13 Minutes To The Moon Download
Eleanore Bansmer
Two hours, 44 minutes and one-and-a-half revolutions after launch, the S-IVB stage reignited for a second burn of five minutes, 48 seconds, placing Apollo 11 into a translunar orbit. The command and service module, or CSM, Columbia separated from the stage, which included the spacecraft-lunar module adapter, or SLA, containing the lunar module, or LM, Eagle. After transposition and jettisoning of the SLA panels on the S-IVB stage, the CSM docked with the LM. The S-IVB stage separated and injected into heliocentric orbit four hours, 40 minutes into the flight.
On July 19, after Apollo 11 had flown behind the moon out of contact with Earth, came the first lunar orbit insertion maneuver. At about 75 hours, 50 minutes into the flight, a retrograde firing of the SPS for 357.5 seconds placed the spacecraft into an initial, elliptical-lunar orbit of 69 by 190 miles. Later, a second burn of the SPS for 17 seconds placed the docked vehicles into a lunar orbit of 62 by 70.5 miles, which was calculated to change the orbit of the CSM piloted by Collins. The change happened because of lunar-gravity perturbations to the nominal 69 miles required for subsequent LM rendezvous and docking after completion of the lunar landing. Before this second SPS firing, another TV transmission was made, this time from the surface of the moon.
The descent engine continued to provide braking thrust until about 102 hours, 45 minutes into the mission. Partially piloted manually by Armstrong, the Eagle landed in the Sea of Tranquility in Site 2 at 0 degrees, 41 minutes, 15 seconds north latitude and 23 degrees, 26 minutes east longitude. This was about four miles downrange from the predicted touchdown point and occurred almost one-and-a-half minutes earlier than scheduled. It included a powered descent that ran a mere nominal 40 seconds longer than preflight planning due to translation maneuvers to avoid a crater during the final phase of landing. Attached to the descent stage was a commemorative plaque signed by President Richard M. Nixon and the three astronauts.
The flight plan called for the first EVA to begin after a four-hour rest period, but it was advanced to begin as soon as possible. Nonetheless, it was almost four hours later that Armstrong emerged from the Eagle and deployed the TV camera for the transmission of the event to Earth. At about 109 hours, 42 minutes after launch, Armstrong stepped onto the moon. About 20 minutes later, Aldrin followed him. The camera was then positioned on a tripod about 30 feet from the LM. Half an hour later, President Nixon spoke by telephone link with the astronauts.
During the EVA, in which they both ranged up to 300 feet from the Eagle, Aldrin deployed the Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package, or EASEP, experiments, and Armstrong and Aldrin gathered and verbally reported on the lunar surface samples. After Aldrin had spent one hour, 33 minutes on the surface, he re-entered the LM, followed 41 minutes later by Armstrong. The entire EVA phase lasted more than two-and-a-half hours, ending at 111 hours, 39 minutes into the mission.
Trans-Earth injection of the CSM began July 21 as the SPS fired for two-and-a-half minutes when Columbia was behind the moon in its 59th hour of lunar orbit. Following this, the astronauts slept for about 10 hours. An 11.2 second firing of the SPS accomplished the only midcourse correction required on the return flight. The correction was made July 22 at about 150 hours, 30 minutes into the mission. Two more television transmissions were made during the trans-Earth coast.
Human space travel will usually take longer than robotic ones. On average, the nine crewed missions to the Moon, (including Apollo 8, Apollo 10, Apollo 13 and the six that landed on the surface) took just over 78 hours (3 days 6 hours) to enter lunar orbit. The quickest was Apollo 8 which took 2 days, 21 hours and 8 minutes, while Apollo 17 took the longest with a time of 3 days, 14 hours and 41 minutes (times include the time spent in Earth orbit).
I've been listening to a BBC Podcast called 13 Minutes to the Moon that's all about the moon landing, focusing on the 13 minutes it took to land from the orbiting shuttle to the moon. It's done really well and has lots of inspirational space vibes like Interstellar does. In the last episode I listened to they said Hans Zimmer did the music for the podcast so I figured I had to tell you guys about it too! The link to it is below, you should be able to listen anywhere you can get podcasts.
Looking ahead to lunar exploration of the future, ESA is developing through its Moonlight programme a lunar communications and navigation service," explains Wael-El Daly, system engineer for Moonlight. "This will allow missions to maintain links to and from Earth, and guide them on their way around the moon and on the surface, allowing them to focus on their core tasks. But also, Moonlight will need a shared common timescale in order to get missions linked up and to facilitate position fixes."
