With a crew of 3, someone can always be on duty with 3 8-hour shifts. Maybe that went into the thinking of early Apollo design, even before it was tasked with the moon mission? This would have been in the 1959-60 time frame, maybe they didn't trust the automation and telemetry of the time to allow all crew members to sleep at the same time. I believe it took several Gemini flights before both crew members were allowed to sleep at the same time. Also, there wasn't continuous communications with the spacecraft in low orbit missions until something like ASTP when it was able to relay through a higher communications satellite.
Hi everyone, my first post after lurking for a decade or so, hoping this is a good place to ask.. please be gentle!The later Apollo missions (according to multiple sources) upped the performance of the Saturn V somewhat (and did other stuff like use the SPS to lower lunar orbit , shaved excess metalwork etc) to increase the mass placed on the Moon.But I'm curious what was done to the F-1 to increase thrust - if I recall correctly the 5 F-1s went from ~7.5Mlbf to about 7.7 or 7.8 between Apollos 4 and 15 and later.Presumably (I don't know) those later engines existed quite some time before the later flights - and I'd be surprised if there were significant differences in turbo-pumps or whatever. I don't recall seeing any reference to even a small Isp improvement, so presumably this is mass-flow rate - so are you just letting the pumps work a little harder, shovelling propellant more quickly? And if so how do you do that? ThanksNic
Did the "milkstool" launches at 38B require sound suppression water in the flame trench? It looks like from several photos (ASTP) that there's no steam coming out the trench, which led me to wonder if the IB's engine exit plane height negated the need for water.
See if anyone has heard of this. Read somethings years ago that Apollo 11 did not depress before undocking the LM. The extra impulse helped cause the 'landing long' that put the LM into the boulder field.
Why was Apollo 17 higher g than 13?