The Don Eyles link above contains an interesting anecdote on communication/management in a consequential decisionmaking environment. We wrestle with similar trouble in the avalanche avoidance world; the wisdom of the group is more reliably accurate than the individual.
You can read and listen along manually to every lunar surface operation at http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/frame.html. This is dozens of hours of audio (unfortunately in 12ish-minute segments). The transcript is annotated with helpful things, too - interviews with the astronauts in question to gain more understanding of what was happening, technical explanations and photos to explain what a particular device is, etc. There are a scattered few video clips as well for the most visually interesting moments.
The companion Apollo Flight Journal covers the rest of the missions - but doesn't contain audio, and is missing 13, 14, and 17 (but has 7-10, which of course aren't in the surface journal). It's still full of interesting annotations though.
This is absolutely fantastic, but isn't it interesting that when submitted 159 days ago (in the interests of full disclosure - yes, by me) it got one comment and just 4 upvotes.
* HN is sub-optimal. Most things are. HN's still interesting and useful.
* I'd argue that this is a problem, but I'm not certain how to solve it. I submitted a story a few days ago (search xylose) that continued to pull upvotes even at positions 100-150, but missed the key early votes needed for viability.
or to make upvotes from deep in the pile count more/change the effective submission time slightly.
* Yes, it's worth fixing/addressing, but HN's pretty cool as it is. The merciless and democratic power of the exponential suppression of stories guarantees that, if a story makes it, it's immediately interesting to the group. It does not guarantee that all interesting stories will live.
It'd be interesting to know what other articles appeared on that day, it might be the case it was just bad timing or it got shadowed by a device release/big announcement.
Indeed, October 29 was an eventful day. Google announced the new Nexus lineup, Apple changed its management structure, and Microsoft introduced Windows Phone 8. Also: hurricane Sandy.
And I'd recommend "Apollo - The Race To The Moon" by Murray & Cox. Unlike most books about the US space program, this deals with everything except the astronauts. I've read it so many times my copy is falling apart...
Appreciate the reminder from you and others re: books by/about Kranz. Back in the 60s (I was 16 when Apollo 11 landed) I would not have cared for his no-compromise/no-bullshit approach. These days, that's exactly what I would appreciate about him, since it was necessary.
OK. That website made it feel like I live in The Future. I grew up in The Space Age (Project Mercury onward) and I still get chills whenever I see TV programs or movies about it. Now this site too.
As someone not old enough to have seen this take place live, I did appreciate this presentation so much. Now one can only wonder when will our generation bare witness to us landing on Mars?
I really, really hope I get to see this before I die. Space travel is something that has lost it's cultural significance (for some valid reasons, Columbia, Challenger etc) but to have something that the whole world can come together and be a part of would be incredible. Almost how the Eco movement started when images of the pale blue dot were circulated, would love to see something similar.
Finally! Conclusive proof that the moon landings were faked! It can be done on a computer!
edit: clearly sarcasm. I wonder, they've gone all the way till the Eagle has landed, why not go further and include Neil Armstrong's small step for man recording?
The 'Lunar Surface Journal' I link to earlier has audio starting at 102:15:02 for Apollo 11, (in fact, has the descent audio for several if not all of the missions). It continues through the EVA prep and the first excursion, etc.
You can't quite experience it in real time, as the occasional long comm break (10 minutes to several hours) are often not included in the mp3s. But you can get pretty durn close.
As mertd notes, though, it's several hours between touchdown and EVA.
The relevant pages would be 'The First Lunar Landing', 'Post-landing Activities', 'EVA Preparations' and of course 'One Small Step' from the bottom of http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11j.html. It can be difficult to navigate because of the sheer amount of extra pages that they have.
If it is fake we should be able to know it right ? i mean the team did leave some stuff on the moon , so why cant people just watch the moon with powerfull big telescope and look for clues ? if there are some gear on the moon then the landing was genuine.
Having stuff on the moon does not prove humans went there. We could have just sent autonomous rovers, a couple of robots that made foot impressions, etc.
For those who believe in a conspiracy, even if we had visible dead bodies on the moon would not convince you that we managed to fly live people there, let alone have them come back. After all, it would be way simpler to just send a dead astronaut up there?
tiny tiny tiny leftovers + distortion from atmosphere.
best bet is to fire a giant laser at the moon and hope you get a disproportionate number of photons back from the retro reflectors. That doesn't convince many of knuckledraggers though.
http://www.doneyles.com/LM/Tales.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer