner blockbuster epic story, they decided to focus the movie in the person rather than in the myth. I have to admit that I was also waiting for a more epic movie, but I love the way they made it. We all know the feat, the history and the hero of this; but most of the people do not know the man behind. An extraordinary performance of Ryan Gosling in the role of Neil Armstrong, share with us the pain and frustrations of a man watching his little daughter die of cancer and starting a grief, mourning and healing process through his career to become the first man to walk on the Moon.
I think it is an extraordinary movie, one of those that will get more value throughout time, and it does justice to the man who pushes all of us further in our goals.
At least there is something that everyone is agree with this movie (and getting several awards): the soundtrack. It is one of the best I have hear in many years. Justin Hurwitz has done an amazing job here; beautiful themes and great instruments such as the theremin! Awesome.
https://www.eretit.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/neil-armstrong-armstrong-astronaut-space-suit-41952.jpeg15131280SumotaYhttps://www.eretit.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Logo_wd.pngSumotaY2019-02-02 00:34:002019-02-02 00:34:02First Man
Today we celebrate the day we reached the pinnacle of space exploration up today, the day we made real one of the most ancient dreams of mankind, the day we became ONE and we succeed in an epic adventure showing how best we can do as human. 49 years ago, on the 20th July the NASA mission Apollo 11 landed in our satellite with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on it for the first time. First Men on the Moon.
This is a day of celebration and deep thinking of what we can achieve if we really focus. When the society falls to its darkest stage or we only see horrendous actions, examples like this must be present with all of us and poke our lives; continue growing as species and look up to these bright moments which are the ones pushing us forward.
I consider myself a critical and analytical person; someone who does not get satisfied only with the “oficial” version. The case of Apollo 11 and it’s landing is one of the biggest controversies among conspiracy theories, and it is understandable. Something such transcendental, huge and important must be tackled from every corner. I have spent a lot of time reading and researching about most of these theories and, in my opinion and in general, non of them are strong enough to be consider as a possibility. However this is a big topic and I would like to make a series of posts about this, but on this day I will stick to the fact that we walked on our beautiful moon several times; not just once.
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter imaged the Apollo 11 landing site from space in 2012 and spotted the astronauts’ tracks, some of the experiments, a discarded camera and of course, the descent stage of the Eagle lunar module. A 3-D view of the site (based on this data) was generated in 2014.
“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” – Neil Armstrong