The Sun is 93 million miles away, so sunlight takes 8 and 1/3 minutes to get to us. Not much changes about the Sun in so short a time, but it still means that when you look at the Sun, you see it as it was 8 minutes ago. PhotoPhoto of the Sun in hydrogen-alpha light.
Little Pluto is so small and remote it was not discovered until 1930, orbits 40 times farther from the Sun than we do. Light from the Sun takes about 5 and 1/2 hours to reach it and roughly the same time to return to Earth. By the time the light reaches us, it has spread out so much that the planet looks very dim, and requires a good telescope to spot. PhotoPhoto of Pluto and its moon Charon, as seen with the Hubble Space Telescope in 1994.
A young CEO who started a 3D-printing business to create what he believes are faster, cheaper, more hurricane-resistant and environmentally-friendly homes, is also working with NASA to pioneer 3D printing on the moon.
By the end of the decade, a printer from Jason Ballard's company, Icon is scheduled to fly to the moon to test print part of a landing pad as part of a partnership with NASA. Closer to home, Icon hopes its 3D-printing technology can eventually help address a serious housing deficit in the U.S.
The printer follows a pre-programmed floor plan, with a nozzle that squeezes out the wet, concrete mixture layer by layer. Each layer is called a "bead" and takes about 30 minutes to lay down, Conner Jenkins, Icon's senior construction project manager, said. By the time one complete pass is done, the layer has hardened enough to support the next bead. Steel is added every 10th layer for strength, and cutouts are left for plumbing and electricity.
NASA has announced a series of Artemis missions with the goal of returning American astronauts to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years, this time to stay. Staying on the moon requires infrastructure, including landing pads, roads and housing, which can't easily be transported from the Earth. At Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, NASA scientists Jennifer Edmunson and Corky Clinton run a program called MMPACT, Moon to Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technologies.
Clinton and his team at NASA had long been interested in 3D printing as a potential technology for building on the moon, so when he heard about Icon's early 3D printing work, he traveled to Austin to inspect it. NASA gave Icon development money in 2020 and then, last fall, a $57 million contract.
Ballard and Evan Jensen, who's leading the project for Icon, are working to figure out the fundamental challenge: how to 3D print infrastructure on the moon without having to ship material there from Earth. It means using what's called lunar regolith, which covers the moon's surface, rather than concrete and water, as a building material.
Icon has a big tub full of simulated moon regolith in its Austin facility, and has invented and built a robotic system to 3D print with it. The company has created a new way to 3D print -- using lasers. Instead of a nozzle squirting out soft concrete, a high-intensity laser beam melts the powdery simulated regolith to transform it into a hard, strong, building material. They're running experiments now, using the laser to create a small sample.
Icon sends their test prints to NASA, where they're blasted with a plasma torch that reaches almost 4,000 degrees, to see if the materials can take the heat a landing pad would have to withstand. The next test will be operating the robotic arm and laser inside NASA's thermal vacuum chamber, which mimics the moon's extreme cold, heat and vacuum conditions.
When asked whether these predictions might fall under the category of 'too good to be true,' he says, "But cars and airplanes and the moon landing seemed too good to be true for a moment as well. And so, like, maybe the only proof I can give you is, like, I'm betting my life on it. Like, I have this one precious life to live, and I'm using it to do this."
But that's just what a 6-year-old Austin, Texas company called Icon is doing.. 3D printing buildings. And if you believe Icon's mission-driven young founder, 3D printing could revolutionize how we build, help create affordable housing, even allow us, to.. wait for it.. colonize the moon. Sound out of this world? Take a look..
Conner Jenkins, Icon's manager of construction here, explained that the printer completes one layer called a "bead" every 30 minutes, by which time it's hardened enough to be ready for the next bead. Steel is added every 10th layer for strength.
Last fall, NASA launched the first in a series of Artemis missions. The next, with crew on board, is scheduled for next fall. And by the end of the decade, an Icon printer is supposed to fly to the moon to test print part of a landing pad. Jason Ballard, who once applied to be an astronaut but was rejected, can't wait.
Jason Ballard: Or-- I do know that expression. But cars, and airplanes, and moon landings seemed too good to be true for a moment as well. And so, like maybe the only proof I can give you is, like, I'm betting my life on it. Like, I have this one precious life to live, and I'm using it to do this. And if I could think of a better way, I'd be doing that instead, or I'd go fishing. Like, this is so hard. (laughs)
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