I just keep thinking about atari's lunar lander... damn i loved that game.

>> ^flechette:
Why is this marked w/ Video games?
Nevermind! Just realized I didn't read the whole tag. Anything with John Carmack should instantly being videogames tagged.



Not to mention * geek

>> ^Fusionaut:
I heard that Armstrong casually carried on with his day after this like nothing happened at all.


But only after he called a worried Chuck Norris to tell him he was ok.

>> ^Fusionaut:
I heard that Armstrong casually carried on with his day after this like nothing happened at all.


After one biiiig "WHEW!"

>> ^Fusionaut:
I heard that Armstrong casually carried on with his day after this like nothing happened at all.


You're correct, they talk about it in "From the Earth to the Moon", as mentioned above. Buzz came into work and everyone was talking about it, and he ran to Neil's office, burst through the door, and there was Neil doing paperwork. Buzz asked him, and Neil just looked up and said "Yeah.", then went back to work.

Check my response... or just read this: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-026-DFRC.html

In reply to this comment by Raaagh:
Wow.

So I assume he was struggling to get the trainer oriented so he could eject safely?

And what on earth was that thing? Was it dropped from a high altitude? or was it tethered

NASA built LLRV (lunar lander research vehicle) and later the LLTV (lunar landar training vehicle). They were not tethered. They used a jet engine, oriented vertically on a gimbal to lift the vehicle so that it would behave as the actual lander would over the moon. (The moon's gravity is about 1/6 of Earth's.)

Neil Armstrong said that the moon landing would not have been possible without these test vehicles. More info here: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-026-DFRC.html

If you want to see one, I know they have one on display at NASA Dryden in Southern California. I think they only do tours ever other Friday, though.

Your video, Neil Armstrong Ejects From Lunar Lander Testflight, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Where's Fox news?

... saying how it's a complete waste of money by the Obama administration, and how it's irresponsibly bringing the cold war with Russia the the brink of killing us all?

How the lunar lander will push the moon out of orbit and it will be all the fault of liberal moon shifting democrats!

The video was shot from the lunar rover camera and transmitted from the lunar rover's antenna. With the time delay in sending commands to the Moon, everything had to be carefully planned in advance and the tracking had to be done blind. I have attached some quotes from a website below. (Sorry for the long post..)
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The only photograph of the lunar liftoff was taken from Earth and had expectedly poor resolution. "Gene tried to persuade me to stay outside and take a really good picture of liftoff, but I politely declined," Schmitt joked.

As the third outing drew to a close, Schmitt clambered up the ladder of the Apollo 17 lander. Alone on the moon's surface, Cernan steered their battery-powered automobile a mile from the spacecraft and parked the rover so a video camera could record their Dec. 14 liftoff. As he climbed from the vehicle, Cernan bent down and traced the initials of his 9-year-old daughter, Tracy, in the soil. Then he literally hopped and skipped in the moon's low gravity back to the lander.

For Apollo 16 and 17, however, flight controllers did track the ascent stage. With the punch button command arrangement and a 3 to 4 second time delay, their command sequence had to be totally preplanned. I had worked with Ed Fendell for the Apollo 17 liftoff to get it exactly right for a long tracking shot. At liftoff, the action was perfect, but soon the image of the ascending capsule drifted out at the top of the frame. Ed was furious that, after all the calculations, we missed the mark. It was discovered later that the crew had parked the Rover buggy closer to the Lunar Module than was prescribed by mission plan, and the vertical tilting of the camera was too slow.
Whenever I see a clip of that liftoff I note, as the stage nears the top of frame, a cut to a film shot of the stage ready to dock with the command module. And I still think, "Darn, we could have followed that final liftoff 'til it was but a dot of light winking out as it headed for the mother ship."

http://www.ehartwell.com/afj/Apollo_17_quotes

The scattering particles of foil from the lander make for a nice Star Trek-era special effect. It seems the R, G and B channels are sampled at different times and are not interleaved. I bet the lunar landing hoax crowd are having a good time with this one.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'chippendales, room, service, 80s' to 'chippendales, room, service, 80s, judy landers' - edited by therealblankman

If by Canada you mean the olympic venues.

I love driving through Banff so much. Even if its a bit of a white knuckle trip for us flat landers. (Albertans drive like crazy people through the mountains!)

Oh, and as it's long and incase some of you dont read to the end:
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Manned Suborbital Vehicle Development


http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=26813



I thought that making a public announcement with the governor of New Mexico at the Lunar Lander Challenge about a new venture between Rocket Racing Inc, Armadillo, and the state of New Mexico while we were flying an experimental flight was a bad idea – too many things could go embarrassingly wrong. However, it turned out perfect, with the governor watching as we made the winning flight.


All the terms aren’t final, but this is a big deal. We’re going to space, sooner rather than later. Some of you can come, too.

It is quite a bit bigger. It can run over spirit. And yes, you guessed it, MSL is too heavy for the airbag deployment method. The viking lander which was heavy too used retro rockets. MSL is avoiding retro rocket use because they do not want to contaminate the landing site with organics from the fuel.

Here is a hypothetical picture of MSL next to Spirit:
http://www.nasaimages.org/luna/servlet/detail/nasaNAS~4~4~19199~123813:Size-Comparison,-Mars-Science-Labor