If I remember right, it was during Apollo 17 that we looked up at the sky when leaving my grandparents farm to see a sight very similar the picture below. We assumed that somehow, we were seeing Apollo on the way to the moon. ( I was 6!) However, in the morning paper, we discovered we were not the only ones who thought that. But they said it was Venus. Oh well. At least it got everyone looking at the moon and thinking of Apollo again.
Apollo 17. The last flight of "mainline Apollo." The final lunar landing flight of Apollo. The first, and only, launch of a Saturn V at night.And the *only* Saturn V launch ever delayed for technical reasons.I still recall sitting at my family TV, on the floor with a Yashica-Mat camera on a specially modified mount that was exactly even with the TV screen at the ready to take pictures off the TV. We get to the final minute of the count, my blood pressure and heart rate begin to rise, when..."T-minus 30 seconds, we have a cutoff, we have a cutoff at T-minus 30 seconds. We are standing by at T-minus 30 second mark. We'll bring word to you just as soon as we get it. We have a cutoff at T-minus 30 seconds. T-minus 30 seconds and holding. This is Kennedy Launch Control."A sensor failed to report the third stage tank pressurization complete to the automatic sequencer, and the sequencer shut down the count. Or, if you ascribe to my brother's theory of the night, the Saturn was such a large and complex vehicle that it attained some kind of sentience, and was aware a billion or more people were watching it -- and just wanted to bask in the glow of the searchlights for a little while longer before doing its thing.A quick jumper to the automatic sequencer (not a computer program but an electromechanical sequencer, so to tell it the failed sensor path was not to stop the count, two leads were jumpered to complete the required signal path). This time, at just past 11 pm CST on 12/6/72, fire belched from the base of the most mighty rocket in history and a pillar of light lifted into the sky as an ersatz sun.
Quote from: the_other_Doug on 12/07/2014 05:08 amApollo 17. The last flight of "mainline Apollo." The final lunar landing flight of Apollo. The first, and only, launch of a Saturn V at night.And the *only* Saturn V launch ever delayed for technical reasons.I still recall sitting at my family TV, on the floor with a Yashica-Mat camera on a specially modified mount that was exactly even with the TV screen at the ready to take pictures off the TV. We get to the final minute of the count, my blood pressure and heart rate begin to rise, when..."T-minus 30 seconds, we have a cutoff, we have a cutoff at T-minus 30 seconds. We are standing by at T-minus 30 second mark. We'll bring word to you just as soon as we get it. We have a cutoff at T-minus 30 seconds. T-minus 30 seconds and holding. This is Kennedy Launch Control."A sensor failed to report the third stage tank pressurization complete to the automatic sequencer, and the sequencer shut down the count. Or, if you ascribe to my brother's theory of the night, the Saturn was such a large and complex vehicle that it attained some kind of sentience, and was aware a billion or more people were watching it -- and just wanted to bask in the glow of the searchlights for a little while longer before doing its thing.A quick jumper to the automatic sequencer (not a computer program but an electromechanical sequencer, so to tell it the failed sensor path was not to stop the count, two leads were jumpered to complete the required signal path). This time, at just past 11 pm CST on 12/6/72, fire belched from the base of the most mighty rocket in history and a pillar of light lifted into the sky as an ersatz sun.The third stage (S-IVB) LOX tank pressurization Command was not issued by the computer in the first launch attempt or the signal was lost before the mechanical relay on the command path leaving the computer. The engineer on the console took silence action, as he was supposed to do, and threw the switch on his console to start the Lox tank pressurization. The tank was actually at flight pressure when the cut off was issued ( because the computer "saw" the relay was not latched) even though the tank was at flight pressure......The vacuum tube stuffed IBM computer was not programmed to see if the human took care of that pressurization task. The test conductor polled the Firing Room for anomalies after the vehicle was in a safe condition. The Contractor engineer reported that he saw the tank was not pressurizing and he took the action himself. He recommended that the terminal countdown be restarted however NASA took several ours to agree with the contractor engineer. We reinitiated the terminal count and launched after NASA HQ approval.
Quote from: Ronpur50 on 12/16/2014 02:33 amIf I remember right, it was during Apollo 17 that we looked up at the sky when leaving my grandparents farm to see a sight very similar the picture below. We assumed that somehow, we were seeing Apollo on the way to the moon. ( I was 6!) However, in the morning paper, we discovered we were not the only ones who thought that. But they said it was Venus. Oh well. At least it got everyone looking at the moon and thinking of Apollo again.As the photo a few posts above yours shows the Earth was a small crescent when Apollo 17 was at the Moon. Thus the Moon as seen from the Earth at the same time would have been the exact opposite that is nearly full.
